# Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 23, 2017, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052 "2017-04-23T09:21:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 111
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2201 "2018-12-17T21:48:51Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > “Black people really just stupid?” > > Phrasing like that always seems to be a deliberate misunderstanding of statistics. So says the one that thought that ponderings from David Reich were the beesnees to shut up the ones that were against Charles Murray and their ilk, when it was just a bit of concern trolling from David Reich and in the end he unequivocally called guys like Murray racists. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2202 "2018-12-17T21:58:29Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > So says the one that thought that ponderings from David Reich were the beesnees to shut up the ones that were against Charles Murray and their ilk, when it was just a bit of concern trolling from David Reich and in the end he unequivocally called guys like Murray racists. What? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2203 "2018-12-17T22:10:42Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > What? Apparently [this](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21180937&postcount=767). AFAICT, referring to [this](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20900800&postcount=1109). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2204 "2018-12-17T23:14:04Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > “Black people really just stupid?” > > Phrasing like that always seems to be a deliberate misunderstanding of statistics. I suppose it depends on what degree of precision you require for your statistical assertions. Personally, I don’t think _“Are black people really just stupid?”_ is particularly inaccurate or misleading as a short paraphrase of _“Are black people’s lower average scores on standardized IQ tests compared to members of other broadly-defined racial groups attributable in a statistically significant way to inherited average differences between those racial groups in genetic factors affecting cognitive function?”_ The latter phrasing is much more specific and precise but the basic idea conveyed is essentially the same. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2205 "2018-12-18T00:11:15Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > The distinction between “heterodox” and “wrong, and also dangerous and the basis of an inherently violent ideology that leads to genocide” is not really a fuzzy one, for the most part. Just don’t be a Nazi and you’re generally good. I get the strong sense you have a very broad notion of who qualifies as “Nazi” and a very limited spectrum of “people who disagree with me about stuff, but aren’t so wrong they should be de-platformed”. I mean, didn’t you basically call Charles Murray a Nazi, or did I misunderstand you? In any case, I’m still with Mill, no matter how “wrong” someone’s ideas are: “Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions.” > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Does Mill mean what he says very generally? Because if so, that is simply not applicable to _any_ society. There are and always will be things that cannot be said in polite company - _that’s why it’s polite company_. Sometimes because they’re “heterodox”; sometimes because they’re offensive and wrong. > [@](#): > > [T]he peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. And: > [@](#): > > Strange that they should imagine that they are not assuming infallibility, when they acknowledge that there should be free discussion on all subjects which can possibly be doubtful, but think that some particular principle or doctrine should be forbidden to be questioned because it is so certain, that is, because they are certain that it is certain. To call any proposition certain, while there is any one who would deny its certainty if permitted, but who is not permitted, is to assume that we ourselves, and those who agree with us, are the judges of certainty, and judges without hearing the other side. > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > And if you allow bad ideas to get a lot of attention… They start winning. I—and Mill—think you’ve got it exactly backward: > [@](#): > > We often hear the teachers of all creeds lamenting the difficulty of keeping up in the minds of believers a lively apprehension of the truth which they nominally recognise, so that it may penetrate the feelings, and acquire a real mastery over the conduct. No such difficulty is complained of while the creed is still fighting for its existence: even the weaker combatants then know and feel what they are fighting for, and the difference between it and other doctrines…But when it has come to be an hereditary creed, and to be received passively, not actively—when the mind is no longer compelled, in the same degree as at first, to exercise its vital powers on the questions which its belief presents to it, there is a progressive tendency to forget all of the belief except the formularies, or to give it a dull and torpid assent, as if accepting it on trust dispensed with the necessity of realizing it in consciousness, or testing it by personal experience; until it almost ceases to connect itself at all with the inner life of the human being. > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > People are likely to cry foul quite loudly when you make a good point? Okay, maybe. You know when else they’re likely to cry foul? When you make a _deeply dishonest_ argument. As noted upthread, Mill quite rightly points out that when dishonest arguments are used “for good”, they are vigorously applauded. We have seen plenty of evidence for that in this thread. Self-righteous do-gooders always seem to consider that the ends justify the means when it comes to rhetorical contests of ideas. > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Okay, so I gotta ask - what arguments are so _censored_ that the intellectual dark web feels