# 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:** 57
**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 13, 2018, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1121 "2018-04-13T16:10:41Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > But don’t you appreciate the inconsistency there? > So meeting “several” smart south Asians is significant in your view, even if it’s a selected group, yet if I point out n smart Africans they can be trivially handwaved. I will rephrase. I have met many South Asians. One of my significant long term relationships was with one such. All the South Asians I have ever met were at least fairly intelligent; several of them were VERY intelligent. I cannot aver the same proportions among sub-Saharan Africans, either in the U.S. or in Kenya. But I have known some who were quite intelligent, although unlike with South Asians (and Caucasians, and East Asians), none were among the top tier of the most intelligent people I’ve met. (I do cringe at saying this, which is why I would have preferred not to be drawn out to such specificity.) > [@Mijin](#): > > The second thing is, actually the bell curve is not so trivial if your hypothesis were correct. You are suggesting the existence of an intelligence trait which either evolved in Africa and then disproportionately left, or evolved outside of Africa (you’re not consistent on which). > Well, if that’s true, what I would _not_ expect to see is the same kind of distribution of intelligence, just left-shifted a tinge. I would expect that trait to be rare to nonexistent across most populations in Africa, so whatever abilities this trait is supposed to imbue, even if it’s just being good at IQ tests, should just not occur in Africa. > > If you disagree with this logic, what exactly does your hypothesis predict? I think it’s probably some of both (a self-selected group that was then further acted on by selection pressures). But I certainly never said this was an exodus of all the smart people in Africa. That would be absurd. Let’s try a rough analogy. Let’s say there was a generational insterstellar ship that set out to colonize a distant planet in another solar system. It is populated with a disproportionate number of the smartest people you’ll currently find in places like Cambridge and Palo Alto, but certainly not all or even most such people. If, in a few thousand years, they develop FTL and come back to visit the U.S., will they not find anyone at Harvard or Stanford who is smarter than most of the population on the colony? But that doesn’t preclude the colonists being smarter, on average, than Americans, on average. (We’ll set aside for the purposes of the thought experiment the high likelihood that by then there will be manipulation of human intelligence, via genetic engineering, cybernetic implants, etc.) ---
**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 13, 2018, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1122 "2018-04-13T16:24:42Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Ah, the classic “Some of my best friends are \_\_\_\_\_\_\_” defense. :rolleyes: Because they have the incorrect impression that racism is always based on malice and hatred. It’s very obviously not. Most of the racist and bigoted policies and practices in US history had no need of malice or hatred to be executed. ---
**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 13, 2018, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1123 "2018-04-13T16:27:03Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > But I have known some who were quite intelligent, although unlike with South Asians (and Caucasians, and East Asians), none were among the top tier of the most intelligent people I’ve met. (I do cringe at saying this, which is why I would have preferred not to be drawn out to such specificity.) That you can say this with a straight (or even cringey) face should tell you something. Chiefly that your own biases are likely to influence who you evaluate as “…the most intelligent people [you]'ve met”. I see no reason to believe your evaluation of the intelligence of individuals is any more accurate then your (very poor) understanding of human evolution and migration. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1124 "2018-04-13T16:28:48Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I will rephrase. I have met many South Asians. One of my significant long term relationships was with one such. All the South Asians I have ever met were at least fairly intelligent; several of them were VERY intelligent. I cannot aver the same proportions among sub-Saharan Africans, either in the U.S. or in Kenya. But I have known some who were quite intelligent, although unlike with South Asians (and Caucasians, and East Asians), none were among the top tier of the most intelligent people I’ve met. (I do cringe at saying this, which is why I would have preferred not to be drawn out to such specificity.) > > I think it’s probably some of both (a self-selected group that was then further acted on by selection pressures). But I certainly never said this was an exodus of all the smart people in Africa. That would be absurd. > > Let’s try a rough analogy. Let’s say there was a generational insterstellar ship that set out to colonize a distant planet in another solar system. It is populated with a disproportionate number of the smartest people you’ll currently find in places like Cambridge and Palo Alto, but certainly not all or even most such people. If, in a few thousand years, they develop FTL and come back to visit the U.S., will they not find anyone at Harvard or Stanford who is smarter than most of the population on the colony? But that doesn’t preclude the colonists being smarter, on average, than Americans, on average. (We’ll set aside for the purposes of the thought experiment the high likelihood that by then there will be manipulation of human intelligence, via genetic engineering, cybernetic implants, etc.) You once again are ignoring the tendency for regression to the mean, and you are still basing our argument on something that isn’t demonstrated at all (that due to genetics Europeans are smarter than the world on average). And you are ignoring the reality that your cites like the Iceman are pretty genetically distant from present day mid europeans. It is all just confirmation bias and no real data. Here is