Bell Curve

typical distribution curve of any set of LargeNumbers

W Edwards Deming challenged the standard drawing of conclusions from a Bell Curve with a game of chance played by many players - the results would make a Bell Curve - did that mean that some were "better" at the game than others?

• this creates a Zero-Sum game

• thus, he was against grading in Educating Kids

• some related discussion of his management points

• Sept'2007: I was surprised to see Jim McCarthy support a "forced normal distribution" in evaluating employees.

title of book by Charles Murray about IQ: The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life is a 1994 book by psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray, in which the authors argue that human intelligence is substantially influenced by both inherited and environmental factors and is a better predictor of many personal dynamics, including financial income, job performance, birth out of wedlock, and involvement in crime than are an individual's parental socioeconomic status. They also argue that those with high intelligence, the "cognitive elite", are becoming separated from those of average and below-average intelligence. The book was controversial, especially where the authors wrote about racial differences in intelligence and discussed the implications of those differences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve