It is Politically Incorrect to believe that IQ is "real", measurable, and different among races. The science of intelligence is real enough, but to hold certain beliefs is to put careers and public acceptance in jeopardy. Considerable research into intelligence and how it is measured has been done over the past three decades, yet much of it must be protected against the liberal Political Police ready to pounce upon any attempt at truth and accuracy. From time to time, however, some of the researchers in this area step out from behind the defensive walls to announce fundamental principles whenever the silliness gets a little too deep.

Such a statement came in 1994* when 52 leading scholars of intelligence and allied fields stepped forward to endorse 25 basic conclusions derived from research into intelligence. The statement was produced because, as a result of attacks on the publication of "The Bell Curve", the silliness from the Politically Correct had reached absurd levels. Some of the basic conclusions from the 1994 study are as follows:

1. There is a general factor of intelligence, called g, which undergirds special skills such as spatial and verbal.

2. This g may be a single mental process or a composite of several different ones but it is nevertheless content independent.

3. The essence of g is the ability to deal with complexity, within which, abstract thinking is one example.

4. Differences in intelligence between individuals are real.

5. The differences can be measured accurately.

6. The differences correlate with success, educational level, and achievement.

7. Disparities between races are real.

8. Disparities between social groups are real.

9. These disparities can be measured without bias.

10. Measured intelligence is a combination of genetic and environmental background factors.

11. The genetic to environmental ratio seems to be at least 60/40 and may well be 80/20.

12. Efforts to raise IQ by manipulation of the environment have so far resulted only in temporary gains.

13. Efforts to raise the group IQ of racial groups by manipulation of the environment have so far resulted only in temporary gains.

14. There is as yet no way to enhance IQ by manipulating the genetic component.

15. Individual differences in intelligence will correlate with individual differences in social outcome.

16. Deliberate efforts to prove that IQ tests are culturally biased have instead proved the opposite.

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The genetic/environmental (nature/nurture) contributions do not behave independently. The genetic contribution can influence the environmental through choices: "I prefer to be alone. I prefer to spend time in libraries. I prefer to avoid big cities." Thus the genetic code may influence the environmental niche and the niche may influence the IQ level which results.

Some of the best of research conclusions have come from people who began with a utopian/egalitarian bias to prove Arthur Jensen was wrong in his declaration that intelligence displayed individual and group (racial) variation. Nathan Brody's book "Intelligence" (1992), is of that sort, revealing that Jensen was correct.

The latest assault against this data is to declare that there is no entity such as "intelligence" but rather "multiple abilities." This leads to absurd comparisons such as the statement that one ability is astrophysics and another ability is basketball, and both (somehow) reflect this thing we call "intelligence". By this definition, talent (or IQ) is uniformly distributed and anyone who appears to be untalented (or stupid) has simply not had his particular unique ability "revealed." (For instance, the ability to steal hubcaps from a moving car.)

We cannot doubt that there are many and varied "talents", but it takes a head-in-the-sand mentality to conclude that they are all of equal social and economic importance.

The success of our nation was predicated on the belief that individuals allowed to be free and to seek their own level would do so, with merit being the arbiter of economic success. The idea was that no one would be "held back" by phony barriers or aristocratic pretensions. There was, at the founding, no expectation that social and economic success would be evenly distributed, but that it would be - if based on merit - free and without artificial constraint. The emphasis was on equal Opportunity.

Now look at us. Constraints are everywhere, but now they operate Against merit, declaring that individuals will succeed socially and economically based on how they subscribe to certain political positions. In such a system, there will be idiots in positions of authority everywhere, which is exactly what we see in modern America today. The emphasis is on equal Outcome.

Unfortunately, the Politically Correct Ideal/Myth is all a surface thing, for there are always elites and never, anywhere, true equality. There may well be idiots scattered everywhere, but none of them are at the top (One known exception: Al Gore, the man with the room temperature IQ). There is always an elite. In the next century, cognition will determine prominence, since there is more to know, informationally, then ever before in history, and only a certain few are positioned to obtain the most valuable information. This new century we have begun will put more emphasis on brains than even that recently departed. America wants desperately to avoid an aristocracy, but the cognitive elite will be the new aristocracy.

Here then is the coming explosion. The nation desires to be egalitarian at the same time that most of its public effort will (without intention) enhance the divide between the undereducated poor and the cognitive elite. The public school debacle, for instance, is central to this since the major thrust of public education in the past several years has been to reward effort over attainment, feelings over facts, intentions over accomplishment. As the Dodo Bird declares in "Alice in Wonderland" at the end of the (circular) Caucus race: "All have won, and All must have prizes!" Making rules to have all children finish the race at the same time requires that the faster be held back, and the only Equality that will be obtained under such constraints is to make all people equally ignorant, or equally miserable.

For some political parties, that is a goal much to be desired, and if the political party which desires wider ignorance is also making the rules, you have a formula, eventually, for revolution.

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