a Chart that will show these migrations in yet another form in an attempt to explain why the iceman is most closely related to modern day Sardinians, and not the Cro-Mags [![](https://storage.googleapis.com/plos-corpus-prod/10.1371/journal.pgen.1004353/1/pgen.1004353.g004.PNG_L?X-Goog-Algorithm=GOOG4-RSA-SHA256&X-Goog-Credential=wombat-sa%40plos-prod.iam.gserviceaccount.com%2F20240527%2Fauto%2Fstorage%2Fgoog4_request&X-Goog-Date=20240527T193300Z&X-Goog-Expires=86400&X-Goog-SignedHeaders=host&X-Goog-Signature=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) ](https://storage.googleapis.com/plos-corpus-prod/10.1371/journal.pgen.1004353/1/pgen.1004353.g004.PNG_L?X-Goog-Algorithm=GOOG4-RSA-SHA256&X-Goog-Credential=wombat-sa%40plos-prod.iam.gserviceaccount.com%2F20240527%2Fauto%2Fstorage%2Fgoog4_request&X-Goog-Date=20240527T193300Z&X-Goog-Expires=86400&X-Goog-SignedHeaders=host&X-Goog-Signature=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) ---
**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 13, 2018, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1125 "2018-04-13T16:29:23Z")
Rat avatar, your verbiage is still difficult to parse. But from what I could discern out of your post, I want to point out that I have not discounted the intellectual superiority of other groups who descend from successful exodus lineages, including the Near East, East Asia, South Asia, and perhaps Australia and the New World as well. Some nearly indisputable facts: —Cave painting started much earlier outside of Africa than within it. —Virtually all modern technology was developed outside of sub-Saharan Africa rather than within it. —IQ scores for those descended from populations outside of sub-Saharan Africa are significantly higher than the scores for those descended from sub-Saharan African populations. This includes places that, like Africa, were colonized by the West until the mid-20th century. —No black mathematician has ever won the Fields Medal, not even in recent decades when the cultural pressure to at least name one as a token has become great. A non-genetic explanation for all this is possible. But it does not spring from “scientific parsimony”. Nor does it make a sensible “prior” or “null hypothesis” unless you are starting with political correctness and working backward. ---
**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 13, 2018, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1126 "2018-04-13T16:47:06Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I must say, you and GIGO are making me rethink my intention to post on Francophone sites to sharpen my French. It surely would be beneficial to me, but I am not sure I should subject them to the headache. > Whoa, you moved those goalposts so far, they’re in a different stadium! As pointed before, and you only pathetically had to complain about grammar, Murray is clearly also on the group of racists that David Reich\* pointed out. So, as you show everyone that you ignore logic and history, I have to say that it is better to have some problems with grammar than to be a wilful ignorant like you. - Of course, we warned many times before you about following the mollusk lead on telling us all that that opinion piece was a good one to shut up the critics of Murray and Sam, far from it. Reich does call guys like Murray **racists**. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1127 "2018-04-13T16:48:20Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Rat avatar, your verbiage is still difficult to parse. But from what I could discern out of your post, I want to point out that I have not discounted the intellectual superiority of other groups who descend from successful exodus lineages, including the Near East, East Asia, South Asia, and perhaps Australia and the New World as well. > > Some nearly indisputable facts: > > —Cave painting started much earlier outside of Africa than within it; > —Virtually all modern technology was developed outside of sub-Saharan Africa rather than within it; > —IQ scores for those descended from populations outside of sub-Saharan Africa are significantly higher than the scores for those descended from sub-Saharan African populations. > —No black mathematician has ever won the Fields Medal, not even in recent decades when the cultural pressure to at least name one as a token has become great. > > A non-genetic explanation for all this is possible. But it does not spring from “scientific parsimony”. Nor does it make a sensible “prior” or “null hypothesis” unless you are starting with political correctness and working backward. — The earliest **known** cave paintings happen to be outside of Africa, but this is most likely due to conditions that existed that preserved those specific examples and are **in no way** an indicator that those are the _first paintings_ or that it developed there. And the really old art is from Homo erectus, not us. It is special pleading to ignore the examples such as [San rock art - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_rock_art) — Virtually all modern technology is due to work outside of Europe until very recently. — IQ score are biased, and differences largely disappear when researchers control for social and economic factors. — Not too distant from when Ice Man was freezing in Europe; Algebra, such as the false position method and quadratic equations were being used in Ancient Egypt. — The genetic connections you keep making aren’t what you think they are, you have a general misunderstanding of the ancestry and migrations of Europe, or you are intentionally ignoring those topics to protect a belief in white supremacy, which may not be intentional but this post proves that you do think that other “races” are inferior. In other words you are ignoring the evidence in order to protect your beliefs, which just happens to be that Europeans are better, but you are viewing the evidence in a way to confirm this assumption. This is very different than trying to detect and catalog meaningful differences between populations. This in general is why _race_ is a problem but clines, subclades, clusters etc…are no problem within the scientific community. ---
**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 13, 2018, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1128 "2018-04-13T16:59:40Z")
Rat avatar: —Otzi was not “freezing”, as he had highly sophisticated technology to protect him against the cold (he died from an arrow wound). —Egypt is not part of sub-Saharan Africa. —Your dogma about IQ is just flat-out false. Social scientists still tend to cling to this belief, but it does not hold up to scientific scrutiny. See for instance this study of 11,000 twins: [https://www.nature.com/articles/mp200955.pdf](https://www.nature.com/articles/mp200955.pdf) ---
