# 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:** 3
**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 23, 2017, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/41 "2017-04-23T23:04:19Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > But I will just point out that if race is make-believe, the same must needs be true of rac_ism_. You can’t have it both ways. Belief in make-believe things aren’t harmful? So If I believe…bananas cures cancer (something’s that’s clearly flat-out WRONG), it cannot cause harm?!? What a crock of shit. Christ. Racists can both be WRONG and virulent. ---
**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 23, 2017, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/42 "2017-04-23T23:05:50Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Or for that matter, what did I say that Pinker or Harris disagree with? Sigh. I can’t help myself. “Someone is \*wrong \*on the internet!” [x.com](https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/746710280684601348)? > [@](#): > > To oppose racism, you don’t have to say “races don’t exist”- Bad idea to depend on this dubious empirical claim. [https://www.samharris.org/site/full\_text/my-editorial-policy](https://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/my-editorial-policy) > [@](#): > > I had discovered in the intervening years that many people erroneously believe that “race” and “ethnicity” are synonymous. But race is primarily a biological concept, while ethnicity is a cultural one—capturing things as diverse as religion, nationality, language, dress, social customs, and food preferences. > [@jsgoddess](#): > > Well, it’s good that they didn’t clutter up a science discussion with data or methodology or any of that stuff! They \*did \*extensively discuss those things. But they were not what Sam _took issue with._ Jesus, just listen, for chrissakes! ---
**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 23, 2017, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/43 "2017-04-23T23:07:55Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > Belief in make-believe things aren’t harmful? So If I believe…bananas cures cancer (something’s that’s clearly flat-out WRONG), it cannot cause harm?!? What a crock of shit. > > Christ. Racists can both be WRONG and cause harm. Then “whiteness” and “white privilege” cannot be real. ---
**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 23, 2017, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/44 "2017-04-23T23:08:24Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Sigh. I can’t help myself. “Someone is \*wrong \*on the internet!” > > [x.com](https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/746710280684601348)? > [https://www.samharris.org/site/full\_text/my-editorial-policy](https://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/my-editorial-policy) Sam Harris is just plain incorrect on race being “primarily a biological concept”. The Pinker quote doesn’t dispute anything I said. I never said “races don’t exist” – I said they were mainly a sociological concept (especially races as commonly discussed – black, white, etc.), not a biological or genetic one. ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2017, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/45 "2017-04-23T23:09:13Z")
Sam Harris = willfully-uninformed moron CONFIRMED. ---
**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 23, 2017, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/46 "2017-04-23T23:10:11Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Then “whiteness” and “white privilege” cannot be real. Those are also sociological/historical, not biological phenomena. ---
**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 23, 2017, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/47 "2017-04-23T23:20:58Z")
If I had a podcast or show, I probably wouldn’t choose to interview advocates of the inherent intellectual inferiority of black people explanation for various achievement and test score gaps (also known as the “blacks are dumber” hypothesis, or the “the slavers were right” hypothesis, etc.). But if I did interview Charles Murray, I’d ask him the following questions: Why didn’t you submit The Bell Curve for peer review? Why didn’t you include discussion of studies and research with is directly contrary to this hypothesis? Do you think it’s coincidence that the worst-performing groups for test scores and various achievement statistics in the US are the two groups that have been treated _by far_ the most abominably in American history (black people and Native Americans), or does that centuries of abominable treatment have something to do with these statistics and gaps? Are you really willing to accept a conclusion that matches those reached by pseudo-scientific slavery-justifiers of past centuries about inherent intellectual ability, with _absolutely zero_ information about what genes and gene sets are responsible for high and low intelligence, and how prevalent those genes and gene sets are in various population groups? If so, why? If Sam Harris asked these questions to Charles Murray, I will gladly listen to the podcast at my first opportunity. If he didn’t, then that reflects very poorly on Mr. Harris. I think Harris is brilliant in many ways, but he’s also blind in many ways – probably not coincidentally, a lot of those ways are quite common for very successful straight white males. ---
