# 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:** 67
**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 24, 2018, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1321 "2018-04-24T13:05:43Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I figured out who Rogan is talking about. Here’s a clip of one of her opponents being interviewed on cable news: > > [https://youtu.be/cR0hgmFdLw8](https://youtu.be/cR0hgmFdLw8) > > So cringey. She didn’t know she was fighting a transwoman, got knocked out in less than thirty seconds, understandably feels she was treated unfairly, but is incredibly nervous about articulating this because of the fear of the PC mob who went after Rogan. > > I find that appalling, but I do have to tip my hat to trans activists for punching way above their weight (no pun intended). If other groups from larger niches of society exerted proportionally similar leverage…wow. Let’s see what [an actual medical doctor said](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallon_Fox): Eric Vilain, the director of the Institute For Society And Genetics at UCLA, worked with the Association of Boxing Commissions when they wrote their policy on transgender athletes. He stated in Time magazine that “Male to female transsexuals have significantly less muscle strength and bone density, and higher fat mass, than males”[13] and was quoted as saying that, to be licensed, transgender female fighters must undergo complete “surgical anatomical changes …, including external genitalia and gonadectomy” (see sex reassignment surgery) and subsequently a minimum of two years of hormone replacement therapy, administered by a board certified specialist. In general concurrence with peer-reviewed scientific literature,[20] he states this to be “the current understanding of the minimum amount of time necessary to obviate male hormone gender related advantages in sports competition”. Vilain reviewed Fox’s medical records and said she has “clearly fulfilled all conditions.”[2] When asked if Fox could, nonetheless, be stronger than her competitors, Vilain replied that it was possible, but noted that “sports is made up of competitors who, by definition, have advantages for all kinds of genetics reasons” She has only 2 knockouts in her career. And she has lost by knockout. And she hasn’t fought since 2014. You really are a gullible idiot, aren’t you? But in your world I guess it’s the people who actually listen to educated medical opinion who are guilty of “PC”-ness. Hey, figured out that IQ question yet, Mr. High IQ? Clock is ticking. ---
**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, 2018, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1322 "2018-04-24T13:14:12Z")
And then there’s this section of the same Wikipedia article: > [@](#): > > Some recent research has indicated that even though some trans women have less muscle strength and bone density than cis men, both are still higher than in cis women prior to medical treatment.[9][10] ---
**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 24, 2018, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1323 "2018-04-24T14:33:39Z")
It figures that he has to run for the Transgender panic. It is clear that that OP conversation is not interesting anymore after people like Murray are identified by people like Reich as racist; or in an also clumsy attempt at defending Murray and Sam an example of an intervention was pointed out by the Slacker himself that actually made Murray and others look more as the idiot racists that they are when they insisted before that that Hispanics would be unlikely to ever improve. It figures than then, like a typical pseudo scientist, SlackerInc has to reach for the Godwin; not my problem if he decides to walk with people like that, they are people who embrace deplorable types of ignorance. > **[Copenhagen Climate Talks: Monckton "Hitler Youth" Video](https://www.desmog.com/2009/12/10/christopher-monckton-copenhagen-i-will-not-shake-hand-hitler-youth/)** > > It looks like Christopher Monckton, the head of the right-wing CFACT delegation at the Copenhagen climate talks, is unfamiliar with Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies. After calling a group of young people from Sustain US,  “hitler youth” and... > [@](#): > > It looks like Christopher Monckton, the head of the right-wing CFACT delegation at the Copenhagen climate talks, is unfamiliar with Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies. > > After calling a group of young people from Sustain US, “hitler youth” and “Nazis” at the Copenhagen climate summit yesterday, Christopher Monckton confronts the same youth today and says: > “I will not shake the hand of Hitler youth.” > > Making it even more unacceptable (if that’s even possible), the person who’s hand he refuses to shake, Ben Wessel, is Jewish. > > This is the same Christopher Monckton who once wrote in an article entitled, The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, that anyone with the disease should be quarantined for life. > > This is appalling bigotry and Monckton is completely and utterly out of line for labeling young people who represent our future such things. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1324 "2018-04-24T14:52:10Z")
Like I said upthread, I don’t think the OP is being lured into bigotry, I think he’s just casting about for the safest expressions of it. Start with “scientific” racism, now “scientific” transphobia. Probably to be followed by “scientific” sexism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism. All in the name of challenging PC hysteria, of course. ---
**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 24, 2018, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1325 "2018-04-24T15:00:08Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I’m not saying it’s right that some psycho can cut his dick off and compete as a woman (if that’s what happened). Sorry to stall the conversation for a moment but I have to correct myself: I misread **SlackerInc** ’s post and thought the fighter herself (Fallon Fox) had said something on the lines of “cutting her dick off to beat up women”. It was my error, and in fact there is no reason to label this woman a “psycho”. ---
**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 24, 2018, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1326 "2018-04-24T16:23:20Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > And then there’s this section of the same Wikipedia article: I gots to know: what do you think that quote is saying? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1327 "2018-04-24T19:08:07Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > And then there’s this section of the same Wikipedia article: Reread that quote: > [@](#): > > Some recent research has indicated that even though some trans women have less muscle strength and bone density than cis men, both are still higher than in cis women prior to medical treatment Huh, that’s weird how some of those words got so big. Not sure what just happened there. Anyway, let’s look at the footnotes: > [@](#): > > Low bone mass is prevalent in male-to-female transsexual persons before the start of cross-sex hormonal therapy and gonadectomy There it is again, some words growing real big? Let’s look again at the licensing requirements from that article: > [@](#): > > to be licensed, transgender female fighters must undergo complete “surgical anatomical changes …, including external genitalia and gonadectomy”…and subsequently a minimum of two years of hormone replacement therapy Dammit, why do these words keep growing so big? ---
**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, 2018, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1328 "2018-04-24T19:39:25Z")
And as you can see from the video, those therapies did a marvelous job giving her the slighter bone structure and musculature of a woman. Oh wait… Rogan maintains on the podcast that if you do estrogen therapy after puberty, it just protects the bone you already have. Now, I fully acknowledge that I don’t have the requisite biological knowledge to evaluate that assertion. But it sounds plausible, and common sense tells me that you cannot change an adult man’s bones to those of a woman and not cripple her, much less leave her in shape to fight professionally. Otherwise we are in the realm of TV science fiction. ---
