# 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:** 33
**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:** [June 19, 2017, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/641 "2017-06-19T00:00:36Z")
You vouched for both Vox pieces. Not certain specific points they made, but in toto. So I don’t understand how my detailed rebuttal could be irrelevant to your point in posting it. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/642 "2017-06-19T00:06:35Z")
> [@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. You’re doing the equivalent of some racist kid on Reddit asking someone to listen to a conversation between Hermann Göring and Josef Mengele. You’re going to get a lot of hateful responses, and few takers. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2017, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/643 "2017-06-19T00:08:34Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > You vouched for both Vox pieces. Not certain specific points they made, but in toto. So I don’t understand how my detailed rebuttal could be irrelevant to your point in posting it. While I appreciate you put some effort into responding to those links, IMO you didn’t put much effort into responding to my specific criticisms of Harris. I wish you had. And I’m not sure how linking to something counts as “vouching” for it. I mentioned the points that I thought it reinforced well, but that doesn’t mean I agree with every single one. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/644 "2017-06-19T00:12:59Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Bolding mine. Fucking _cosigned_. Murray belongs in the same category as Andrew Wakefield and Peter Duesburg - absolutely terrible pseudoscientists whose main, horribly flawed or dishonest work resulted in the world being a substantially worse place. The fact that he got attacked for going to a university should _not_ by any stretch of the imagination be an excuse to give them more exposure. It should be seen as a reason to ask, “what the fuck is wrong with this university?!” I would be kinder to Peter Duesberg than that. He’s a great scientist with one utterly deadly blind spot. Andrew Wakefield is a pure fraud, a criminal whose avarice drove his dishonesty. Murray is probably just another racist true believer trying hard to justify his worldview. He is the enemy, like it or not, whatever his intentions. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/645 "2017-06-19T00:27:35Z")
> [@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. Argument from authority, and authority in a fanboy’s eyes at that. Invalid. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > 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. Blue eyes are not an ethnic marker in the USA. Even if we treat grey and green eyes as “categories of blue,” lots of fair-complected persons have hazel or brown eyes. What is wrong with you? ---
**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:** [June 19, 2017, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/646 "2017-06-19T00:39:50Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > You’re doing the equivalent of some racist kid on Reddit asking someone to listen to a conversation between Hermann Göring and Josef Mengele. That’s not hyperbole at all. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/647 "2017-06-19T02:25:43Z")
It’s not. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/648 "2017-06-19T02:44:07Z")
You think you’re so generous to black people. Treat them like [Little Fuzzies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Fuzzy), don’t expect too much. That is a “soft bigotry of low expectations.” And it implies that they are apish, less than human. It is continuous with those in whose eyes half-breed Barack Obama must have been an idiot, because how could you know what you were doing with a half-monkey brain? Of course, once you’re convinced that this is true, that blacks are even below the poor degenerate Irish :p, then you create an opening for the next twit who comes along and says that white people don’t need black people, that we can improve the race and human happiness by eliminating them. You know and I know that that is utter nonsense. Of course sub-Saharan Africans have useful physical positive adaptations to hotter climates—climates like pretty much the majority of the USA. Any actual genetic “improvement of the race” is not to be found in “purity” but in interbreeding. But here’s how the racists will think: If even Ivy League-educated Barack Obama is necessarily an idiot like the guys down at the shop say, what kind of favor would I be doing my children to cut away half their humanity by breeding with a colored person? And Charles Murray is there to tell them that intelligence is the most important thing! Why take chances mating with an Africanized hybrid of _Homo sapiens?_ The more we listen to him, the more white people keep sticking to their own kind, and the more likely it is that uppity darkies in politics get shot down as above their station and abilities, or just shot. And sooner or later, because enough human beings are foolish enough to keep breeding above replacement rate, the blacks and the half-breeds will be the target of ethnic cleansing, in the name of improving the race, but really for _Lebensraum._ All for some nonsense about white superiority. I know white people; most of them are dumb. I get where you’re coming from. But really, this is in nature if not extremity as I said: A naive kid on the internet referring us to a racist’s talk with a racist. It’s not hyperbole. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/649 "2017-06-19T03:00:01Z")
