# 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:** 21
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/401 "2017-04-28T15:19:35Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > :smack: > > We’re having a discussion here, please try to keep up. Race, the social construct, obviously is a thing that exists. Race, as in genetic races of human beings that are in any way sensible genetic subdivisions, _do not_. This is not a hard concept to wrap your head around. People can visibly see black skin. They can’t see genes. He knows this: > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This post from **SlackerInc** from a few years back has it right about race – Sam Harris is just plain wrong that race is “primarily biological”: > > It’s a shame that your views have shifted towards the white supremacists since then. I guess you could say he knew it until Sam Harris said something different, but I think it’s more likely he’s just trolling at this point. ---
**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:** [April 28, 2017, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/402 "2017-04-28T17:44:30Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > :smack: > > We’re having a discussion here, please try to keep up. Race, the social construct, obviously is a thing that exists. Race, as in genetic races of human beings that are in any way sensible genetic subdivisions, _do not_. This is not a hard concept to wrap your head around. People can visibly see black skin. They can’t see genes. Maybe \*you \*should try to keep up. Despite protestations to the contrary, it’s clear that Rachel Dolezal (who, it should be noted, has legally changed her name to Nkechi Amare Diallo) persuaded many people to “visibly see” an African American woman. I’ve never seen any evidence that anyone questioned it until her parents outed her. You (collectively) have yet to give a satisfactory explanation of how race is solely something that people “see”, but Dolezal/Diallo is still a fraud. Simply insisting, against \*all \*evidence, that no one would look at her and actually think she was black is not gonna fly. > [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > You’re not being pragmatic, you’re just ignoring the scientific evidence because it contradicts your world view. Basically you’re a slightly different flavor of anti-vaxxer. I’ll grant you that this absurd Newspeak statement of yours is rhetorically effective in a preemptive way, because the only honest response is to say “no, that’s what \*you \*are”–and that sounds lame, like an ineffectual, sputtering, schoolyard retort. But it happens to be the truth. ---
**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:** [April 28, 2017, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/403 "2017-04-28T17:56:54Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’ll grant you that this absurd Newspeak statement of yours is rhetorically effective in a preemptive way, because the only honest response is to say “no, that’s what \*you \*are”–and that sounds lame, like an ineffectual, sputtering, schoolyard retort. But it happens to be the truth. Meh, you only reply to the cites he and others did with “No, reply first to the other thing” that others did reply already. Or just pretending that when a writer does a bit that you do not like that then it allows you to dismiss what he was pointing at. You only offered evidence that you do not know what logic is too. Just about a property of people that are far away from the truth. So your claims of being on the side of the truth are not even supported as you are not even capable (for example) of telling us if powerful interventions do work or do not to make the scores of blacks kids go up. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/404 "2017-04-28T18:55:31Z")
In a previous thread I started 2 years ago [At what level is racialism accepted in the scientific community?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=730753) I must have linked to and quoted close to 170 scientists in the fields of genetics, anthropology, neuroscience, and the social sciences; all of whom rejected the racialist claims in a book by Nicholas Wade. In Wade’s book he makes all the claims that Murray had done, with the confidence (and arrogance) that these scientists would back his assertions. They didn’t. Their views were that racialism is unproven, unscientific, unfounded, ill-reasoned, and unsupported by themselves and their work. I don’t ask that you read all of my citations (I did a lengthy survey of popular writings to drum home how fringe racialism truly is in the scientific realm) , but I urge you to read one of them. I’ll recommend the one hour web-seminar (hosted by the American Anthropological Association): [A Troublesome Inheritance – A discussion on genes, race and human history](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90tJ7w6rwvk). They talk with people from both sides of the debate, and frankly, you owe it to do this bare minimum since you demanded that we listen to Murray and Harris for 2hours, no? ---
**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:** [April 28, 2017, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/405 "2017-04-28T19:00:00Z")
I didn’t demand anything. I started a thread for people who were interested to discuss a podcast episode. No different from starting a thread for people interested in discussing a certain movie. Go ahead and start a thread for your podcast, and anyone interested in listening and discussing it can join you there. Or, if it’s like this thread, a bunch of people will crash the thread despite not being interested in listening. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/406 "2017-04-28T19:07:10Z")
Also check out my post on how Wade’s racist book was received by proponents for racialism. It includes a humourous quote from…Charles Murray, who (as always) **couldn’t have been more wrong**. > [@At what level is racialism accepted in the scientific community?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/2): > > Also Wade did get some positive reviews, but mostly they came from [White](http://www.amren.com/features/2014/03/attack-on-the-regime/) [Nationalists](http://www.vdare.com/articles/john-derbyshire-on-nicholas-wade-s-a-troublesome-inheritance-a-small-but-significant-step-f) and Charles Murray.[ > [QUOTE=Charles Murray] > It is hard to convey how rich this book is. It could be the textbook for a semester’s college course on human evolution, systematically surveying as it does the basics of genetics, evolutionary psychology, Homo sapiens’s diaspora and the recent discoveries about the evolutionary adaptations that have occurred since then. The book is a delight to read—conversational and lucid. And it will trigger an intellectual explosion the likes of which we haven’t seen for a few decades. ]([http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303380004579521482247869874](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303380004579521482247869874)) [/QUOTE] Wade’s racialism wasn’t celebrated by scientists, but thoroughly debunked. Wade, of course, did what racialists always do…[Deny, ignore, and wholesale dismiss all of the scientists while claiming persecution and conspiracy.](http://blogs.nature.com/news/files/2014/08/Response-to-NYT-letter.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/407 "2017-04-28T19:11:50Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I didn’t demand anything. I started a thread for people who were interested to discuss a podcast episode. No different from starting a thread for people interested in discussing a certain movie. Go ahead and start a thread for your podcast, and anyone interested in listening and discussing it can join you there. Or, if it’s like this thread, a bunch of people will crash the thread despite not being interested in listening. Of course. Why should you be arsed to do some basic research? I should’ve know that even my spoon feeding wouldn’t have worked. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/408 "2017-04-28T19:23:37Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > Of course. Why should you be arsed to do some basic research? I should’ve know that even my spoon feeding wouldn’t have worked. :smack: I think it’s safe to assume his sincerity is suspect. But I appreciate your link. I might put it on in the background one of these days while I work. More importantly, I once went to the UK. It was cooler in the morning than I thought it would be given the time of year. It made me wonder if smarter people are morning people in the UK because the conditions are harsher. ---
**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:** [April 28, 2017, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/409 "2017-04-28T19:45:42Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > They talk with people from both sides of the debate, and frankly, you owe it to do this bare minimum since you demanded that we listen to Murray and Harris for 2hours, no? Heck, even another poster showed how easy was to type a post about a point Murray made in the pod cast, showing that it is not impossible, proponents of racialism should at least point about what was interesting or new, not act as if they also do not have a clue about what was new or important. I also did listen to the pod cast a bit and was not impressed at all. The clear tactic here from the OP is just a desperate move to get others to give the time of the day to Murray and others. No matter if we already gave it the likes of him many times already in the past. It seems that the OP thinks that his “rejection of evidence if his master did not talk about it” is a great new debating tactic, when it actually only makes him look like a jerk. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/410 "2017-04-28T20:04:43Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Boy, I hope some random idiot stumbles by this thread to tell us all what he thinks. That would be super awesome. When group differences in iq go to zero with nothing but environmental tweaks, get back to me. That would be super awesome. Until then, I am going to keep assuming some of the differences that persist are based on genetic differences between individuals and populations. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/411 "2017-04-28T20:12:19Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Race is _still not actually a thing_. > > “Makes intuitive sense to a person with no understanding” is _never_ a good metric for the truth of an idea. > > Fact 1: We have _no_ evidence connecting genetics to racial outcomes. There’s _no_ evidence indicating that any specific intelligence-correlated genes or gene expressions are more or less present among specific populations. > Fact 2: We have an _abundance_ of evidence connecting racism to racial outcomes. There is a _ton_ of evidence linking specific societal ills to racism, and again linking those ills to IQ. > > Possibly, but keep in mind that my last IQ test turned up more than a few standard deviations higher than average, and think what that says about you. Then, just to _really_ fuck with your head, consider that [Ian Juby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk4I_BCSnN4) is a member of MENSA. > > How about you define those groups for us, fucko? How many times do I have to say it - _race isn’t an actual thing_. There’s _no_ coherent definition of biological race. You are a complete lost cause. It does not matter if we remove the concept of race, the frequency of different alleles in human beings is not identical between individuals or populations of people. We are not clones. If we were clones, then I would lean more towards environment being the primary driver of the differences we see. But we are not. Populations of people in Africa have a higher frequency of gene mutations that lead to sickel cell compared to populations of people in the UK. This produces observed differences in the real world. My only claim, is that to the extent that our intelligence is based on a combination of genes, those too will vary between individuals and populations, and as a consequence, we ought to see some group differences in the averages. That’s it. Like I told the other guy, get back to me when all group differences we see and measure in the world regarding iq go to zero with environmental interventions. When that happens, the observations in the real world I am basing my assumptions on, will fall apart. And that won’t bother me, I want to see group differences normalize to almost nothing. Like was alluded to earlier, I do not presume some blank slate model for humanity. Perhaps you do, or merely just want to engage in the cowards retreat of a lack of perfect knowledge. Go right ahead, but it means nothing to anyone but yourself. ---
**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:** [April 28, 2017, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/412 "2017-04-28T20:15:21Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > When group differences in iq go to zero with nothing but environmental tweaks, get back to me. That would be super awesome. Until then, I am going to keep assuming some of the differences that persist are based on genetic differences between individuals and populations. This (and the subsequent “coward’s retreat of perfect knowledge”) just about sums it up perfectly. ---
**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:** [April 28, 2017, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/413 "2017-04-28T20:29:52Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > This (and the subsequent “coward’s retreat of perfect knowledge”) just about sums it up perfectly. Meh, it just shows that previous examples of interventions that were effective were tossed under the bus as they clearly do not fit in the sorry views of Salvor and SlackerInc. ---
**Author:** ![nate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nate/32/13085_2.png) [@nate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nate)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/414 "2017-04-28T22:08:28Z")
Wow. I listened to this podcast a few days ago, I’ve never read or even heard of Charles Murray, but I’ve heard about The Bell Curve in passing. Mostly in a derogatory manner. I didn’t hear anything from Murray, if he is being honest, that I would label junk science. These data that he used came from people self-identifying their own race so I don’t think question about whether or not race actually exist are relevant to the study. So the summary I gathered from the controversial parts is that those self-identifying as black have a lower mean IQ than those that claim to be white. AND, the variation between people of the same “race” is much larger than the variation of the mean IQs between races. I don’t really see what is so controversial about this. Again, I don’t know Charles Murray’s public persona. He could be a terrible person, I don’t know, but it didn’t come across that way on this podcast. ---
**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:** [April 28, 2017, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/415 "2017-04-28T22:49:48Z")
> [@nate](#): > > Wow. I listened to this podcast a few days ago, I’ve never read or even heard of Charles Murray, but I’ve heard about The Bell Curve in passing. Mostly in a derogatory manner. > > I didn’t hear anything from Murray, if he is being honest, that I would label junk science. These data that he used came from people self-identifying their own race so I don’t think question about whether or not race actually exist are relevant to the study. So the summary I gathered from the controversial parts is that those self-identifying as black have a lower mean IQ than those that claim to be white. AND, the variation between people of the same “race” is much larger than the variation of the mean IQs between races. I don’t really see what is so controversial about this. > > Again, I don’t know Charles Murray’s public persona. He could be a terrible person, I don’t know, but it didn’t come across that way on this podcast. The controversy is on what he did with the information that he claimed to find (information that he also got from researchers with an agenda that were criticized also then.) What Murray did in essence was to avoid submitting a paper to a scientific journal avoiding the hardships of peer review. And so he did go the book route. And then he committed one big sin in science: reaching for conclusions that do not follow the research or evidence. For example, a lot of the controversy came for the societal and economical solutions that Murray and others proposed, because they did go from biology to social studies and economics (it is very rare indeed to find people that can be proficient in many branches of science) then one wonders what the economists made out of his books. They were not impressed either. > **[Column: 'Mainstream America' doesn't actually exist](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-mainstream-america-doesnt-actually-exist)** > > "Mainstream America" is a flawed, dangerous idea. > [@](#): > > So, one way of summing up Murray’s recent writing is: The white working classes are in free fall toward the historical life conditions of most of America’s people of