**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 13, 2018, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1129 "2018-04-13T17:06:36Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Rat avatar: > > —Otzi was not “freezing”, as he had highly sophisticated technology to protect him against the cold (he died from an arrow wound). > > —Egypt is not part of sub-Saharan Africa. > > —Your dogma about IQ is just flat-out false. Social scientists still tend to cling to this belief, but it does not hold up to scientific scrutiny. See for instance this study of 11,000 twins: [https://www.nature.com/articles/mp200955.pdf](https://www.nature.com/articles/mp200955.pdf) And after many rounds of it, **SlackerInc** just returns to the racist idea that racists are correct when assuming that there are significant genetic differences in intelligence among the “races”, **but that is not the same as researchers reporting about the inheritance of intelligence.** Yep, wilful ignorance. ---
**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 13, 2018, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1130 "2018-04-13T17:09:58Z")
GIGO, I’m specifically rebutting rat avatar’s claim (which s/he has made repeatedly) that “IQ score are biased, and differences largely disappear when researchers control for social and economic factors.” Nothing specifically about race there. ---
**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 13, 2018, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1131 "2018-04-13T17:10:43Z")
There are no reasonable and comprehensive IQ test score studies with good data from multiple countries in Africa (and probably from most other undeveloped countries). Rushton and Lynn’s data was nonsense and IMO borderline fabrication – in at least one case, estimating the average IQ for an entire country from a single study of a handful of schoolchildren _from a different country altogether_. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1132 "2018-04-13T17:11:58Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And after many rounds of it, **SlackerInc** just returns to the racist idea that racists are correct when assuming that there are differences in intelligence among the “races” To be fair though, using your preferred conclusion as a predicate provides amazingly consistent and successful proofs. Self-reference is universally recognized as the best kind of reference among the scientifically-minded\*. - my post is my cite on that. ---
**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 13, 2018, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1133 "2018-04-13T17:12:47Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > GIGO, I’m specifically rebutting rat avatar’s claim (which s/he has made repeatedly) that “IQ score are biased, and differences largely disappear when researchers control for social and economic factors.” Nothing specifically about race there. I’m just saying, it is important to point that out because it is **also** still clear that you are incapable of realizing that Reich also referred to guys like Murray as racists. ---
**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 13, 2018, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1134 "2018-04-13T17:14:28Z")
More scientific parsimony from andy. Never mind all the points about where technology has developed, maybe there’s a hidden Wakanda that hasn’t been tested yet. :rolleyes: ---
**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 13, 2018, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1135 "2018-04-13T17:16:11Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I’m just saying, it is important to point that out because it is **also** still clear that you are incapable of realizing that Reich also referred to guys like Murray as racists. Yes, and…? I’ll call him a racist too, and not the benevolent kind I’d consider myself. I’ve said before that his motives are bad, but it would appear his data is valid. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1136 "2018-04-13T17:20:25Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Rat avatar: > > —Otzi was not “freezing”, as he had highly sophisticated technology to protect him against the cold (he died from an arrow wound). > > —Egypt is not part of sub-Saharan Africa. > > —Your dogma about IQ is just flat-out false. Social scientists still tend to cling to this belief, but it does not hold up to scientific scrutiny. See for instance this study of 11,000 twins: [https://www.nature.com/articles/mp200955.pdf](https://www.nature.com/articles/mp200955.pdf) From your Twins Study > [@](#): > > “The first genome-wide association study of g has been reported but it yielded inconclusive results, perhaps because the age of its sample was only 7 years” > > “Model-fitting analyses on each sample indicate that > genetic, shared and non-shared environmental influences > were significant in all samples” But the larger implication is that if it is multivariate, and that pronounced in twins, it will suffer a “regression to the mean” and will not survive an arbitrary scaling to a “race” like population. To try and phrase this differently, you cannot simply extrapolate differences that happen in individuals, especially when those effects differ in fraternal twins to large populations. It simply does not work that way, and you are just missing that fundamental difference between individuals and groups. Your entire claim of white superiority depends on a group level effect, and while you will still have the problem that the the driving force you claim isn’t matched by the actual lineage of the group you are trying to claim is superior you need to show group level effect. Your cite does nothing to disprove my point, but here is a population level cite. > [@](#): > > The average IQ score of black and interracial > children, adopted by advantaged white families, was > found to be 106. Early-adopted black and interracial > children performed at an even