# 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:** 23
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/441 "2017-04-30T16:16:30Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I have never encountered a statistician who failed to condemn Murray’s methodology, (or incompetence), as he manipulated the numbers to arrive at the conclusion that he started out with the intent to find. I wonder what conclusion you intended to find in your encounters with statisticians. ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/442 "2017-04-30T16:20:00Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Quote: > IQ is substantially heritable, somewhere between 40 and 80 percent, meaning that much of the observed variation in IQ is genetic. > > -The Bell Curve: 298. (I don’t know how to quote a quote, sorry about that.) I wonder if you realize that essentially everyone in the field agrees with this? This statement is not controversial at all. ---
**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 30, 2017, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/443 "2017-04-30T16:27:36Z")
> [@mr.jp](#): > > I wonder what conclusion you intended to find in your encounters with statisticians. Well, I actually did linked to an economist (and last I checked they do work a lot with statistics) that criticized Murray, [did you ever wonder who he was?](https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/interview-with-james-heckman) ---
**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 30, 2017, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/444 "2017-04-30T16:36:13Z")
> [@mr.jp](#): > > (I don’t know how to quote a quote, sorry about that.) > > I wonder if you realize that essentially everyone in the field agrees with this? This statement is not controversial at all. I think you do not read, My post was to show that Murray did say that, what you are trying to omit, (and your bias is showing now BTW) is that the problem is that Murray ignored other research and the book does imply that there is a difference with the genes that give us intelligence between races. When: > [@](#): > > Heckman: My review wasn’t as negative as those of others. I think the book was very important. It broke a taboo by showing that differences in ability existed and predicted a variety of socioeconomic outcomes. So, I thought the book was important in raising that issue, **but it failed totally when it focused so much on genetic determination of ability. It had no hard evidence on genetics.** The youngest person in the Herrnstein-Murray sample was 14 years of age at the start of the sample. By the time they are 14, people are pretty well formed and environments play a big role. The idea that a test score measured at age 14 was a good measure of genetic determinism is absurd. > > \*\*Region: What have you found in your own research about the effects of schooling on test scores? > > Heckman: Very strong effects, much stronger than what Herrnstein and Murray claim in their book. In a paper published last year with Kathleen Mullen and Karsten Hansen in the Journal of Econometrics, we found substantial effects of an extra year’s schooling on the Armed Forces Qualifying Test, the same test they used. The point is that the test they used is an achievement test. It embodies knowledge that people acquire through experience.\*\* > > … > > My review didn’t attack them on the grounds frequently raised. I did say that they misinterpreted their own data by focusing on genetics. Ability was very powerfully predictive. It played a major role in determining outcomes. **But there was nothing in the book that justified any theory of genetic determinism. Everything we’ve learned since then suggests that the traditional way people measure genetic effects ignores interactions, and ignores a growing body of important literature about gene-environment interactions.** ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/445 "2017-04-30T16:52:21Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I think you do not read, My post was to show that Murray did say that, what you are trying to omit, (and your bias is showing now BTW) is that the problem is that Murray ignored other research and the book does imply that there is a difference with the genes that give us intelligence between races. > > When: Im quite confused about what you are saying or what I am allegedly trying to omit. To try and clarify: “Genetics plays a major role in IQ differences within a population” Charles Murray has indeed said this, and also it is not controversial. “Genetics plays a major role in IQ differences between populations” (Or is the most important driver, etc.) To my knowledge, Charles Murray has not said this “Genetics likely plays some role in IQ differences between populations” Charles Murray has said that this. Note that it is not the same claim as the one above it. ---