color. When these arguments were only applied to people of color, they gained great salience among commentators and policymakers who preferred “blaming the victims” to searching for failures in our institutions. > > Murray’s three major books on, respectively, the welfare system, IQ, and this latest, are remarkably consistent. He believes the nation faces a crisis because liberal policies of the ‘60s have left a demoralized lumpen proletariat composed of people of color and whites who are too stupid to negotiate modern life. If this is what many conservatives believe (and who doubts it, since many are trumpeting Murray’s argument), then it goes a long way toward explaining their sustained attack on unions, minimum wages, social safety net programs and support for right-to-work laws, etc. > > Many conservatives who think like Murray appear to believe America does not need a middle class, just obedient workers willing to behave and conform to 19th century norms. Will 19th century liberalism work in a 21st century world? Moreover, can we really explain all those angry whites flocking to Donald Trump’s campaign on the basis of Murray’s arguments about declining American values? Many conservatives touting Murray for exactly this point seem to be saying so. However, despite Donald Trump’s demagoguery, he is not telling white voters they are stupid. Nor is he saying they should stop complaining and behave. Likely, working classes of all demographic groups are a lot smarter than elitists like Murray think. Here is also another economist in the past that also did look at the solutions Murray talked about. [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/262014](http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/262014) > [@](#): > > This paper examines the argument presented in The Bell Curve. A central argument is that one factor–g–accounts for correlation across test scores and performance in society. Another central argument is that g cannot be manipulated. These arguments are combined to claim that social policies designed to improve social performance cannot be effective. A reanalysis of the evidence contradicts this story. The factors that explain wages receive different weights than the factors that explain test scores. More than g is required to explain either. Other factors besides g contribute to social performance and they can be manipulated. So what to make about what you told us here? Well, you should take into account that Murray is trying to get far away from the very bad stuff he talked about before and now to concentrate on talking pretty. That BTW showed me why is that many do not want to give much time to Murray, in the pod cast he is really minimizing the controversy from his work that in the end **he is not willing to refute himself**. And then still to expect that he will get his recognition. Not gonna happen. ---
**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:** [April 29, 2017, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/416 "2017-04-29T00:10:49Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > What Murray did in essence was to avoid submitting a paper to a scientific journal avoiding the hardships of peer review. And so he did go the book route. > > And then he committed one big sin in science: reaching for conclusions that do not follow the research or evidence. . Which would have stirred no controversy if the conclusions were ideologically correct, like the ones I described way upthread calling for schools to stop suspending black kids. Really, I wish you would just own your ideological objections rather than throwing up this absurd smokescreen claiming that the furor was over some narrow point about the scientific method or whatever. Have you not seen any of the recent reports of the lack of replicability of peer reviewed studies, or how there is a clear bias from those academic journals toward publishing only research that has the kind of findings they are looking for? All right, chums, I’m off for the weekend. I’ll check in on Monday. ---
**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:** [April 29, 2017, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/417 "2017-04-29T00:16:30Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Which would have stirred no controversy if the conclusions were ideologically correct, like the ones I described way upthread calling for schools to stop suspending black kids. And your points were not convincing at all to counter the reasons why the researchers that investigated the issue said so. BTW you are also still refusing to accept that they **did** face peer review while your hero Murray continues to flee from it. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Really, I wish you would just own your ideological objections rather than throwing up this absurd smokescreen claiming that the furor was over some narrow point about the scientific method or whatever. Have you not seen any of the recent reports of the lack of replicability of peer reviewed studies, or how there is a clear bias from those academic journals toward publishing only research that has the kind of findings they are looking for? OK, you are really deluded if you do not realize that what Murray and others did are seen as examples of what you are complaining. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/418 "2017-04-29T01:21:45Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Populations of people in Africa have a higher frequency of gene mutations that lead to sickel cell compared to populations of people in the UK. This produces observed differences in the real world. Sorta. Maybe. nah. The genes for Sickle Cell are not “African.” They fail to appear in people of Eastern and Southern Africa, being concentrated in the endemic malarial regions of Western and Northwestern Africa. (The deformity of the sickle cell inhibits the development of malaria.) Simultaneously, those genes appear with greater frequency among “white” people of Sicily, Southern Italy, Greece, and the Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor and the Levant where malaria is common. Related genes appear in malarial regions across the Middle east to India. in other words, Sickle Cell developed as a response to malaria, not as a genetic trait of any supposed “race,” and people of many regions of the world have developed the same or similar genetic responses to it. It pops up as a “black” disease in the U.S. because most slaves imported to the US. were taken from those regions of Africa where malaria and Sickle cell were both common, while immigrants from those regions of Europe and Asia where they frequently occur have not tended to immigrate to the U.S. in large numbers. It also does appear in the UK, primarily among people of African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, Eastern Mediterranean and Asian origin. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/419 "2017-04-29T02:48:51Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > When group differences in iq go to zero with nothing but environmental tweaks, get back to me. Not particularly difficult: Eyferth, 1961. But don’t let your profound ignorance on this subject prevent you from sharing your opinion at excruciating length. I’m not going to read your stupid shit, because I don’t particularly care what some random uninformed simpleton thinks, but I’m sure you can find common cause with some other equally uninformed idiot, and you can comfort each other with the knowledge that you both came to the same ignorant and uninformed conclusion based on the same lack of information. Stupidity and ignorance love company. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > This… Oh, I fucking called it. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/420 "2017-04-29T03:38:21Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Sorta. Maybe. nah. > > The genes for Sickle Cell are not “African.” They fail to appear in people of Eastern and Southern Africa, being concentrated in the endemic malarial regions of Western and Northwestern Africa. (The deformity of the sickle cell inhibits the development of malaria.) Simultaneously, those genes appear with greater frequency among “white” people of Sicily, Southern Italy, Greece, and the Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor and the Levant where malaria is common. Related genes appear in malarial regions across the Middle east to India. in other words, Sickle Cell developed as a response to malaria, not as a genetic trait of any supposed “race,” and people of many regions of the world have developed the same or similar genetic responses to it. > It pops up as a “black” disease in the U.S. because most slaves imported to the US. were taken from those regions of Africa where malaria and Sickle cell were both common, while immigrants from those regions of Europe and Asia where they frequently occur have not tended to immigrate to the U.S. in large numbers. > It also does appear in the UK, primarily among people of African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, Eastern Mediterranean and Asian origin. This reinforces the larger point. Those populations that developed sickle cell like responses in different parts of the world, and even spread when members from those regions migrated to other areas, have a higher incidence of genes that produce the altered blood cells. It does not matter if it was just from an African population, or similar mutations happened in other areas, people from the populations and regions where the mutation occurred have a different frequency of the genes that produce DIFFERENT physical results than the rest of the human population. We do not have identical genomes. And different populations of people do not have identical genomes. No one disagrees with that, so they say, until we go towards the genes that contribute to our intelligence. Then, nothing can be said, more than that, we expect virtually zero differential between different populations. I have given examples of this NOT being explicitly about different races. The American Indian population is higher iq than the general Indian population back in india due to the selection pressures that filter for higher skill level. If we took a hundred American Indian couples and they had a hundred American Indian children, and each of those children was put up for adoption in A southern State, and we did the exact same thing for a hundred Indian couples and their hundred children randomly selected from India itself, and we checked in every 10 years at a steady interval, what do you suspect we’d find? Do you think the children of the American Indians would be doing better? The children of the elite class? Or the children of of a random sample of Indians from India? Remember, they were all put up for adoption, let’s presume to relatively cookie cutter homes in the south. There is no added boost of greater wealth, they look the same physically, the ONLY differential variable is what population they came from. SAME race, but NOT the same population. ONE population had a stacked deck when it comes to iq and aptitude as it related to genetics. If the effect of that is near zero, we ought to expect to see little to no difference. Do ANY of you expect to see no difference? This is the key. I expect to see a difference, because I assume that the portion of aptitude and iq that is influenced by genetics, is transmitted and heritable. I do not know how to make my assumptions any clearer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=22)