the need to fight back against them? No, seriously, think about it for a minute. What, _exactly_, are they fighting for? > > The answer, in almost every case, is either “the status quo” or “a regression to what the status quo was 40+ years ago”. The ability to ask tough questions, like “Do women really have a place in the workplace?” or “Has civil rights _gone too far_?” or, in Charles Murray’s case, “Are black people really just stupid?” :mad: There’s no interesting new ideas here. There’s no hugely heterodox approach. Not a damn one of them qualifies as “progressive”, let alone “leftist”. It’s all reactionary. Nonsense. Bret Weinstein, for instance, has consistently called himself a “committed progressive”, and I see no reason to doubt him. You probably would have approved of his first brush with campus controversy, in 1987: [https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Professor-Who-Roiled/240267](https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Professor-Who-Roiled/240267) And Sam Harris not only excoriates Trump in the strongest of terms, he lost a bunch of subscribers a few years back because they were shocked to learn that he considers income inequality a huge problem, and strongly endorsed “soak the rich” taxation as a remedy. He supports gay marriage, equal pay for women, etc. Your attempt to brand everyone in the IDW as “reactionary” is ludicrous on its face. Weinstein and his wife got drummed out of Evergreen College because they objected to white people being told to stay home on a given day. Sam Harris gets demonized because he correctly observes that conservative Islam is repressive to women, gays, and atheists. Those are the important ideas they are punished for expressing, and they are hardly reactionary. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2206 "2018-12-18T01:30:16Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Weinstein and his wife got drummed out of Evergreen College because they objected to white people being told to stay home on a given day. The problem here is totally ignoring how the sources of information you rely on are twisting information to fit their narrative, and sadly guys like Harris fell for it. [https://psmag.com/education/the-real-free-speech-story-at-evergreen-college](https://psmag.com/education/the-real-free-speech-story-at-evergreen-college) > [@](#): > > The original controversy at Evergreen involved the school’s Day of Absence, an official event that has been held for decades. As part of the tradition, faculty and students of color would leave campus to illustrate their importance to the school and community. The next day, they return on a Day of Presence, when there are speakers and programming for the entire school. > > Last year, following the election of Donald Trump, Evergreen tweaked the event. Immigrants and undocumented people on campus were frightened by Trump’s promises to step up deportations, so the school, following faculty and student input, decided to use the Day of Absence to re-affirm that “students belonged on campus and that there wasn’t going to be any harassment or targeting of them on campus,” says Jacqueline Littleton, an activist and a senior at Evergreen. To make that point, administrators switched the usual practice: Instead of people of color leaving campus, white people were asked to do so. > > This is where Weinstein came in. After the change in policy was announced, he sent an email in March of 2017, in which he said that the change in the day’s structure was dangerous and immoral. “There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and under-appreciated roles … and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away. The first is a forceful call to consciousness, which is, of course, crippling to the logic of oppression. The second is a show of force, and an act of oppression in itself.” The email was leaked in mid-April. > > Many students were irritated and angered by Weinstein’s email. But it did not trigger protests, nor calls for Weinstein to be fired. In fact, the protests on campus supposedly responding to the email did not take place until May of 2017, and were focused on an entirely different incident, Littleton says. That month, police took two black students out of their dorms just before midnight, following an altercation in the cafeteria the day before, according to Littleton. (The non-black student involved in the altercation was not detained.) In response, activists organized protests, which included demonstrations and marches through classroom buildings in order to raise awareness.\* > > During this march, Weinstein decided to come out of his classroom and confront the protesters. The protesters were well aware of Weinstein’s email, and the conversation grew contentious. Students were especially angered when police arrived; they initially believed that Weinstein had called them himself. Since the students were protesting police bias, this was seen as an especially inflammatory move. > > The student protesters’ lists of demands after the cafeteria incident included zero tolerance for hate crimes, free health care for students, and a freeze on expansion of police facilities. Though the list initially included a request that Weinstein be fired, the student protesters removed it after a day, because, according to Littleton, “we were really trying to get away from the narrative that it was all about him or even mostly about him.” > > Yet Weinstein continued to insist that the protesters were mainly concerned with his email. Though Weinstein calls himself a progressive, he went on the rabidly right-wing, anti-immigrant Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News shortly after the protests. Carlson claimed that white people had been forced off campus, which was not true. He then played a clip of the protest, framing it to suggest, falsely, that the protest had been a response to Weinstein’s email alone. Weinstein co-signed that version of events, and did not correct Carlson when he said that the core demand of the protesters was that white people leave campus—which, again, was completely false. Participation in the Day of Absence was voluntary, and student demands did not include any discussion of forcing students off campus. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Sam Harris gets demonized because he correctly observes that conservative Islam is repressive to women, gays, and atheists. Those are the important ideas they are punished for expressing, and they are hardly reactionary. As I said to other poster in another thread that also ranted about that, you are not really that smart do you? Many liberal or human right groups are active critics of how Muslim nations do treat women, gays, and atheists: > **[Opinion | Who Really Put Saudi Women Behind the Wheel? (Published 2018)](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/opinion/saudi-arabia-women-driving-feminism.html)** > > Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is taking bows for lifting the ban on women driving — after helping to jail the brave women who protested the ban. > **[Arrests of Saudi feminists 'taint Mohammed bin Salman's reputation as a...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-arrests-feminists-women-mohammed-bin-salman-driving-ban-guardianship-a8362386.html)** > > ‘Saudi Arabian authorities cannot continue to publicly state they are dedicated to reform while treating women’s rights campaigners in this cruel way,’ says one campaigner [https://www.hrw.org/lgbt-international-resources](https://www.hrw.org/lgbt-international-resources) > **[The 'Underground Railroad' To Save Atheists](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/the-underground-railroad-to-save-atheists/550229/)** > > A vision to protect those persecuted for non-religion  The problem I see is that many times defending people that are indeed leaving the Muslim world because they are being persecuted is mixed with the idea that just because many liberals do defend the immigration of those Muslims that are being persecuted for that or other reasons is “the same” as defending the extremist Muslims. Simple logic should tell anyone how dumb is that, but no matter, Harris and many others will use that failed logic as a way to criticize people that do know how asinine is to be so absolutist about preventing immigration from Muslim nations. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2207 "2018-12-18T01:35:56Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Weinstein and his wife got drummed out of Evergreen College because they objected to white people being told to stay home on a given day. :rolleyes: Whoo, what a densely packed pellet of distortion and misinformation. What actually happened is that the college’s annual “Day of Absence” demonstration/discussion, in which it’s suggested that people of color gather off-campus to raise awareness about their contributions, one year took the form of suggesting that white people consider meeting off-campus instead. Weinstein, whose egalitarian conscience never seems to have given him any trouble about the previous “Day of Absence” observances, made a fuss in an open letter complaining that the proposed new event format was “a show of force, and an act of oppression” and that he would encourage other white people at Evergreen to join him in disregarding it. This rather snowflakey response met with criticism, but the subsequent protests that lazy media stories have linked to it were actually [sparked by anger at a police action on campus](https://psmag.com/education/the-real-free-speech-story-at-evergreen-college) (and not diminished by the trauma and anger of dealing with the following incident in nearby Portland where a white-supremacist bigot murdered two men who were interfering with his yelling threats at two Muslim women). Weinstein’s and his wife’s then **suing the college** following the campus ruckus, and leaping at the publicity opportunities offered them by the so-called “dark web” types, puts a very different spin on your claims about their being “drummed out of Evergreen College”. They didn’t in any way get “drummed out”: they resigned as part of the half-million-dollar settlement of their lawsuit. And now they’re celebrities of the “freeze peach” anti-left who get paid for writing and speaking about the alleged assault on civil liberties by the “PC left”. Sure beats grading students’ lab reports, I guess! No, the Weinsteins and Heyer overall look very much more like opportunists than victims. They were adjacent to some campus turmoil and anger about Trump-era emboldening of racism, and they very astutely and promptly parlayed that into prominent positions on the libertarian pundit circuit. Their “persecution” is a carefully fostered illusion in the minds of their newfound fans. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Sam Harris gets demonized because he correctly observes that conservative Islam is repressive to women, gays, and atheists. Um, Sam Harris mostly gets criticized—not so much demonized—for being a thinskinned, egotistical, undiscriminating purveyor of various kinds of prejudiced twaddle who throws tantrums when other people point out his muddled thinking. [E.g.](https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2018/03/29/for-someone-who-doesnt-like-to-be-called-a-racist-sam-harris-sure-writes-a-lot-of-racist-stuff/): > [@](#): > > […A]mong the worst and clumsiest promoters of racial IQ science is Sam Harris, whose career has been all about defining boundaries between people, and making evasive suggestions about what ought to be done with the Other. When Harris brought on Murray for an interview, this is how he introduced him: > > > [@](#): > > > > People don’t want to hear that a person’s intelligence is in large measure due to his or her genes and there seems to be very little we can do environmentally to increase a person’s intelligence even in childhood. It’s not that the environment doesn’t matter, but genes appear to be 50 to 80 percent of the story. People don’t want to hear this. And they certainly don’t want to hear that average IQ differs across races and ethnic groups. > > > > Now, for better or worse, these are all