**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 23, 2017, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/48 "2017-04-23T23:26:55Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Sam Harris is just plain incorrect on race being “primarily a biological concept”. Sam is the most impressive polymath of the modern world (Pinker is up there too). You’re a dude on a message board who didn’t even believe me when I told him his view differed with Sam’s. I know who I’m going to take more seriously–sorry, bud. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The Pinker quote doesn’t dispute anything I said. I never said “races don’t exist” – I said they were mainly a sociological concept (especially races as commonly discussed – black, white, etc.), not a biological or genetic one. Then how about this Pinker quote, from his Pulitzer-nominated (and awesome) book _The Blank Slate_? > [@](#): > > Nowadays it is popular to say that races do not exist but are purely social constructions. Though that is certainly true of bureaucratic pigeonholes such as “colored,” “Hispanic,” “Asian/Pacific Islander,” and the one-drop rule for being “black,” it is an overstatement when it comes to human differences in general. The biological anthropologist Vincent Sarich points out that a race is just a very large and partly inbred family. Some racial distinctions thus may have a degree of biological reality, even though they are not exact boundaries between fixed categories. Humans, having recently evolved from a single founder population, are all related, but Europeans, having mostly bred with other Europeans for millennia, are on average more closely related to other Europeans than they are to Africans or Asians, and vice versa. Because oceans, deserts, and mountain ranges have prevented people from choosing mates at random in the past, the large inbred families we call races are still discernible, each with a somewhat different distribution of gene frequencies. In theory, some of the varying genes could affect personality or intelligence (though any such differences would at most apply to averages, with vast overlap between the group members). For good measure, let’s throw in some Richard Dawkins, from his book _The Ancestors’ Tale:_ > [@](#): > > It is genuinely true that, if you measure the total variation in the human species and then partition it into a between-race component and a within-race component, the between-race component is a very small fraction of the total. Most of the variation among humans can be found within races as well as between them. Only a small admixture of extra variation distinguishes races from each other. That is all correct. What is not correct is the inferene that race is therefore a meaningless concept. This point has been clearly made by the distinguished Cambridge geneticist A.W.F. Edwards in a recent paper “Human genetic diversity: Lewontin’s fallacy.” R.C. Lewontin is an equally distinguished Cambridge (Mass.) geneticist, known for the strength of his political convictions and his weakness for dragging them into science at every possibile opportunity. Lewontin’s view of race has become near-universal orthodoxy in scientific circles. He wrote, in a famous paper of 1972: > > > [@](#): > > > > It is clear that our perception of relatively large differences between human races and subgroups, as compared to the variation within these groups, is indeed a biased perception and that, based on randomly chosen genetic differences, human races and populations are remarkably similar to each other, with the largest part by far of human variation being accounted for by the differences between individuals > > This is, of course, exactly the point I accepted above, not surprisingly since what I wrote was largely based on Lewontin. But see how Lewontin goes on: > > > [@](#): > > > > Human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of social and human relations. Since such racial classification is now seen to be of virtually no genetic or taxnomic significance either, no justification can be offered for its continuance. > > We can all happily agree that human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of social and human relations. That is one reason why I object to ticking boxes on forms and why I object to positive discrimination in job selection. But that doesn’t mean that race is of “virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance.” This is Edwards’s point, and he reasons as follows. However small the racial partition of total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance. ---
**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 23, 2017, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/49 "2017-04-23T23:34:10Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Sam is the most impressive polymath of the modern world (Pinker is up there too). You’re a dude on a message board who didn’t even believe me when I told him his view differed with Sam’s. I know who I’m going to take more seriously–sorry, bud. Where did I say I didn’t believe you? Is asking a question disbelief? I just wanted to know. Thanks for answering. I’m sure Harris would love you to believe that he’s “the most impressive polymath of the modern world”. I’m not so inclined to buy into that, especially if he says something as dumb as race is “primarily a biological concept”. Doesn’t make him stupid, but I think he’s probably not as smart as he thinks he is (a very common flaw in very successful people – especially very successful straight white males). > [@](#): > > Then how about this Pinker quote, from his Pulitzer-nominated (and awesome) book _The Blank Slate_? Pinker’s also a brilliant guy who nonetheless gets things wrong sometimes (and I liked the Blank Slate a lot). And this quote doesn’t really disagree with anything I said. Race is primarily sociological, and not primarily biological. Skin color has some genetic basis, and race has some correlation with skin color. But there are many groups with dark skin who are not closely related, but nonetheless have been lumped together in the same racial groups (and other such inconsistencies based on the whims and convenience of racists). In that sense, and in a way that is wholly consistent with this Pinker quote, race is primarily a sociological and not a biological