# 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:** 44
**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 2, 2018, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/861 "2018-04-02T08:53:30Z")
How about that, Dibbsy—you’re not completely useless after all. Along with the usual boilerplate insults, you provided a link that was actually pretty interesting: > [@](#): > > The cause of these two bursts of technological innovation, closely spaced yet separated in time, remains an enigma, as does the reason for their disappearance. But, intriguingly, both fall within the genetic bottleneck that occurred 80 to 60 ka and the subsequent expansions of modern human populations within and out of Africa. I would love to hear more about their thoughts on the “intriguingly” part. That is indeed an interesting coincidence in timing. Still, while interesting, your source does not make the case you seem to think it does. The cave cited in the article is located in KwaZulu Natal province, about which [southafrica.com](http://southafrica.com) says: > [@](#): > > KwaZulu Natal is situated on the east coast of South Africa and its shores are lapped by the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. It enjoys a warm, coastal climate with plenty of sunshine, quite a lot of humidity and a fair amount of light rainfall. This means that the terrain is green and plentiful and visitors can look forward to plenty of great weather. KwaZulu Natal’s climate is generally quite warm and even the winters are mild. Much of this is owing to its subtropical latitude and its affiliation with the Indian Ocean. Not exactly similar to the weather challenges faced over a winter in Germany or Norway, particularly since your source also says this was a period of warming climate. But good for them! I never foreclosed the possibility of African ethnic groups that were cleverer than the rest, just the opposite in fact: > [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’ve said over and over that for me at least, this is not about some insistence that dark skin and high IQ are inherently mutually exclusive. And since sub-Saharan Africans with dark skin are so much more genetically diverse than are whites or East Asians, I don’t think they are comparable as a single group. It’s highly plausible to me that there are populations within that larger group that have just as much IQ advantage as whites or Asians, maybe more so. They just didn’t expand out over a whole continent and become extremely numerous while developing outward characteristics that make them stand out in a crowd. Do you need this explained in simpler language? Or did you understand it, yet chose to pretend I didn’t say anything like this, as a strawman tactic? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/862 "2018-04-02T10:31:58Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Still, while interesting, your source does not make the case you seem to think it does. The cave cited in the article is located in KwaZulu Natal province You can’t even fucking read the simplest link properly, can you? Howieson’s Poort \*itself \*is nowhere near fucking KZN province, you pathetically misgoogling simpleton. Sibudu cave is, but it’s \*not \*the type site, and if you’d actually followed any links to the various sites, you’d see the culture in question ranged over every climate type available in South Africa. Your pathetic attempt to restrict it to just the tropical parts is laughable. It’s _beyond_ amusing that you think you can school me on either the climate or the archaeology (which I’ve actually studied) of my own fucking country, though. Yes, show us some more of that superior Triple Nine-quality Nordic IQ, please do. What a fucking sad specimen of a human being you are. But at least you’re the paragon of an inhabitant of [Mount Stupid](https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2475), so you have that going for you… ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/863 "2018-04-02T10:58:02Z")
I just want to point out (to others, not **SlackInIQ** , it’s too late for him, the Dunning-Kruger has metastasized) the dangers of just using Google to inform yourself about anything you are otherwise ignorant about: the notion that because a _tourist site_ brags about KwazuluNatal’s mild weather, that means it never gets proper cold there. Because that would be [ignorant bullshit](https://www.sapeople.com/2016/07/25/snowy-south-africas-magical-winter-wonderland-pictures/). ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/864 "2018-04-02T11:52:20Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Do you need this explained in simpler language? Well, he _is_ black, after all (iirc) – though one of the ones smart enough not to get captured and sold into slavery. Good for those tool using south Africans, such smart boys and girls! Amiright? ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/865 "2018-04-02T13:15:52Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Now stop and think for a second. What if you’re wrong, and these kids really can’t reasonably score any higher than they do already? Yet the law and the “reform” movement refuses to recognize this fact. How dare they refuse to accept your hypothetical as a fact! Don’t they know how science works? ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/866 "2018-04-02T13:52:55Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > How dare they refuse to accept your hypothetical as a fact! Don’t they know how science works? Actually, the best part of Slackers posts are the “Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.” It makes him look like a tech genius compared to what he posts. ---
