The question in my mind: does it matter? and how does it matter?
In looking at the Flynn Effect, http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/news/is-our-co...,
this suggests in the US the average IQ was much lower during the single most inventive period and the fastest economic growth period in US History.
How is it that between races, supposedly those of Jewish descent have one of the highest overall IQs, contributed almost nothing during the time of ancient Greece. vice versa, how is it that the Greeks contributed so much to all intellectual realms 2500 years ago, but almost next to nothing today?
What might be the balance between genetic differences and environmental factors in determining private policy such as setting up educational systems etc. (governments answering these questions is alarming to contemplate)

"To say that the propensity to steal appears in 40% of the population is different from saying that Jane Smith is 40% likely to steal. The policy implications of these facts and assertions rage in the popular press where Herrnstein and Murray’s _The Bell Curve_ competes against Stephen J. Gould’s _Mismeasure of Man_.

"The thesis of the former work is that while previous centuries saw other kinds of hereditary aristocracies, in the 21st century, power will go to the intelligent – and intelligence is inherited [Herrnstein]. Countering this assertion, Gould shows that the differences within “groups” (i.e., “races” but also genders, etc.) is greater than the differences between groups. In neither side of that argument does the individual appear.

"This failing was typified by one reviewer thus: “Historically, every attempt to explain the causes of crime ran up against a number of problems. None explained why most of the people exposed to the alleged cause – whether a broken home or an all-day diet of television violence – do not commit crimes, and conversely why so many of those not so exposed do." [Kaplan, John, “Why People Go to the Bad,” review of _Crime and Human Nature_ by James Q. Wilson and Richard Bernstein, New York Times, September 8, 1985, Archives: The New York Times Online, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.ht...... 10/26/2006].

(From _Crime and Genes: to what extent is human behavior genetically determined?_ by Michael E. Marotta. CJT 225: Criminal Justice Seminar; Prof. Letitia Arantes, Prof. Chris FitzPatrick; Washtenaw Community College; Fall 2006.)

More problematically, _The Bell Curve_ does argue explicitly for a culture of individualism because that is the only remedy for the problem of IQ distribution within populations ("races" mostly). That is the fundamental problem with this book. It is all about statistical summaries of populations. See the first comment. None of these studies explains why the people NOT in the group are not. The core arguments pp 191-202 on welfare and intelligence beg all the questions. Why is everyone with a "low" IQ not on welfare? Why is any person of "average" intelligence? More to the point, the present trend for college graduates to be on welfare completely falsifies the thesis.

No one I know who has accomplished much in life has ever had a good report of a Mensa meeting. IQ is not everything.

I see the curve all over the place. Pretty much in any objectively measurable human activity there is a curve. So, lest start with things that are easy.. Sports and Video Games.. Both take skill, and thinking and are surprisingly easy to measure success or failure. I play some video games. I tend to stick to the harder stuff that most folks avoid like the plague. During my Il2 days I had a serious love for Winter War and Continuation War scenarios. During the actual war the Finns were low on ammo, planes, fuel and pilots.. So, they were very picky about who they would train up to be a pilot, and essentially found a way to identify potential aces. The result was the Soviets were pretty screwed in the air. This is because there are different kinds of pilots. Most ( the vast majority) are simply cannon fodder.. They are the guys who get shot down by the truly skilled pilots. Then there is the layer of guys who are just skilled enough to avoid getting killed most of the time and may get a couple of kills.. But they are still never going to actually amount to much. Then you have a much thinner layer of actual aces. These are the guys who don't just make ace, then get a bunch of kills, and make it look pretty easy. This is where the vast majority of well known aces are. Then you have the last bit, the super aces. These are the guys who take off, get kills, land then do it all over again. They are the 1% Heck, they are the less than 1%.. These are guys like the Red Barron, or Ilmari Juutilainen, or Saburō Sakai or Richard Bong,,, So, back in my Il2 days, I used to fly the Buffalo, I flew it because I liked the way it flew, it was pretty universally hated since you feel like your balancing on the head of a pin until you get trimmed out, at altitude and up to speed... Once you had all those done it changed from kind of a clumsy feeling ride into a surprisingly fast and nimble warhorse. For a while me and one other guy were locked in a serious struggle for the number one spot in the Buffalo. Thing was not only were we fighting for number one in that plane, we were also fighting our way to the number 1 spot on the overall server ranks. After a couple of months we had become easy to spot. Since we used to actually wing up together, we would be the only two flying in formation at 21K over the battlefield. When the guys with red stars on their wings saw us they got into the habit of running like hell. The side effect was that they left the ones who were not on comms, or paying attention behind.. We were ok with that, as those kills were easy.. The thing that I really noticed on those nights was that there might be 100 players on line at any time. But, it was 10 or less that were actually making any real difference on the outcome of the battle. Pick any competitive game you want and this holds true. Only an amazingly small percentage of the players are ever actually really good at it. I have been playing mechwarrior on line.. 12 players per side. when the match is over the winning side will have a couple of players who dealt out more damage than all of the rest of the players in the match combined. The vast majority of the time winning or losing comes down to the skills of one player. This leads to the question.. Is it really a team game if everyone on the winning side is expecting to ride on the coat tails of the one or two guys who are actually playing to win?
Same thing in sports.. The vast majority of NFL players are there to fill out the ranks of the team, and ride on the coat tails of the players who are actually really good at the game. This is not a world where merely being competent will make that big of a difference. So, now we move on to other things, like Math. While there are plenty of competent folks out there with PHD's in some version of Mathematics. Again, only a small percentage of them are actually the ones that will do something memorable. People really need to get comfortable with this idea.