concept. > [@](#): > > For good measure, let’s throw in some Richard Dawkins, from his book _The Ancestors’ Tale:_ Another smart guy and a good book, and a guy who gets things wrong sometimes (notoriously stuff that has to do with women and rape culture). And another quote that doesn’t disagree with the _fact_ that race is primarily based on things other than biology and genetics. This part of Dawkins’ quote is the most important: “It is genuinely true that, if you measure the total variation in the human species and then partition it into a between-race component and a within-race component, the between-race component is a **very small fraction** of the total. Most of the variation among humans can be found within races as well as between them.” (bolding mine) That’s what I’m saying, and that’s what Harris gets wrong. So which is it? Is Harris correct, or Dawkins? Those quotes are in direct contradiction with each other. ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2017, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/50 "2017-04-23T23:34:44Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Sam is the most impressive polymath of the modern world (Pinker is up there too). Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. Hah. Hahahaheheheheheheheheheheheheheh. Hahahahahahahohohohohohehehehehehahahahahahahahahahahaha! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Ooooh, that’s a good one! You really made my day, thanks. Got any more? ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2017, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/51 "2017-04-23T23:36:19Z")
The thing about Dawkins and Pinker is that they think that they’re so smart that they’ve got everything in every other discipline that’s _not_ their area of expertise worked out. Which is, of course, incredibly fucking stupid. Sam Harris…well, Sam Harris is just an all-around moron. ---
**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 23, 2017, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/52 "2017-04-23T23:53:03Z")
> [@Beren\_Erchamion](#): > > Sam Harris…well, Sam Harris is just an all-around moron. This is silly hyperbole. A very smart guy who nonetheless has some big blind spots, worthy of criticism. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2017, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/53 "2017-04-23T23:53:08Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > In what universe does this even qualify as a thread? Is it good enough for me to say, “Here’s this youtube documentary about Chemtrails by Mike Adams I’d like everyone to talk about. Please watch it, it’s only five hours long and almost certainly contains a massive load of bullshit, tell me what you think!”? Is that a good thread starter? Heh. Think I’ll mosey on over to ATMB and suggest we open a forum expressly _for_ OPs that demand participants watch a video, or read a document, without benefit of the Original Poster’s thesis statement. (Probably be the only forum where 100% of the threads were moved there by a mod.) ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2017, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/54 "2017-04-23T23:56:05Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This is silly hyperbole. A very smart guy who nonetheless has some big blind spots, worthy of criticism. Nah. You’ll notice that he earned his Ph.D. _before_ he decided to abandon intellectual coherency in favor of pandering to idiots for Youtube views. ---
**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 24, 2017, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/55 "2017-04-24T00:12:58Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Where did I say I didn’t believe you? Is asking a question disbelief? I just wanted to know. Thanks for answering. Fair enough, and you’re welcome. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’m sure Harris would love you to believe that he’s “the most impressive polymath of the modern world”. Sure, who wouldn’t love that? But for my money, he walks the walk (although for a polymath, it’s mostly about \*how \*he talks the talk). Who would you nominate? > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Pinker’s also a brilliant guy who nonetheless gets things wrong sometimes (and I liked the Blank Slate a lot). You and I have some sharp disagreements, but you are at least a reasonable interlocutor, unlike most everyone else ITT. I sure wish you would listen to the podcast, and then we could pick at some of the points specifically raised in it. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Skin color has some genetic basis, and race has some correlation with skin color. But there are many groups with dark skin who are not closely related, but nonetheless have been lumped together in the same racial groups (and other such inconsistencies based on the whims and convenience of racists). Very fair point. There is, as I understand it, much more genetic variation among sub-Saharan Africans than you’ll find among humans elsewhere in the world. So the easiest target to pick at is the characterization of sub-Saharan Africans as a single race (or, even more absurdly, if South Asians are called “black”–but I don’t see that happening too often). But it’s a lot harder to dispute that light-skinned, blue-eyed people are a race in a genetic sense (an inbred, extended family). Same goes for East Asians. So there are two places you could go with that information while preserving race as a biological concept. One is to say that there has been insufficient attention paid to the existence of a number of different races within Sub-Saharan Africa, that are wrongly lumped together based on very superficial similarities (I was born in East Africa, for instance, and I can clearly see the difference between the phenotypic features of people there compared to the West African types that are more