**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 2, 2018, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/867 "2018-04-02T14:51:04Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Now stop and think for a second. What if you’re wrong, and these kids really can’t reasonably score any higher than they do already? > [@VinylTurnip](#): > > How dare they refuse to accept your hypothetical as a fact! Don’t they know how science works? 🙂 Yep, and to be more serious, the \*\*Slacker \*\*just has the “hypothesis” that saying something so dumb will make others forget that even \*\*he \*\*pointed at interventions that showed what worked for Hispanic families (the best reason why a number of black students did not benefited as much can be explained by chronic hopelessness, bad choices and environments that comes also thanks to poverty and racism, and previous bad education for the parents. So, the Chicago intervention and what the millionaire did in Florida shows is that what has been happening elsewhere are interventions that are either misguided or grossly insufficient. As noted many times already, no reason there yet to blame misguided application of genetics to the problem. And it is the Slacker and their ilk the ones that are helping [baddies like the Nazis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU) to come out of the woodwork nowadays. (Yep, I did remember the David Mitchell sketch with no need from Google, just another example of how others have better memory and are less oblivious to realities such as the fascists also believing that other races were not intelligent enough) ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/868 "2018-04-02T14:55:10Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’ve said over and over that for me at least, this is not about some insistence that dark skin and high IQ are inherently mutually exclusive. And since sub-Saharan Africans with dark skin are so much more genetically diverse than are whites or East Asians, I don’t think they are comparable as a single group. It’s highly plausible to me that there are populations within that larger group that have just as much IQ advantage as whites or Asians, maybe more so. They just didn’t expand out over a whole continent and become extremely numerous while developing outward characteristics that make them stand out in a crowd. This is perfect because you can handwave any number of examples of intelligent black people while still claiming blacks are stupid. …although of course, the whole thing starts to creak if we show lots of examples of intelligent black people from various subpopulations in Africa. You could still try to claim the \*average \*is below whites, as is so many people’s want, and call any counter-examples _outliers_. But that’s not the same as your hypothesis, which surely cannot accept too many such examples. Are you ready to discard it? (or of course there’s the other issue, in the implication that everyone that left africa belongs to a smart lineage. What about the other “subhumans” (eskimos, aboriginal australians, native americans etc)?) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/869 "2018-04-02T15:04:59Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > Well, he _is_ black, after all (iirc) No, you don’t RC. AFAIK, I don’t have any recent (say, last 300 years) Bantu ancestry. More specifically, I’m a mix of mostly Asian and European, with the small amount of Khoisan most South African Whites seem to have. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/870 "2018-04-02T15:26:27Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Pfffft. Survival and successful navigation of sexual selection in an established population, living in a tropical climate, is far different from surviving and propagating in a new frontier, with unfamiliar flora and fauna, and SEASONS. You are forced to invent various kinds of engineering to survive a single cold winter. One can scarcely imagine the travails of those brave souls who left the comfortable climate of Africa to be challenged by the fierce winters of the Mediterranean. ---
**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 2, 2018, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/871 "2018-04-02T16:19:00Z")
If iiandyiii is still reading, he can vouch for the fact that my “weird ethnic beliefs” revolve around pride in my NORTHERN European heritage. > [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > Well, he _is_ black, after all (iirc) Ohhhh. Okay, shit: now I feel bad. Sorry, Mr. Dibble. I will stop jabbing you, and you can say whatever you like about me—I understand. > [@VinylTurnip](#): > > How dare they refuse to accept your hypothetical as a fact! Don’t they know how science works? Read it again: that “fact” reference is under the umbrella of the hypothetical. > [@Mijin](#): > > This is perfect because you can handwave any number of examples of intelligent black people while still claiming blacks are stupid. > > …although of course, the whole thing starts to creak if we show lots of examples of intelligent black people from various subpopulations in Africa. > You could still try to claim the \*average \*is below whites, as is so many people’s want, and call any counter-examples _outliers_. But that’s not the same as your hypothesis, which surely cannot accept too many such examples. Are you ready to discard it? > > (or of course there’s the other issue, in the implication that everyone that left africa belongs to a smart lineage. What about the other “subhumans” (eskimos, aboriginal australians, native americans etc)?) That last bit is really an all-out well-poisoning strawman that stinks to high heaven. Your previous question is reasonable, though. Yes, I am always ready to discard a belief in the face of new and better evidence, as I did with global free trade and a “race to the bottom”. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/872 "2018-04-02T17:04:40Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Ohhhh. Okay, shit: now I feel bad. Sorry, Mr. Dibble. I will stop jabbing you, and you can say whatever you like about me—I understand. I haven’t needed your permission to say what I like up to now, you imbecilic racist shitstain, so no need to do me any fucking favours based (once again) on you not getting all the facts before shooting off your stupid pig-rimming mouth. Sweet Hastur, your \*permission \*- I feel dirtier than the time you inserted your fantasies of soaped-up underage schoolgirl dick into a movie discussion. No, wait, I take it back. You’re not a shitstain, you’re the santorum stain that accidentally managed to impregnate your mom anyway. The little santorum stain that could… ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/873 "2018-04-02T17:11:07Z")
