Seven years ago, I took a bet from one of the most controversial figures in the scientific world. Charles Murray, the political scientist who—along with the late psychologist Richard Herrnstein—wrote The Bell Curve in 1994, wagered that one of his core ideas about genetics and intelligence would be proved true by 2025. He emailed me some time after I’d helped stoke an online furor about his insistent defense of The Bell Curve’s main points, which he’d recently reiterated on a popular podcast and which I, along with two other psychologists and intelligence researchers, had denounced in Vox. I took the bet because I was confident I would win.

In The Bell Curve, Murray and Herrnstein argue that intelligence, as measured by an IQ score, is a crucial determinant of success in modern society. T

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