typically found in the U.S.). The other is simply to say that there is a central and diverse human gene pool originating from Africa, which is in fact too diverse to be called a single race. But at the same time, there are groups who evolved from small, intrepid bands of explorers which are in fact biologically valid races. And the assertion then would not be “blacks are genetically inferior in IQ”, but “Caucasians and East Asians are races which developed a much less diverse gene pool than the main African originating gene pool, and in these less diverse pools there is a higher proclivity for high IQs.” IOW, sub-Saharan Africans have “normal” or “average” IQs, and Caucasians (especially Ashkenazi Jews) and East Asians have abnormally high IQs as a group. Do you buy that at all? > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This part of Dawkins’ quote is the most important: “It is genuinely true that, if you measure the total variation in the human species and then partition it into a between-race component and a within-race component, the between-race component is a **very small fraction** of the total. Most of the variation among humans can be found within races as well as between them.” (bolding mine) > > That’s what I’m saying, and that’s what Harris gets wrong. > > So which is it? Is Harris correct, or Dawkins? Those quotes are in direct contradiction with each other. I don’t think they are. What if Sam had said “eye color is primarily a biological phenomenon”? Is that in conflict with the fact that two people can have different eye colors yet have tons of other genetic characteristics in common, or conversely have the same eye color yet have a fair amount be different otherwise genetically? Sam’s saying race is primarily biological does not mean he’s saying that people of different races are as different as toads and whales (who nonetheless do have much of their genome in common). Dawkins says specifically that _race has taxonomic validity_, bottom line. BTW, it’s a bit of a tangent, but I am familiar with the Dawkins “rape culture” controversy, and while I think he’s somewhat in the wrong, he’s at least a little closer to being in the right than are his most vocal critics on that topic. I doubt for instance he’d disagree with me much about the [controversy we are kicking around on another thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20151859&postcount=152) regarding a comic book store employee wearing a t-shirt featuring Rosie the Riveter being attacked by a facehugger from the \*Alien \*movies. ---
**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 24, 2017, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/56 "2017-04-24T00:15:52Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Heh. Think I’ll mosey on over to ATMB and suggest we open a forum expressly _for_ OPs that demand participants watch a video, or read a document, without benefit of the Original Poster’s thesis statement. > > (Probably be the only forum where 100% of the threads were moved there by a mod.) Such threads are different \*how, \*exactly, from “[movie name]–seen it” threads? Other than it being much easier to click a link and listen to a podcast than it is to go see a movie in the theatre? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2017, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/57 "2017-04-24T00:21:33Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > But for my money, he walks the walk The fact that you’ve bought into Ben Stiller’s pseudo-intellectual scam reflects just as poorly on you as it does on him. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2017, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/58 "2017-04-24T00:31:29Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’ll be “dense” like Steven Pinker and Sam Harris every day of the week, and twice on Tuesdays, before being “smart” like **iiandyiiii**. Thanks all the same. > > And with that, I am done–unless and until someone wants to discuss the actual content of the podcast. It looks like there’s already a forum dedicated to discussing the actual content of that and other podcasts. Here, we like to discuss the contents of OPs. If those discussions evolve into discussions of particular podcasts, well, that’s fine. But we really need to start with discussing the content of your OP. Be really cool if you could provide some. ---
**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 24, 2017, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/59 "2017-04-24T00:36:01Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Sure, who wouldn’t love that? But for my money, he walks the walk (although for a polymath, it’s mostly about \*how \*he talks the talk). Who would you nominate? I wouldn’t bother trying. > [@](#): > > You and I have some sharp disagreements, but you are at least a reasonable interlocutor, unlike most everyone else ITT. I sure wish you would listen to the podcast, and then we could pick at some of the points specifically raised in it. It’s just too damn long, and I don’t have opportunities (I don’t drive regularly, I don’t like headphones, etc.) to listen at the moment. If there’s a transcript I could take a look. > [@](#): > > Very fair point. There is, as I understand it, much more genetic variation among sub-Saharan Africans than you’ll find among humans elsewhere in the world. So the easiest target to pick at is the characterization of sub-Saharan Africans as a single race (or, even more absurdly, if South Asians are called “black”–but I don’t see that happening too often). But it’s a lot harder to dispute that light-skinned, blue-eyed people are a race in a genetic sense (an inbred, extended family). Same goes for East Asians. But there’s no race of “light-skinned, blue eyed people”. No one (or virtually no one) talks about such a race. Perhaps, hypothetically, someone could come up with