Take a deep breath. Breath out slowly. Okay Continue meltdown now. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/874 "2018-04-02T17:14:05Z")
Talking to anyone in particular, or just the peanut gallery? _waves to the peanuts_ ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/875 "2018-04-02T17:19:52Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No, you don’t RC. AFAIK, I don’t have any recent (say, last 300 years) Bantu ancestry. > > More specifically, I’m a mix of mostly Asian and European, with the small amount of Khoisan most South African Whites seem to have. Well, shit. I need to up my stalking game. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/876 "2018-04-02T17:36:05Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Finally, you concede the truth. Better late than never! 😉 > > Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk [Moderating] Editing someone else’s quote box to make it appear as if they have take a position they have not actually taken is against the rules. Please avoid this in the future. No warning issued. [/Moderating] ---
**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 2, 2018, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/877 "2018-04-02T19:02:21Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Read it again: that “fact” reference is under the umbrella of the hypothetical. I see that your problem is still the same: you are relying on the fact that there is a gap in performance and think that then it follows that the “solution” is that nothing will change that gap because: magical genes. Problem is that that is only one fact and the genetic conclusion or that genes should be considered to deal with the gap or that genes are the cause of it **is not a fact**. You dunderhead. Paraphrasing David Reich: It is important to face whatever evidence reveals without prejudging others and with the confidence that you can be mature enough to handle what others with more experience report (also about the warnings about who you are walking with). Arguing stupidly about “wining debates”, denying that a fact does not lead to the stupid solutions that Murray and their ilk proposed and your stupid one about just giving up and not expecting improvement will only invite the ones with more experience, examples and knowledge to tear you a new asshole and brand it racist, something that you should wish to avoid. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/878 "2018-04-02T19:18:57Z")
So, SlackerInc… what about Diamond’s _Guns, Germs and Steel_ struck you as “almost panicked” ? ---
**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 2, 2018, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/879 "2018-04-02T19:54:40Z")
I thought the wink made it abundantly clear I was joking. It’s been so many years since I read GG&T, I cannot offer specifics. It was just the impression I got: that this was the whole reason he wrote the book. GIGO, once again your fractured prose is hard to parse. Can you please confirm if you are ESL? If so, you are actually doing pretty well. If not… Anyway, it is not “only one fact”. A variety of tests over many years constitutes many facts. Then there’s the fact that other minority groups are more quickly closing the gap, or (in the case of Asians) surpassing whites. And of course there’s that U of Chicago/Harvard family intervention described in the Freakonomics podcast, that worked like gangbusters with white and Hispanic kids, but didn’t do jackshit for black kids—meaning that although it was hoped that it would help close the black-white test gap, it actually increased it! Want more? What about the $200 million philanthropic project to improve Newark schools? > **[Newark's $200 million education experiment: Who are the winners?](https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2015/0922/Newark-s-200-million-education-experiment-Who-are-the-winners)** > > In 2010, a power trio hatched a plan to save Newark's failing schools: then-Mayor Cory Booker, Gov. Chris Christie, and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg would team up to reorganize the district. Five years in, results are mixed. > [@](#): > > The numbers suggest that Newark has made some progress: between 2011 and 2012, the graduation rate has climbed, and Superintendent Christopher Cerf, who calls the donations “enormously productive and beneficial,” says that poorly-rated teachers are leaving the district. > Standardized test scores, though, are mixed: some up since 2010, some down. It is your side that is allergic to plain evidence, because you don’t like the implications. Which is understandable! Again, if “reformers” would stop attacking schools on this basis, I would be happy to stop even administering standardized tests to inner city students. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/880 "2018-04-02T20:04:10Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I thought the wink made it abundantly clear I was joking. That only works if the “joke” isn’t obviously self-serving. > [@](#): > > It’s been so many years since I read GG&T, I cannot offer specifics. It was just the impression I got: that this was the whole reason he wrote the book. Huh. So, your impression is based on nothing specific at all, then? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=43) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=45)