By Lewis Loflin
Dr. Murray notes a study of IQ differences between siblings and their outcomes in life. This eliminated the excuse of environmental factors, racism, or class privilege. The "IQ gap" could not be overcome, and outcomes differed—at least measured by income. The "dulls" also suffered more self-inflicted social ills.
"IQ" is not a social construct but is biological. But we need to understand what IQ really means. We must also understand IQ is not everything—far from it. Ability varies and it varies a lot. This cannot be socially engineered that much either way. The term intelligence is preferable to IQ, and there are seven "intelligence" factors. See Intelligence Predicts Economic Social Outcome.
Howard Gardner's seven intelligences are bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, spatial, logical-mathematical, and linguistic. We all have the seven but to varying degrees. Bodily-kinesthetic and musical pertain to musicians and athletes. Professional football is not high school football. A professional football player may be illiterate. He earns millions more than a college professor.
A difference in ability leading to a differing outcome is acceptable. Nobody will dispute this. No amount of social engineering will make the masses into star athletes or rock stars. Professional athletes and musicians are not protected from negative social outcomes. Drugs, divorce, etc., plague these industries.
This is where interpersonal and intrapersonal come into play. These are the two most important. Interpersonal intelligence involves interactions with other people. One is very good at sensing others' emotions, motivations, and often displays empathy and an ability to nurture. Women are best at this and pursue professions such as nursing and social work. Women are far less likely to commit violent crime and are the last to want to go to war. Their "IQ" clusters near the middle.
Intrapersonal intelligence involves knowing oneself. One has a realistic grasp on emotions and limitations. They exert self-discipline and put aside instant gratification and impulsive behavior. They exert self-control in stressful situations. Lack of intrapersonal intelligence can lead to self-destructive behaviors. This includes poor judgment and even criminality. This varies more in men than women. Some men have higher variation in IQs than women, while men are more likely to be in prison. IQ tests of criminals show averages below the norm.
We accept that women are less likely to be murderers than men. Prison numbers prove that. But men make up most of the Nobel Prize winners in science. Then we get conspiracy theories of sexism. Jews are disproportionate winners of Nobel prizes. We get anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Every modern scientific advance has come from Western Culture, Europe, and America. Those that emulate Western Culture in East Asia do just as well. Yet virtually zero innovation comes from Latin America, the Islamic world, Africa, or most of Asia. Yet we get conspiracy theories of racism, colonialism, and so on. East Asians have a slightly higher "IQ" than Whites, while Whites are more creative. That difference could be due to culture.
Mexico and Latin America were at the same level as South Korea in the 1950s. Today, Latin America is mostly violent, dysfunctional, and poor. Korea is affluent and successful. Efforts in America to bridge the achievement-IQ gap have failed totally. Asian Americans are kept out of universities by race quotas designed to admit lower-achieving Hispanics. There’s a difference in ability, but it’s not addressed.
What we call "smart" people revolves around spatial, logical-mathematical, and linguistic intelligences. From these come scientific and technical fields, as well as white-collar occupations like law and journalism. But "smart" people can be just as self-destructive and even genocidal. Stalin, Pol Pot, Lenin, Mao, etc., were very intelligent but lacked humanity—interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence.
Just because one is "smart" has nothing to do with morality. Some on both sides of the political spectrum display criminal indifference toward others. Some are genocidal, believing certain people have no right to even live. No better example is the fanatical abortion "rights," which is simply murder. They are human beings whose existence is less important than population control. It’s not about women’s rights.
Far too many bureaucrats and technocrats lack empathy toward those they rule over if given power. They become elitist and intolerant toward any disagreement. A high IQ doesn’t prevent one from building gulags and death camps. Many Nazis and communists were college graduates.
IQ and how we sort out as individuals with the seven intelligences can’t be changed. It makes us who we are. Yet many can live good lives if they exert self-control and know their limitations. Government-enforced "equality" or conformity has killed millions. Thomas Sowell notes:
The social dogma that is still being endlessly repeated is that disparities in incomes, occupations, and other kinds of success are all due to "stereotypes" that lead to discrimination against minorities. Yet some minorities are doing better than the majority that has been doing the discriminating... None of this would be possible if discrimination were the be-all and end-all explanation of intergroup differences in incomes, occupations, or other measures of success...