a set of superficial characteristics that actually do _mostly_ match biological and genetic ancestry and call it a race. _But no one does that_. That’s not “race” as it is discussed on this board and in this world. Race in this world is almost always black, white, and a few other categories (depending on how it’s grouped – sometimes a big generic “Asian”, sometimes East and South Asian, occasionally Australasian, Melanesian, and Pacific Islander, or others). And _none of these groupings are primarily based on biology or genetics_. Not a single one that’s commonly used in any way. Maybe some of those later and lesser used categorizations have a bit more biological/genetic validity than the others, but they’re still mostly based on superficial characterizations and historical happenstance. White and black are even worse – much, much worse. > [@](#): > > So there are two places you could go with that information while preserving race as a biological concept. One is to say that there has been insufficient attention paid to the existence of a number of different races within Sub-Saharan Africa, that are wrongly lumped together based on very superficial similarities (I was born in East Africa, for instance, and I can clearly see the difference between the phenotypic features of people there compared to the West African types that are more typically found in the U.S.). > > The other is simply to say that there is a central and diverse human gene pool originating from Africa, which is in fact too diverse to be called a single race. But at the same time, there are groups who evolved from small, intrepid bands of explorers which are in fact biologically valid races. And the assertion then would not be “blacks are genetically inferior in IQ”, but “Caucasians and East Asians are races which developed a much less diverse gene pool than the main African originating gene pool, and in these less diverse pools there is a higher proclivity for high IQs.” IOW, sub-Saharan Africans have “normal” or “average” IQs, and Caucasians (especially Ashkenazi Jews) and East Asians have abnormally high IQs as a group. Do you buy that at all? I don’t buy any of that without actual genetic evidence – the genes for high and low intelligence, and how prevalent they actually are in various groups. I just find it beyond credibility that it just so happens that the two groups in the US that perform the worst statistically are the two groups treated the worst _by far_ through our history. There’s nothing special about outcomes _now_. Average African American IQs at various very recent points roughly match average IQ test scores in Ireland from the early/mid-20th century or so. Ireland has since greatly improved. Are we supposed to believe that Irish genetics for intelligence have improved greatly, and current African American genetics for intelligence are the same as past Irish genetics, but not present Irish? Or are these statistics based on far, far more than genes? Considering all the complexities of human history, in which nearly every group was at one point “on top” or “on bottom” of a social hierarchy in various regions at various times, it seems far more likely that these results are due to the myriad of social, political, and even geographical circumstances of that time and place. No racial group is truly isolated – if there really were significant advantages for intellect in one group, wouldn’t these have rapidly spread to others? Did the sub-Saharan “black” Kushites/Nubians conquer and rule Egypt for a century because of superior genetics, or the happenstance of having better military and organizational technology at the time? > [@](#): > > I don’t think they are. What if Sam had said “eye color is primarily a biological phenomenon”? Is that in conflict with the fact that two people can have different eye colors yet have tons of other genetic characteristics in common, or conversely have the same eye color yet have a fair amount be different otherwise genetically? Sam’s saying race is primarily biological does not mean he’s saying that people of different races are as different as toads and whales (who nonetheless do have much of their genome in common). It’s just false, for all of the above reasons (and the reasons Dawkins mentioned), to say “primarily biological” for race. They’re based on the whims and convenience of racists. Some very small amount of those justifications (primarily skin color) have some genetic component, but the vast majority do not, especially for the most commonly used racial groupings. “White” and “black” are close to zero in terms of biological validity as categorizations. > [@](#): > > Dawkins says specifically that _race has taxonomic validity_, bottom line. He specifically says “very small fraction” in terms of between-race vs within-race, for genetic commonality. That’s directly contradictory to “primarily biological”. Dawkins is saying, quite clearly, that race is primarily _not_ biological, even if there is some “very small fraction” of biological validity. You don’t have to give the extra-special benefit of the doubt to Harris. He doesn’t need your help. He can be wrong, and he is wrong, in this specific instance. ---
**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 24, 2017, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/60 "2017-04-24T00:37:03Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > It looks like there’s already a forum dedicated to discussing the actual content of that and other podcasts. Great, please link me. BTW, I note that you apparently have no answer for how it differs from starting a thread about a movie. I also note the absurdity of kaysplaining the board to someone who has been here more than 14 years and 6,000 posts (which doesn’t include my days on the AOL SDMB, or at AFCA, starting in the 1990s). :rolleyes: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=4)