**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 30, 2017, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/446 "2017-04-30T17:36:35Z")
> [@mr.jp](#): > > Im quite confused about what you are saying or what I am allegedly trying to omit. > > To try and clarify: > > “Genetics plays a major role in IQ differences within a population” > Charles Murray has indeed said this, and also it is not controversial. > > “Genetics plays a major role in IQ differences between populations” > (Or is the most important driver, etc.) > To my knowledge, Charles Murray has not said this If you had read what I posted you would had noticed that me an many others are telling you that he did imply it. And many others like Heckman know what was going on. > [@mr.jp](#): > > “Genetics likely plays some role in IQ differences between populations” > Charles Murray has said that this. Note that it is not the same claim as the one above it. And, as it is clear you are not reading yet, you just stopped when you thought you were clever to reply as you did. As Murray goes: > [@](#): > > “The professional consensus is that the United States has experienced dysgenic pressures throughout either most of the century (the optimists) or all of the century (the pessimists). Women of all races and ethnic groups follow this pattern in similar fashion. **There is some evidence that blacks and Latinos are experiencing even more severe dysgenic pressures than whites** , which could lead to further divergence between whites and other groups in future generations.” > —The Bell Curve, 1994 As noted, Murray wants to have it both ways. The proper way then would had been to say clearly that environmental pressures are the items that the current evidence point as being there. By going for “dysgenic” Murray brings genetics in from the back door and does not differentiate if genes or the environment are stronger. No, the implication is to toss a big bone to the scientific racists that are then finding a justification to impose their policies to the American society. ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/447 "2017-04-30T18:06:18Z")
I don’t see anything wrong with that quote about dysgenic pressure. What part do you find disagreeable? We agree that differences in IQ is partly genetic, and we also agree that it’s hypothetically possible for lower IQ genes to spread more in the population, right? ---
**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 30, 2017, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/448 "2017-04-30T18:23:48Z")
> [@mr.jp](#): > > I don’t see anything wrong with that quote about dysgenic pressure. What part do you find disagreeable? We agree that differences in IQ is partly genetic, and we also agree that it’s hypothetically possible for lower IQ genes to spread more in the population, right? As usual you want to get a “right” by avoiding the context that was mentioned. The point was that genes were included in his explanation and by not mentioning how much it was the proportion the implication he made remains. (Again, Murray mentioned that since intelligence is highly inherited it does follow then that the blacks and Hispanics are, generally speaking, out of luck; and genes are an important reason why. Again, he does not say it directly, but seeing racists going for his recommended “solutions” should had been enough to see what the game of Murray is\*) What I see also coming from you is even a denial that experts, like Anthropologists, can also see through what Murray was equivocating. > **[The Genes Made Us Do It](https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-genes-made-us-do-it)** > > The new pseudoscience of racial difference. > [@](#): > > This is, obviously, something of a political landscape—or more precisely, a landscape of bio-politics, in which biology (or at least arguments that sound like biology) can be brandished for or against the welfare of certain classes of citizens. In times past—and not too far past, if you remember The Bell Curve (1994)—the argument went that social stratification in America was caused by innate intellectual differences, and consequently that government programs designed to assist the socially disadvantaged and to ameliorate economic inequality were useless and doomed to failure. > > It’s an old theme. Why aren’t you the Pharaoh? Because the Pharaoh is a better kind of being than you, with better ancestors and better innards. So Wade’s book is of a piece with a long tradition of disreputable attempts to rationalize visible class distinctions by recourse to invisible natural properties. The author repeatedly avows that his ideas are politically neutral, unlike those of the scientists he is busy repudiating. Yet the sources for many of his ideas about the history of society come from the political scientists Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington, and frankly, if you can’t tell that they have an ideological axe to grind, then you probably shouldn’t be writing books. > > Unlike The Bell Curve, however, which at least tried to disguise itself as a work of science, A Troublesome Inheritance has no such pretensions. It is entirely derivative, an argument made from selective citations, misrepresentations and speculative pseudo-science. But it will receive attention, and we need to pay it attention, because of The Bell Curve, which reintroduced scientific racism to a new generation in the guise of a statistical analysis of IQ scores. Twenty years and many critical tomes later, we know that just about every aspect of it was baloney. But the lesson is that when scholarship has to deal reactively with highly publicized and politicized pseudoscience, that’s trouble. -Jonathan Marks is Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and presently a Templeton Fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. - again, not science because Murray did choose to avoid doing the proper thing. ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/449 "2017-04-30T18:41:39Z")
