SOURCE: "Paroxysms of Denial," in National Review, New York, Vol. XLVI, No. 23, December 5, 1994, pp. 48-50.

[Jensen is a psychologist, educator, essayist, and author of Bias in Mental Testing (1979). In the following essay, he argues that The Bell Curve represents thorough research and draws accurate conclusions about inherited intelligence.]

Commenting not as an advocate but as an expert witness, I can say that The Bell Curve is correct in all its essential facts. The graphically presented analyses of fresh data (from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth) are consistent with the preponderance of past studies. Nowadays the factual basis of The Bell Curve is scarcely debated by the experts, who regard it as mainstream knowledge.

The most well-established facts: Individual differences in general cognitive ability are reliably measured by IQ tests. IQ is strongly related, probably more than any other single measurable trait, to many important educational, occupational, economic...