> in fact, the foundational statistical models considered the gold standard for statistics today were developed for this testing.

The normal distribution predates the general factor model of IQ by hundreds of years.[0]

You can try other distributions yourself, it's going to be hard to find one that better fits the existing IQ data than the normal (bell curve) distribution.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution#History

Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, for whom the log-normal distribution is often called the Galton distribution, was among the first to investigate psychometrics.

not realizing he was hundreds of years late to the game, he still went ahead and coined the term "median"

more tidbits here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Galton#Statistical_inn...