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Charles Murray (born January 8, 1943) is an American political scientist and a longtime fellow of the [[American Enterprise Institute]] whose work on intelligence, class, and welfare made him the most prominent academic exponent of hereditarian claims about race and IQ in the United States. His 1994 book *The Bell Curve*, written with the Harvard psychologist [[Richard Herrnstein]], argued that intelligence is substantially heritable, that it predicts life outcomes better than socioeconomic background, and that measured IQ differences between racial groups have a partly genetic basis. The book was widely condemned as scientific racism, and it became a foundational text for the [[Human Biodiversity|human-biodiversity]] current that later circulated through the [[Rationalist Community]] and the tech-right.[^1][^2]
Charles Murray (born January 8, 1943) is an American political scientist and a longtime fellow of the [[American Enterprise Institute]] whose work on intelligence, class, and welfare made him the most prominent academic exponent of hereditarian claims about race and IQ in the United States. His 1994 book *[[The Bell Curve]]*, written with the Harvard psychologist [[Richard Herrnstein]], argued that intelligence is substantially heritable, that it predicts life outcomes better than socioeconomic background, and that measured IQ differences between racial groups have a partly genetic basis. The book was widely condemned as scientific racism, and it became a foundational text for the [[Human Biodiversity|human-biodiversity]] current that later circulated through the [[Rationalist Community]] and the tech-right.[^1][^2]
### Losing Ground and Welfare Reform
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*The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life* contended that a "cognitive elite" sorted by intelligence was stratifying American society and that policy should accommodate innate differences in ability. Its most contested chapters addressed average IQ differences between racial groups and suggested a genetic contribution. In the book's afterword Murray acknowledged citing thirteen scholars who had received money from the [[Pioneer Fund]], a foundation founded in 1937 by [[Wickliffe Draper]] to promote "race betterment" and classified as a hate group by the [[Southern Poverty Law Center]], which has bankrolled the race-and-intelligence research network around the journal [[Mankind Quarterly]]. Reviewers across psychology and the social sciences concluded that the authors had produced no valid evidence that group IQ gaps are genetic in origin. Herrnstein died of cancer in September 1994, shortly before publication.[^1][^2][^6]
The book's defenders mounted a public-relations campaign in its support. On December 13, 1994, the psychologist [[Linda Gottfredson]] published a statement titled "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" in *The Wall Street Journal*, signed by 52 researchers, asserting that the hereditarian view represented scientific consensus; the SPLC later reported that at least 20 of the signatories had received Pioneer Fund money, including Gottfredson and the future fund presidents [[J. Philippe Rushton]] and [[Richard Lynn]]. The American Psychological Association responded by convening a task force chaired by [[Ulric Neisser]], whose 1996 report "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" concluded that there was no direct evidence for a genetic explanation of the black-white test-score gap. The paleontologist [[Stephen Jay Gould]], reprising arguments from his 1981 book *The Mismeasure of Man*, attacked the book's reliance on a single general-intelligence factor in a widely read *New Yorker* review.[^9][^10]
The book's defenders mounted a public-relations campaign in its support. On December 13, 1994, the psychologist [[Linda Gottfredson]] published a statement titled "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" in *[[The Wall Street Journal]]*, signed by 52 researchers, asserting that the hereditarian view represented scientific consensus; the SPLC later reported that at least 20 of the signatories had received Pioneer Fund money, including Gottfredson and the future fund presidents [[J. Philippe Rushton]] and [[Richard Lynn]]. The American Psychological Association responded by convening a task force chaired by [[Ulric Neisser]], whose 1996 report "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" concluded that there was no direct evidence for a genetic explanation of the black-white test-score gap. The paleontologist [[Stephen Jay Gould]], reprising arguments from his 1981 book *The Mismeasure of Man*, attacked the book's reliance on a single general-intelligence factor in a widely read *New Yorker* review.[^9][^10]
### Reputation and Rehabilitation