See Do 'minorities' really have it that bad? by Thomas Sowell.
Original title IQ Will Put You In Your Place by Charles Murray, *Sunday Times, UK*, May 25, 1997. A longer version appears in the summer issue of *The Public Interest*.
Imagine several hundred families facing few of the usual problems that plague modern society. Unemployment is zero. Illegitimacy is zero. Divorce is rare and occurs only after the children’s most formative years. Poverty is absent—indeed, none of the families is anywhere near the poverty level. Many are affluent, and all have enough income to live in decent neighborhoods with good schools and a low crime rate.
If one comes from such a background, a bright future for the children is expected. They have all the advantages society offers. But how will these children fare in adulthood? In *The Bell Curve*, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray argued that much depends on IQ. On average, bright children from such families will do well in life—and dull children will do poorly. Unemployment, poverty, and illegitimacy will be almost as great among these children as in society at large—not quite as great, because a positive family background has some effect, but almost, because IQ is such an important factor.
Critics called this “nonsense,” arguing that privilege opens doors, including to high IQ scores, while poverty holds back. They insisted nurture trumps nature; environment matters more than upbringing. An arcane debate about statistical methods ensued. Then American academics tested this by comparing sibling pairs with different IQs, raised by the same parents in the same household and neighborhood.
A large U.S. database tracked thousands of sibling pairs since 1979. The sample was limited to siblings from families in the top 75% of earners, with a 1978 income averaging $40,000 (in today’s money). Families in poverty were excluded. Parents stayed together for at least the first seven years of the younger sibling’s life. Each pair included one sibling with an IQ of 90-110 (normals, 50% of the population), and another with an IQ above 110 (bright, top quartile) or below 90 (dull, bottom quartile), producing 710 pairs.
How much difference did IQ make? In 1993, when the siblings were aged 28-36, bright siblings earned almost double the dull: $22,400 vs. $11,800. Normals averaged $16,800. Bright siblings were six-and-a-half times more likely to earn $50,000 or more, a marker of economic success. Dull siblings were five times more likely to fall below the poverty line. Despite abundant opportunity, 16.3% of dull siblings were below the U.S. poverty line in 1993, slightly above the national rate of 15.1%.
Opportunity isn’t everything. In modern America, it’s better to be born smart and poor than rich and dull. Education reflects this: 56% of bright siblings earned university degrees, compared to 21% of normals and 2% of dulls, despite supportive families. Bright siblings without degrees took lucrative non-degree jobs (e.g., technicians, craftsmen, small business owners), while dull siblings were stuck in menial roles.
Differences went beyond income. Marriage rates were similar across groups, but dull siblings had higher divorce rates, even accounting for marriage length. Dull women had their first child nearly four years earlier and averaged 1.9 children, half a child more than normals or brights. Illegitimacy rates were stark: 45% of first-born children of dull siblings were born out of wedlock, compared to 21% for normals and under 10% for brights, despite advantaged backgrounds.
These inequalities, from 1993, likely widened as bright siblings climbed into wealth while dull siblings’ incomes stagnated. These gaps mirror those often blamed on race, poverty, or single-parent homes, yet they occurred in advantaged families. Sibling IQ differences drive disparities in income, education, and social outcomes, surviving scrutiny of race, age, or education.
IQ differences, combined with traits like industry, persistence, and charm, produce a society of high inequalities, even on a level playing field. The more level the field, the more personal qualities dominate. Inequality is often blamed on societal defects fixable by better economies, social programs, or schools. This is misguided. Without massive wealth redistribution and control of personal enterprise—some call it justice, others tyranny—humans in a fair society will remain unequal. Pretending otherwise ignores reality.
Acknowledgment: This article was drafted with assistance from Grok, an AI by xAI. The final edits and perspective are the author’s own. Data from Sowell (2004), Murray (1997), Herrnstein & Murray (1994).