higher level. [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e6db/5244b970f5390cf2486c7e65f14b0b59967c.pdf](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e6db/5244b970f5390cf2486c7e65f14b0b59967c.pdf) Basically the factors that lead to an individual twin being smarter shows that it is not a simple or dominate trait, and that over time those edge cases, when they have children will tend towards the mean. And the main differences between an arbitrary, yet still un-defined grouping of “whites” and other groups scores is more about the environmental factors, and providing a twins study does not discount that fact. ---
**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 13, 2018, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1137 "2018-04-13T17:21:20Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > More scientific parsimony from andy. Never mind all the points about where technology has developed, maybe there’s a hidden Wakanda that hasn’t been tested yet. :rolleyes: The Haya from Tanzania invented carbon steel long before anyone in Europe, and at worst contemporary to its development in Asia: [http://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2005/05/ancestors-science-complex-iron-smelting-and-prehistoric-culture-tanzania](http://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2005/05/ancestors-science-complex-iron-smelting-and-prehistoric-culture-tanzania) Maybe you’re just highly ignorant of anything that conflicts with your preconceived notions and bigotries. ---
**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 13, 2018, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1138 "2018-04-13T17:31:00Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Yes, and…? I’ll call him a racist too, and not the benevolent kind I’d consider myself. I’ve said before that his motives are bad, but it would appear his data is valid. :rolleyes: Wilful ignorance from you again, in this case about the point being made overall, Murray and others are spectacularly wrong about the conclusions that he and others like him continue to get from the data. > [@David Reich](#): > > One of Mr. Wade’s key sources, for example, is the anthropologist Henry Harpending, who has asserted that people of sub-Saharan African ancestry have no propensity to work when they don’t have to because, he claims, they did not go through the type of natural selection for hard work in the last thousands of years that some Eurasians did. \*\*There is simply no scientific evidence to support this statement. \*\*Indeed, as 139 geneticists (including myself) pointed out in a letter to The New York Times about Mr. Wade’s book, **there is no genetic evidence to back up any of the racist stereotypes he promotes.** And the record in this thread shows that you can point to interventions that do help Hispanics, but continue to ignore that Murray and others declared that that would be unlikely, because of ‘magical genes’. So, ignorant and contradictory… please continue governor… ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1139 "2018-04-13T17:32:23Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > More scientific parsimony from andy. Never mind all the points about where technology has developed, maybe there’s a hidden Wakanda that hasn’t been tested yet. :rolleyes: So explain to me why the Inuits are not the a super-power today? Their clothing is far more high tech then the iceman’s, and they have been dealing with harsh climates much longer. Shouldn’t they be the smartest of all if your theory is correct? Also do you have any evidence that central and northern europeans were major sources of innovation before the romans arrived? I am pretty sure that most of the core fundamental portions of math etc… were from the middle east and it was only conditions that lead to the establishment of stable nation states, which had little do do with “smarts” that even allowed them to move forward. In fact the priests had to learn middle eastern languages to even study higher math until after the middle ages, you are closely related to those people from the middle ages, can you explain their relative incompetence compared to Asia? But this is where I am fighting Russell’s Teapot, you are making absurd, un-substantiated claims and I have to try to prove a negative which is impossible. As you have ducked every inconvenient reality and cite for multiple pages I’ll move on and let you sit in your white supremacist dream land. But stable agriculture and happenstance that lead to fairly stable nation states is pretty much what was responsive for what you are claiming and not some bullshit dream about some master race. ---
**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 13, 2018, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1140 "2018-04-13T17:34:15Z")
Rat avatar, let’s look at the whole paragraph you took that sentence from: > [@](#): > > Finding such a dramatic increase in genetic influence on g during the school years—which by early adulthood accounts for two-thirds of the total variance of g—has far-reaching implications for fields as diverse as molecular genetics, neuroscience and education. For molecular genetics, the developmental increase in heritability implies that it should be easier to identify genes responsible for genetic influence on g by studying adults rather than children. The first genome-wide association study of g has been reported but it yielded inconclusive results, perhaps because the age of its sample was only 7 years.59 More generally, multivariate genetic research indicates that g accounts for nearly all of the genetic variance on diverse cognitive abilities,60 which, taken together with evidence for its substantial heritability and its societal importance, suggests that g is a good target for molecular genetic research. Before I follow you on your shifting sands, can we pause for a moment and acknowledge that I debunked your claim that “IQ score are biased, and differences largely disappear when researchers control for social and economic factors” before moving on to a different one about populations? Do keep in mind though that if “regression to the mean” were as powerful as you claim, we would never have branched off from chimpanzees (or euyaryotes, or whatever). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=56) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=58)