Your attacks on **Snowboarder Bo** are ridiculous, considering your insistence that Hillary was electable (no) and Trump was obviously not (well…) and your brilliant plan of voting for Trump to get the nomination because he was sure to lose even against the most hated political family in America (not how general elections actually work). Bernie would have done better than Hillary simply by not being married to Mr NAFTA, you ridiculous fantasist. Compared to the virtual ream of paper you spent on tearing down the great populist hope, **Snowboarder Bo** ’s posts were actually—pretty inoffensive and pretty normal. You are straining at his gnats and swallowing your camels whole. Remember when the guy you voted for in the primary ended up hiring a Turkish agent for NSA, selling the State Department to oilmen and to Russia, and then criticizing someone over a dubious email server? Yeah, about that proportional difference in credibility. On a smaller and less important scale, mind. So, really, be glad I’m way on the other side of the state and I don’t come over there and [del]throw _you_ in a quarry[/del] kick your butt on general principle. Bernie could have won. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2017, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/650 "2017-06-19T03:37:37Z")
My god, the Bernheads never give it up. Just don’t go on a shooting spree like that Hodgkinson feller, k bud? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/651 "2017-06-19T03:47:52Z")
> [@mr.jp](#): > > I also think genetics plays a role in people from west africa being among the best sprinters, and people from Tibet being able to extract more oxygen from thin air, Bushmen being short, etc. Eh, maybe. The effects of environmental pressure _might_ be reflected in genes, sometimes. > [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > But the analysis of populations becomes less and less useful as you zoom out, and less and less useful as you classify arbitrarily. The black race is both zoomed out quite far and also quite arbitrarily defined (to the extent it is defined at all). There is no black clade. As for any negative correlation between dark skin and high intellect, I don’t see a genetic mechanism for it. It’s arguable that some very light-skinned people stay indoors out of the sun and read a little more? And bring up the average? Maybe? Eh… > [@SlackerInc](#): > > So yes, absolutely: let’s make sure all black kids get to go to schools with good facilities, with new textbooks, programs to provide them meals (not just at school, but food they can take home, like my wife does at her school for her disadvantaged students), even [laundry washing facilities](http://www.today.com/parents/schools-find-one-simple-answer-attendance-problem-washing-machines-t101318). But if parents and students are happy, yet test scores stay low, let’s leave it alone and stop accusing teachers of undermining their students due to racism because they fail to squeeze blood from a turnip. OK, this bit I can agree with. Now, who thinks the Department of Education is going to do what you say because of Charles Murray? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/652 "2017-06-19T03:49:59Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > My god, the Bernheads never give it up. Just don’t go on a shooting spree like that Hodgkinson feller, k bud? “Bernheads”? You mean progressives? Yeah, we don’t like being told to lie back and take it, especially not from some McCarthyite who helped Trump into the White House. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2017, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/653 "2017-06-19T03:55:19Z")
A point of agreement! Progress. [ETA: referring to the earlier post.] Let’s be real: the Dept. of Education isn’t going to do things I would want until 2021 at the earliest. But after that point, I will be lobbying for them to more away from the punitive NCLB models, as well as all the other initiatives that throw teachers unions under the bus. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/654 "2017-06-19T04:17:45Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Eh, maybe. The effects of environmental pressure _might_ be reflected in genes, sometimes. Always. To suggest otherwise is willful delusion. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/655 "2017-06-19T04:50:18Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I would be kinder to Peter Duesberg than that. He’s a great scientist with one utterly deadly blind spot. Emphasis on deadly. Say what you will about Wakefield, but his testimony hasn’t led to hundreds of thousands of deaths (yet). ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/656 "2017-06-19T05:50:47Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > I want a ubi, in part because I think modern society is increasingly rewarding people with greater aptitude in our capitalistic economy. So one of my near term solutions is not to try to make all groups equally likely to be physicists, it’s to redistribute to minimize the downsides of not winning the genetic lottery, regardless of race. As a consequence of this, since I think black people have a lower average iq, they will get a disproportionate benefit from this kind of intervention. Is that me saying fuck the blacks, it’s not societies fault so let people wallow in the gutter? I can agree with you on policy, this far. But it does sound like welfarism with “soft bigotry” again. Pay the negroes their welfare, but don’t tell them they can get too high. Also, we tried this before, you remember. Then Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich trashed it. I’m not sure that’s at all relevant; I just want to complain about Bill Clinton, really. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Yes, and I’ve repeatedly acknowledged that. It is my view that they should be seen as the default group of humans, where most of the variety in the genome lies, and groups like East Asians and Northern Europeans should be seen as the much less diverse, more homogenous subgroups whose individual characteristics include higher IQ. It’s not hard to imagine that a group intrepid enough to push that far away from home would be self-selected for intelligence, nor that they would face greater environmental pressures once they were far into the hinterlands. They would have been working with a narrower gene pool to start, though. That goes the other way. And then of course they presumably suffered malnutrition in environments far from the cradle of mankind. Even later, whites and Asians turned over the ages into less adventurous stay-at-homes, swamping the early “adventurous” advantage. And who says adventurers are even smarter than anyone else? Humph! > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > […] I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers. But there are a million possible explanations for why, on average, black students may be less likely to succeed. I’ve offered a handful in this thread already – others could include differing expectations by teachers (which isn’t a slam on teachers – teachers are victims of racism in society as well, and all of us, including teachers, are likely to have unconscious biases that we aren’t fully aware of),\*\* lower self-worth and beliefs in the possibility of success\*\* (demonstrated by studies that show that black children are more likely to choose the white doll as the “good doll” over the black doll, or similar) which could be caused by seeing subtle signs of white supremacism all over society; and \*\*lesser trust in authorities and traditional institutions, including educational institutions. \*\* There are many, many other possibilities. [bolding added] I would expect these are major, major influences. In my own life, I know what it is to have certain handicaps including poverty; not to quite fit in with the dominant culture; and eventually decide that one can’t make it in certain career paths geared toward a different, privileged, subculture. And I had people trying to tell me I was smart. Growing up being told, “You ain’t shit”? Easy to give up. I’m pretty sure white basketball prodigies do this too. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > That the non-biological category “black people” just so happens to align with some genetic grouping that includes a lower likelihood of genes for high intelligence is another possibility, but there’s no actual evidence in the form of what these genes are, and how prevalent they are in various populations – and **the Scarr study (which I linked to earlier in this thread) directly refutes this hypothesis by showing that black children with higher levels of African ancestry score exactly the same, on average, as black children with lower levels of African ancestry.** Which wipes Charles Murray’s thesis out. Thanks for playing! > [@SlackerInc](#): > > I would actually be fine with that, if the school reform activists would also wait and see. But they have already ddecided that it is axiomatic that the inner-city black kids with low test scores have just as much innate potential for the kind of aptitude measured in those tests as the white kids out in the suburbs have. They proceed from that axiom to the theorem that the test scores only differ because educators are “failing” these students. If they would stop making that unfair smear of dedicated and hardworking teachers and administrators, I would be more than happy to drop the whole thing. > > [snip] > > And there are un fact a lot of black teachers and administrators who do believe the “reformers” are insisting on an unreasonably high standard. These black educators are apparently guilty of that “soft bigotry of low expectations” themselves. :rolleyes: I don’t think this is about genetics so much as cultural difficulties. I could brainstorm the following hypotheses: [ul] [li] low performance arising possibly from racial alienation and low expectations,[/li][li] maybe poor nutrition,[/li][li] maybe lead poisoning in cheap substandard housing,[/li][li] parents with lower educational achievement of their own, deriving from\* their\* parents having to work longer hours.[/li][/ul]Genetics are an easy answer, but not really a necessary nor particularly likely one. I snipped this next bit out to respond to separately: > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Straw man. I made it clear that I believe in Gardner’s multiple intelligences, and that I consider it unfair that standardized tests zero in on certain ones that advantage white and Asian kids. I would consider a jazz legend like Art Blakey to be every bit as much of a genius as Stephen Hawking. Wow. At the risk of sounding like a tool, I think your blue eyes maybe aren’t so smart. Hawking was seen as impressive because he came up with stuff that only a few highly educated specialists claimed even to understand. As cool, clever, and highly skilled as Art Blakey was, I don’t think that “A Night in Tunisia” is at the same level of arcaneness. Meh, no, I’ll let that slide. I see your point. Hawking is Hawking not because he was intrinsically smarter than Art Blakey (or, say, GIGObuster), but because of the field he chose to focus on and the length of time that he did. The fact that both his parents went to Oxford and he was even born in Oxford probably made a difference as well. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/657 "2017-06-19T10:40:05Z")