I think we should only make accusations of Murray regarding things he has actually written, not of things people suspect it implies he might secretly think, or what other people have used his work to argue about. Indeed, that was a major point of the podcast, on which this crazy thread was based. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/450 "2017-04-30T18:41:47Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > The point is that they are imaginary. Any one of us could imagine a totally different scenario with utterly different results. It does not “clear the decks,” _ **it simply points out how you would like the world to be.** _ EXPECT. Expect the world to be. And what do you expect? differences? identical average results between populations? or the null/coward move, you can’t say one way or another when it comes to any genetic influences. > [@](#): > > Never having made any claim that every group is equally intelligent, I note the straw man nature of your argument. > > While there may be persons who claim that every group is “equally intelligent,” my particular position would be that we do not have sufficient information regarding the definitions of the various intelligences on an individual level to make any odd claims regarding the intelligences of groups. And I note that the tortured methods which people have used to identify “groups” further renders such evaluations to be less than useful. Without buying into Howard Gardner’s hypothesis of Multiple Intelligences, I have seen sufficient nonsense promoted by believers in the simplistic evaluations of _g_ and IQ to consider them well meaning, (or not), **but extremely flawed attempts to understand phenomena that _we are still not sufficiently prepared to address._** And there it is, you abstain. The group differences we see, could be plausibly based on some environmental factors, or due to our sloppy understanding of intelligence. Or on some strange notion that the way we cut up groups makes no sense. Newsflash, you can cut up groups any way you like. If I took black astrophysicists as a group, they would be smarter than 99.99% of the average member of every race people on this earth. As race is an extremely broad and fuzzy definition of a group. None of this implies that because of the near infinite nature of the way groups can be sliced up, that differences between those sections cannot be seen and measured. As to the highlighted section, if you just said that since we have no way to address group differences that are based on genetics at the moment, we ought to abstain from commentary or speculation, I can at least understand that point of view. At least in the public square. And perhaps the strident resistance to this data of correlations is a move to preserve that standard. But I need to work off whether I think something is true, full stop, and even if the consequences are terrible, I’d rather see the world in the shattered landscape that it is, so I know what to focus on when trying to make it better. ---
**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 30, 2017, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/451 "2017-04-30T18:55:55Z")
“And that is how I won the Iron cross…” Grandpa Simpson. 🙂 On a less humorous retort, that is why there were people that voted for Trump. What’s clear to many is that historians know how stupid are the ones that expected that things would be re-made after the revolution as the misleading new leader promised it to his deluded followers. ---
**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:** [April 30, 2017, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/452 "2017-04-30T18:56:22Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > EXPECT. Expect the world to be. And what do you expect? differences? identical average results between populations? or the null/coward move, you can’t say one way or another when it comes to any genetic influences. > > And there it is, you abstain. The group differences we see, could be plausibly based on some environmental factors, or due to our sloppy understanding of intelligence. Or on some strange notion that the way we cut up groups makes no sense. > > Newsflash, you can cut up groups any way you like. If I took black astrophysicists as a group, they would be smarter than 99.99% of the average member of every race people on this earth. As race is an extremely broad and fuzzy definition of a group. > > None of this implies that because of the near infinite nature of the way groups can be sliced up, that differences between those sections cannot be seen and measured. > As to the highlighted section, if you just said that since we have no way to address group differences that are based on genetics at the moment, we ought to abstain from commentary or speculation, I can at least understand that point of view. At least in the public square. And perhaps the strident resistance to this data of correlations is a move to preserve that standard. But I need to work off whether I think something is true, full stop, and even if the consequences are terrible, I’d rather see the world in the shattered landscape that it is, so I know what to focus on when trying to make it better. Seeing the world as it is means recognizing that differences in test scores or other outcomes are no more an indicator of genetics today than looking at outcomes from the past, like, say, the