The Story in Our Genes

Mention The Bell Curve in polite company these days, and it may not be polite for long. Critics have pummeled the best-selling book by Charles Murray and the late Richard Herrnstein, which blames genetics for the gap between the average I.Q. of whites and blacks. But most of the assailants haven't noticed that perhaps their best weapon lies almost unused right under their noses. At about the same time that Murray threw his Curve, Princeton University Press put out The History and Geography of Human Genes by population geneticists Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi and Alberto Piazza. Not only is the tome...