Oh, forgot to add, I don’t really agree with the stuff about genetically engineering cleverer children. I think human gene variation doesn’t have that much to do with relative cognitive development anyway. And I have seen _Gattaca._ Bleh! > [@SlackerInc](#): > > I am right there with you, but this is going to be politically radioactive for some time before it creeps in through the back door of a gradually expanding notion of what qualifies as a genetic disease. Yeah, the problem is, I can see people deciding that being musical is a genetic disease. (Heh.) Where will the next Mingus or Blakey come from when the Puritans try to use CRISPR to abolish jazz? You forget, people are stupid hateful shits who downgrade the intelligence of the Other. > [@Ale](#): > > For example, according to Steven Pinker the average IQ of men and women is about the same, but among men the ends of the curve are over represented, which as he puts it it means more geniuses but also more dumbasses; however the way this would manifest itself would be that, rather than seeing a 50-50 ratio of men and women throughout fields were smarts are the ticket the ratio would begin to skew in favour of men at some point near the top of the scale (having been against before). Of course some people would pay more attention at that top of the chain and call bloody murder, but what about all the dumbasses balancing the equation at the bottom? Is it better, as a group, to have an even distribution of intelligence or to have extreme outliers? What I like about this is the implication that maybe this kind of curve is true for white people as well. So “white people” get Hawking, Kepler, Einstein, Feynman, and Newton, but also more extremely pudding-brained people. Of course this longer, flatter bell curve will be even stronger in blue eyed people, whereas black-eyed people will have a shorter, steeper bell curve, tending toward the median. _This of course would go some way to explain the remarkable career of Congressman Paul Ryan._ [/bad joke] > [@SlackerInc](#): > > This just shows that you don’t understand where I am coming from at all, which is pretty much the same as Sam Harris–and, from what I could tell on this podcast, Murray as well. I would never dispute that environment plays a huge role (here is where I’m a little bit at odds with Sam, in knocking that down to as low as 20% by saying genes play “50-80%” of the role in IQ). Wait, are you saying 50-80% or is Harris? That’s a really, shockingly out there number. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > For example, let’s take Yo Yo Ma. You think there’s a _cellist_ gene? What does that even mean? > [@SlackerInc](#): > > In short, Ockham’s razor cuts pretty sharply against that hypothesis. But sure, it’s _possible_. My particular axe to grind, as you must know by now, is the assumption behind massive amounts of federal funding and policy: that your hypothesis is not only possible but axiomatically true, and therefore that schools that don’t achieve 95% “proficiency” on standardized tests are, _ipso facto_, “failing” and must be reorganized or shut down. On the contrary, Ockham’s Razor says not to needlessly multiply entities. We know there are sociological effects of racism and social alienation. Those are sufficient to to explain test scores and prison populations. It is not _necessary_ to spin unsupported fantasies about how North American blacks are just dumb criminals. Unless you mean you want to use the Razor on history, go whole hog and say that the Anglo-Saxon planters were right all along and the enslaved were dumb brutes who had it coming; in which case we have to assert that the Irish were dumb brutes also had it coming. I’m not sure what policy should come out of that, but I’m guessing we would have to basically turn the entirety of at least one Midwestern city into slaves for their own good. Sound about right? No? Of course that’s ridiculous. Why would we assume that people who promulgated polygenism and normalized kidnapping persons for undercompensated labor really had some deep and true folk knowledge of racial potential? > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Right. Sam mentioned something along these lines: that just as a fact of probability, it would be astonishingly, vanishingly unlikely for different populations who evolved other characteristics differently, to maintain absolute parity on the distribution of the heritable components of IQ. “Absolute” is prejudicial. It serves a rhetorical purpose. It’s probably more like nearly perfect parity than absolute parity. Or just “parity.” Why is that any stranger than local human populations maintaining parity on the distribution of working thumbs, or range of hearing, or the ability to see the color green? Especially since the greater proportion of cognitive development happens in the experiences of a functioning, intact, conscious brain with sufficient stimulation and nutrition? Variation in cognitive ability is mostly due to non-genetic factors anyway, and if you think otherwise, just try neglecting a child of genius parents by mostly leaving him alone in the woods for a formative year or two. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’m not quite that libertarian. I believe we should put a thumb on the scale in terms of outcomes, especially for groups of people (like African Americans and Native Americans) who got so much taken away from them and their ancestors through force. But I want us to boost outcomes through direct means like cutting checks, providing nutritious food, etc. Not by insisting that teachers produce the same test results in Camden as other teachers produce in Morris County. Nor by insisting on some set percentage of high-IQ jobs (engineers, “quants”, etc.) be set aside for African Americans. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > So even if these kids are coming to school just having been affected by lead and low birth weight, even if those reasons are not at all genetic, it’s still not on the teachers to magically overcome this and get their aptitude up to 95% proficiency. OK, these paragraphs I think I can agree with. > [@Salvor](#): > > Did other complex traits do that like height? Do the Dinka people have the same height as pygmy people? And if not, is that more than likely based on different frequencies of alleles that contribute to height in addition to environmental factors? Oddly enough, I think differences in height between local populations are now thought to have more to do with things like diet and infectious disease than genes as such. > [@Salvor](#): > > I feel like I’m being too long winded here, but this is pretty basic stuff. Traits vary, and over time they can have clusters of higher or lower concentrations in different populations, even if there was no positive selection for a trait, just through random chance and separation you could easily get some population differences with enough time. Sure. What sub-populations see in the near infrared? Or lack the ability to cross their thumbs all the way across their palms? Or are all physically handicapped in some way? I mean “surely” variations could have developed, so we can assume they did! e\_e > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Chinese calligraphy is beautiful, but extremely inefficient with a steep learning curve. And the lack of past or future tenses makes it impoverished, kind of “telegraphic” or “Tarzan/Tonto” speech. (I honestly don’t see how you can express yourself carefully and precisely without not just basic past and future tenses, but others like pluperfect and future conditional.) > > English also is inefficient, with too many synonyms and ridiculously random spelling/phonics. But it does have the advantage of grammar that is not as complicated as the otherwise elegant Romance languages. > > Russian is good, with its clear, precise orthography and its elimination of unnecessary words like articles and the present tense of “to be”. But I’m not so sure declension is a great idea. [snip] Complains about Chinese \*lacking \*tenses, and Russian _having_ declensions. Then picks English over Spanish, which has relatively regular spelling, more tenses, and non-declining nouns. I can’t even. > [@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. You opened a Pit thread. You basically asked to be piled on. ---
**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:** [June 20, 2017, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/658 "2017-06-20T03:23:37Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > maybe lead poisoning in cheap substandard housing I tried to raise this repeatedly, but was met with dismissal, even snorts of derision. It appears, actually, that blacks may be more sensitive to the effects of lead. > [@foolsguinea](#): > > And I have seen _Gattaca._ Bleh! Great movie! > [@foolsguinea](#): > > It’s probably more like nearly perfect parity than absolute parity. Or just “parity.” Why is that any stranger than local human populations maintaining parity on the distribution of working thumbs, or range of hearing, or the ability to see the color green? The thumbs thing is silly. But do you have a cite for the claims of parity for range of hearing, and color perception? > [@foolsguinea](#): > > Variation in cognitive ability is mostly due to non-genetic factors anyway, and if you think otherwise, just try neglecting a child of genius parents by mostly leaving him alone in the woods for a formative year or two. This was addressed many times, including by Harris and Murray, who talked about even the best corn seeds doing poorly if planted in the desert. “Necessary but not sufficient” is the key concept here. > [@foolsguinea](#): > > Complains about Chinese \*lacking \*tenses, and Russian _having_ declensions. Then picks English over Spanish, which has relatively regular spelling, more tenses, and non-declining nouns. I can’t even. I did not pick English over Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/659 "2017-06-20T15:39:08Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > My god, the Bernheads never give it up. Just don’t go on a shooting spree like that Hodgkinson feller, k bud? Somewhat off topic, but I’ve noticed that Hillary supporters have pejorative names for Sanders and Trump supporters (Such as “Bernie Bros” and “Deplorables”) but I haven’t heard the term “Hillary Sister” or “Hillaryhead” thrown about by those on the Bernie wing of the party. We certainly have criticized Hillary, but we don’t insult people who voted for her. As a fellow Democrat, I politely request that you return the same courtesy. ---
**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:** [June 20, 2017, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/660 "2017-06-20T16:20:20Z")
Bernie himself is not a “fellow Democrat”. That aside, I remember seeing this kind of complaint a few times during the campaign, and it’s pretty hilarious. “Bernie bro” _is_ an insult applied from without, by Sanders critics. “Bernhead” is not. It comes from hard-core Bernie fans themselves, calling _themselves_ that. You know, like Deadheads? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=32) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=34)