Nowhere in the article does Murray closely define "average".

Yeah, he plays pretty fast and loose with his terminology. The rhetoric reads more like an impassioned plea than a carefully diagrammed argument.

He writes:

While concepts such as "emotional intelligence" and "multiple intelligences" have their uses, a century of psychometric evidence has been augmented over the last decade by a growing body of neuroscientific evidence. Like it or not, g exists, is grounded in the architecture and neural functioning of the brain, and is the raw material for academic performance.

Now, I admit I'm a little behind on my reading, so I don't have a firm grounding in this sort of theory. But he doesn't even bother to cite a shred of the neuroscientific evidence he claims has piled up over the past century.

I will say this: I do think that our culture makes a strong correspondence between education and social class. And I do think it's dangerous to value certain types of education over others-- a master craftsman, for example, is a damn fine craftsman, and his or her skills should not be disparaged by the person with the MBA. So in that, I can agree with the author. Until he starts talking about Aztecs and Greeks. Then I have to punch him in the junk.