facts. In fact, there is almost nothing in psychological science for which there is more evidence than these claims. About IQ, about the validity of testing for it, about its importance in the real world, about its heritability, and about its differential expression in different populations. > > […] Also, contrary to Harris’s claim that this assertions are facts unopposed by psychological science, Vox found 3 psychologists specializing in intelligence who, um, opposed his views. > > This infuriated Sam Harris. > > He went on a tweet rampage — apparently, showing that he is wrong, and that his opinions are not universally shared, is “defamatory”. He is very upset that once again someone has publicly pointed out that his statements sure sound awfully racist, and that what was published against him is “nothing less the total destruction of a person’s reputation for the crime of honestly discussing scientific data”. He made a suggestion that Ezra Klein, editor of Vox, should engage with him in his podcast […] > > Harris challenges Klein to do a podcast, he accepts, and then there’s this long weird gripe about how he was defamed, yet he doesn’t want to discuss this subject with qualified psychologists (which Klein suggests), but only with Klein — and then he doesn’t want to discuss the claims about race and science he obligingly approved of in his discussion with Murray, because, he says, it would be “boring” to his listeners. > > This “boring” dismissal seems to be routine with Harris when he senses the argument isn’t going his way. He did the same thing with Omer Aziz, recording a 4 hour session and then deciding not to air it, because it was “boring”. > > He also likes to pull this stunt when he meets someone who dismisses him of posting the email exchanges between them with this strange notion that somehow they redeem him […] > > Ezra Klein has responded by pointing out how Harris pandered to Murray, and rejecting the claim that psychological scientists even have the ability to assess an intrinsic component to IQ. > > > [@](#): > > > > […] Block’s point, and this is important, is not that IQ isn’t heritable, or even that it’s impossible to imagine it differing among groups. It’s that it’s impossible to look at the cruel and insane experiment America has run on its black residents and say anything useful about genetic differences in intelligence. > > He makes a measured response. It’s a solid article that politely rips Harris’s views strongly. It should win over rational people, which doesn’t include the blinkered goons who love Sam Harris no matter what he says. ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2208 "2018-12-18T01:57:24Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Married, four kids, nice apartment, nice car, 70” 4K TV, only have to work a few hours a week. I’m winning the game of life! 😛 In the history of forever, nobody claiming this as evidence of ‘winning at life’ have, in fact, been winning in life. Also, if having a car and TV and time to post on SDMB is all you have as evidence of ‘winning at life’ I feel genuine pity for you. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2209 "2018-12-18T02:10:30Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > Also, if having a car and TV and time to post on SDMB is all you have as evidence of ‘winning at life’ I feel genuine pity for you. Well to be fair, the “married, four kids” part did come first. Not that I’m arguing that either marriage or parenthood automatically implies, or is necessary for, “winning at life” status. But a lot of people not unreasonably see them as pretty important sources of happiness. (Do we even really care who’s “winning at life” in the context of messageboard contention, anyway? Personally I think that a miserable hopeless loner making a cogent argument is better worth reading than a blissfully fulfilled demigod with crap reasoning skills.) ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2210 "2018-12-18T02:15:13Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > In the history of forever, nobody claiming this as evidence of ‘winning at life’ have, in fact, been winning in life. > > Also, if having a car and TV and time to post on SDMB is all you have as evidence of ‘winning at life’ I feel genuine pity for you. The guy is probably in scary debt for that car, so he really should be working more than a few hours a week. He’s got a family of 6 and he’s said before they are just over $30k income yet he is so delusionally puffed up that he still needs to brag about a 70" tv. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2211 "2018-12-18T02:20:36Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > you are not really that smart do you? File that little nugget with such pearls of wisdom as “Is our children learning?” and “They misunderestimated me”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2212 "2018-12-18T02:45:11Z")
Harris did air the Omer Aziz podcast in its entirety, precisely because Aziz was trying to spin the whole thing as his “winning” the argument. If you can listen to that and agree, or even argue that it is NOT “boring”, you are so deluded as to be completely beyond hope: > **[Sam Harris | #32 - The Best Podcast Ever](https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/the-best-podcast-ever)** > > Sam Harris talks to Omer Aziz about Islam, Islamism, free speech, and related topics. > [@DragonAsh](#): > > Also, if having a car and TV and time to post on SDMB is all you have as evidence of ‘winning at life’ I feel genuine pity for you. Funny how you left out the most important points—you know, the ones I listed first? :rolleyes: That’d be the wife and four kids. (Ah, now I see that Kimstu pointed out the same thing.) But yeah, I wouldn’t work forty hours a week for any amount of money if I can get by without it. Literally, any amount. My leisure time is priceless and my wants are relatively modest (by First World standards). It’s a great time to be alive. > [@CarnalK](#): > > he’s said before they are just over $30k income This must have been at least a couple years ago. We are well over $50K now, in a part of the country where that goes a pretty long way (our 3BR 2BA apartment in a brand new building with stainless steel appliances, two-car garage, balcony, and access to the clubhouse and fitness center, is $1200 a month with water and heat included). ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2213 "2018-12-18T03:14:07Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > File that little nugget with such pearls of wisdom as “Is our children learning?” and “They misunderestimated me”. 😃 Oh you are right, that was supposed to be : You are not really that smart are you? The point I made stands. And everyone can notice that I can learn, but you lack that capacity. Better to avoid evidence that shows how shallow you are huh? What I see is just that you completely miss evidence that can make you an even better human being, otherwise I can see that you are only exuding complacency. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2214 "2018-12-18T03:18:36Z")
Aw, that one wasn’t as amusing. C’mon, GIGO: say something comically garbled again! When you get on a roll, you’re like one of those hilarious Peter Sellers or Mickey Rooney characters from the pre-PC cinematic era. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2215 "2018-12-18T03:26:50Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Aw, that one wasn’t as amusing. C’mon, GIGO: say something comically garbled again! Pausing again, as in [the case of **Ramira**](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21347712&postcount=266), to note that it’s rather assholish of native English speakers to make fun of minor grammatical blunders on the part of [someone whose first language is not English](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20264308&postcount=5). ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2216 "2018-12-18T03:29:41Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Pausing again, as in [the case of **Ramira**](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21347712&postcount=266), to note that it’s rather assholish of native English speakers to make fun of minor grammatical blunders on the part of [someone whose first language is not English](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20264308&postcount=5). I don’t know about “minor”, but yes: in a vacuum, it is definitely assholish. In response to two posters who literally never post anything (in threads I’m in) that isn’t a caustic attack on me personally, I’m going to give myself a pass. 😉 ETA: LOL at the Ambivalid link—thank you for posting that. Priceless. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2217 "2018-12-18T03:33:45Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Aw, that one wasn’t as amusing. C’mon, GIGO: say something comically garbled again! When you get on a roll, you’re like one of those hilarious Peter Sellers or Mickey Rooney characters from the pre-PC cinematic era. 😃 Meh, like if we all don’t know already that you are an ignoramus when you avoid the fact that Murray was wrong about the Hispanics, and even David Reich pointed out how biased Murray and others like him are, so stop feeding the racists. There was also the complete disregard from what the professors at the Alabama University said about Murray and Harris, They are not impressed at all, and neither many other experts. That already showed that your prior beliefs are not overridden as evidence accumulates, as someone that prides to be intelligent should react. But we can see that Bayes’ Theorem does not work for you. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2218 "2018-12-18T03:43:03Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > ETA: LOL at the Ambivalid link—thank you for posting that. Priceless. BTW that turned into a reverse pitting, priceless indeed, so thanks for the good memories. 😃 So you are an ignoramus also about how posters do see grammar nitpickers: attacking one because of errors in grammar and not the points the poster made just shows to all that anyone reaching for the bad grammar argument really does not have any proper reply to what was posted. Indeed, it is just a demonstration to all about how big a coward you are are, better to protect your cherished ignorant talking points huh? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2219 "2018-12-18T05:13:46Z")
GIGO and many others like to cite the “takedown” of Harris and Murray in Vox (never mind that those authors explicitly acknowledge that they have colleagues whose views are closer to Murray’s than to theirs). Completely serendipitously, I happened upon another Vox piece just now. It has a, shall we say, slightly different take: > **[Two philosophers explain what Inside Out gets wrong about the mind](https://www.vox.com/2015/6/25/8840945/inside-out-mind-memory)** > > Fun movie. Bad metaphysics. > [@](#): > > In fact, events that happen in our lives have remarkably little impact on our personalities. Twin studies suggest that personality traits are mostly fixed by genetics. In one extraordinary case, two twins, separated at birth, met years later only to discover that they were remarkably similar. Sure, they had similar fashion taste and shared a dislike for math. But they also both enjoyed far more unique “pursuits,” like sneezing when in the company of strangers and dipping their toast in coffee. Some traits, it seems, we’re destined to have. Take the same person, expose them to different environments and different experiences, and, more likely than not, they’ll come out with roughly the same desires and traits.[…] > You may think you decided to become a biologist because of that one amazing biology teacher you had in seventh grade. But it’s more likely that you just had a knack for biology and that you’d have found a reason to become a biologist one way or another. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2220 "2018-12-18T05:15:34Z")
Wow, a 70 inch TV! That’s like 70 whole inches of television! What will they think of next? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=110) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=112)