High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Bell Curve is a best-selling and controversial 1994 book by the Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein (deceased before the book was released) and political scientist Charles Murray. Its central argument is that intelligence is substantially influenced by both inherited and environmental factors and is a better predictor of many personal dynamics, including financial income, job performance, chance of unwanted pregnancy, and involvement in crime than are an individual`s parental socioeconomic status, or education level. The book also argues that those with high intelligence, the "cognitive elite", are becoming separated from those of average and below-average intelligence, and that this is a dangerous social trend with the United States moving toward a more divided society similar to that in Latin America.