As I approach the end of the Bell Curve Wars the articles, citing some of the earlier ones, already accept as fact that the assumptions of the Bell Curve are incorrect (there appear to be only 2 pro-bell curve articles in the whole book). They then begin to provide alternate explanations for phenomena observed in society. The two articles I read for this blog post focus on the effect of environment on IQ. They suggest that short-term environmental changes, such as the Head Start program, have significant positive effects only for a short time and that their long-term effect is negligible. In contrast, long-term environmental changes such as children from a poorer background being adopted by wealthy parents have significant positive and enduring effectives on everything from IQ and income to life expectancy. One of the factors that does not influence long-term outcome is an African-American child being adopted by poor white parents, suggesting that SES is what really matters not race. Both articles question the implications of their findings for public policy. Short term government programs have, according to their studies, had minima long-term impact. This would give credence to arguments against government intervention to rectify inequities in society, however long-term interventions might work. The solution found to have the most equitable effect in studies is that children from low-income backgrounds are adopted by high-income parents, a process that evens out IQ. However, the large-scale implication of this program would require literally taking children away from their parents at birth, a somewhat horrific idea. A more nuanced approach would be see if having high-income, high IQ individuals in one’s community, not necessarily as parents, has a strong positive effect on income, IQ, life expectancy, etc. If it did than programs ensure income diversity (subsidized housing for example) would be useful. As would sending poor children to wealthier schools and bringing teachers from wealthier backgrounds to poorer schools. To me all these steps must be implemented on a larger scale than ever before. Short-term interventions have little effect but a concerted well-funded and nationwide effort to expose poorer children to the environments present in richer areas would enormously beneficial to society and is the only way to lessen and eventually eliminate the achievement gap in this country.