📔 The Bell Curve

That the word intelligence describes something real and that it varies from person to person is as universal and ancient as any understanding about the state of being human.

Sterilization laws were passed in sixteen American states between 1907 and 1917, with the elimination of mental retardation being one of the prime targets of the public policy. “Three generations of imbeciles are enough,” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes declared in an opinion upholding the constitutionality of such a law.

The first story is that Jews and other immigrant groups were thought to be below average in intelligence, even feebleminded, which goes to show how untrustworthy such tests (and the testers) are.