first invention of carbon steel in ancient Tanzania, or the conquering of Egypt by the Nubians. Populations might differ in average genes for intelligence. Or they might not, considering how useful such a trait would be around the globe, and considering that most of humanity (certainly the vast majority of Europe, Africa, and Asia) has been exchanging genes for many thousands of years. But even if they are, that tells us nothing about where various groups stand in such a hierarchy. ---
**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 30, 2017, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/453 "2017-04-30T19:07:35Z")
> [@mr.jp](#): > > I think we should only make accusations of Murray regarding things he has actually written, not of things people suspect it implies he might secretly think, or what other people have used his work to argue about. > > Indeed, that was a major point of the podcast, on which this crazy thread was based. Notice how you minimize the expertise of the “people” you are trying to dismiss? Again, if Murray intended to claim all along that he was not giving genetics the importance racists are giving it, then he should had say so instead of equivocating. And he is still doing it. BTW your reply here does look more idiotic when one remembers that the ongoing point is that Murray avoided peer review, most of the ones I cited (like the Nobel price winner economist) did criticize Murray by also having others review their papers.) If there is a big meta lesson here is this one: Pseudo scientists continue their arguments in the court of public opinion, science journals are for them places to run away from or to publish papers (in less reputed journals) that the pseudo scientist then tell their followers\* what he really meant. \*Not followers that are deluded, I’m talking here about the ones like Betsy Devos and others at the AEI that are making that think tank a stink one. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/454 "2017-04-30T20:09:52Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > So you’re saying every single group, no matter how they are divided, will necessarily differ in inherent intelligence due to genetics? There’s no two groups that are the same, among the hundreds or thousands of human populations? Every single one can be arranged in a hierarchy from smartest genes to dumbest genes? > > I’ll note that even if we all accepted this, it would still say absolutely nothing about the genetics for intelligence among black people, or any other specific group. Of course not. Different groups could easily have similar averages in their variable traits. I just find it extremely implausible that we’d find that in this one selected sphere of variable traits, like intelligence, that there would be literally zero differences in the averages between ALL human populations ---
**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:** [April 30, 2017, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/455 "2017-04-30T20:11:39Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Of course not. Different groups could easily have similar averages in their variable traits. I just find it extremely implausible that we’d find that in this one selected sphere of variable traits, like intelligence, that there would be literally zero differences in the averages between ALL human populations I don’t think anyone in this thread is suggesting this. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/456 "2017-04-30T20:19:50Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I don’t think anyone in this thread is suggesting this. I forgot to add to the end, partly based on genetic differences between populations. There is a great deal of resistance to that. ---
**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:** [April 30, 2017, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/457 "2017-04-30T20:22:59Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > I forgot to add to the end, partly based on genetic differences between populations. There is a great deal of resistance to that. I don’t think anyone in this thread is suggesting this must necessarily be true. Many are saying it might be true. ---
**Author:** ![CatandMouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c89c15/32.png) [@CatandMouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatandMouse)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/458 "2017-04-30T20:34:05Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I have nothing to say to anyone who refuses to listen to the episode and instead just spouts boilerplate _ad hominem_. If that means crickets, so be it. I’d rather listen to crickets. ---
**Author:** ![CatandMouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c89c15/32.png) [@CatandMouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatandMouse)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/459 "2017-04-30T20:37:38Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Sam’s podcast has been [as high as #4](http://www.itunescharts.net/us/artists/podcast/waking-up-with-sam-harris/podcasts/waking-up-with-sam-harris/) in the iTunes rankings (and that was pretty recently: Feb. 2017). How sad is that? ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/460 "2017-04-30T20:49:26Z")
10 pages of discussion later: > [@CatandMouse](#): > > I’d rather listen to crickets. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=24)