**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 24, 2018, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1329 "2018-04-24T20:07:03Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Now, I fully acknowledge that I don’t have the requisite biological knowledge to evaluate that assertion. But it sounds plausible, and common sense tells me that you cannot change an adult man’s bones to those of a woman and not cripple her, much less leave her in shape to fight professionally. Otherwise we are in the realm of TV science fiction. Well, now I’m torn. Should I believe the world renowned medical expert who’s actually studied the issue … or should I believe the message board simpleton who can’t successfully comprehend a one sentence paragraph? I can’t decide! ---
**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 24, 2018, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1330 "2018-04-24T20:16:22Z")
Naah, man, you don’t get it. The doc \*has \*to say those things, because he has to appear “woke”, man. Fear of not being “woke” is just, like, the biggest fear there is, man. It makes people say all kinds of shit they secretly don’t believe. Believe the simpleton, man. He has no such fears, he tells it like it is. Even when he acknowledges he …no, wait … “fully acknowledges” he’s talking out of his puckered sphincter, he tells it. By D-K, he tells it over and over again. At least there’s no soap this time. ---
**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, 2018, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1331 "2018-04-24T20:16:35Z")
Or should we listen to the “evil economist” who was shown to have gotten it thoroughly wrong on matters of verifiable fact, but stubbornly continues to insist that just the opposite is true? :dubious: ---
**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 24, 2018, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1332 "2018-04-24T20:24:18Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Or should we listen to the “evil economist” who was shown to have gotten it thoroughly wrong on matters of verifiable fact, but stubbornly continues to insist that just the opposite is true? :dubious: Are you sure you trust your reading comprehension skills enough to make such a bold claim? ---
**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 24, 2018, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1333 "2018-04-24T20:26:18Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Or should we listen to the “evil economist” who was shown to have gotten it thoroughly wrong on matters of verifiable fact, but stubbornly continues to insist that just the opposite is true? :dubious: Was that in some other thread? One in your own head, maybe? ---
**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, 2018, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1334 "2018-04-24T20:26:21Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Naah, man, you don’t get it. The doc \*has \*to say those things, because he has to appear “woke”, man. Fear of not being “woke” is just, like, the biggest fear there is, man. It makes people say all kinds of shit they secretly don’t believe. Here’s another fun example of duplicitous rhetoric, this time preemptive mockery of an assertion, to put a discrediting taint upon it—when it is in fact largely true. You could do it with anything, of course. “Yeah, man: people are going to quake in their boots and hide because the census form has one little question on it about citizenship. This super scary question is gonna totally make all the big bad red states get bigger and badder, and the blue states smaller and sadder. It’s a conspiracy, maan!” ---
**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, 2018, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1335 "2018-04-24T20:28:16Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Here’s another fun example of duplicitous rhetoric, this time preemptive mockery of an assertion, to put a discrediting taint upon it—when it is in fact largely true. You could do it with anything, of course. “Yeah, man: people are going to quake in their boots and hide because the census form has one little question on it about citizenship. This super scary question is gonna totally make all the big bad red states get bigger and badder, and the blue states smaller and sadder. It’s a conspiracy, maan!” Being not woke is so dangerous, you might even be elected president! ---
**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 24, 2018, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1336 "2018-04-24T20:34:27Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Here’s another fun example of duplicitous rhetoric, this time preemptive mockery of an assertion, to put a discrediting taint upon it Aaaw, is little bitty **Slacker** jelly that I got there before he could? I bet he is. > [@](#): > > it is in fact largely true. Aah, you really are that dumb. OK. ---
**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, 2018, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1337 "2018-04-24T20:56:24Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Being not woke is so dangerous, you might even be elected president! You don’t even realize what a straw man this is, do you? ---
**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, 2018, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1338 "2018-04-24T23:13:58Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > You don’t even realize what a straw man this is, do you? Are you saying that I was implying that your position was that Trump suffered by not being woke? ---
**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, 2018, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1339 "2018-04-24T23:24:32Z")
Sorry, I shouldn’t take the mockery this far. It’s just that your posts are getting more and more ridiculous – from blaming random events on political correctness, to apparently misreading wikipedia, to hilariously declaring victory, to Godwining… to say nothing of the unrepentant white supremacism. ---
**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 25, 2018, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1340 "2018-04-25T00:09:22Z")
Dude, I was victorious, particularly on the funding thing. Don’t be a dirty gaslighter. The woke crowd (TWC: not trying to “make it happen”, just want a short initialism for a referent I will use repeatedly) loves to create this kind of excluded middle scenario. If you blanch at the extreme rhetoric that demonizes straight white cisgender men (SWCM), you must be a rabid “alt-right” fanatic who wants to bring back the 1950s, with women kept safely in the kitchen and blacks picking cotton. Or if that’s an exaggeration in some cases, you’re at the least a Republican who opposes equality and progress. An example comes to mind from a podcast I was listening to earlier today: KCRW’s “The Business”, which is about show business, Hollywood. They start each episode with “banter” about the latest news in “the biz”. Not gossip about stars, but stuff about movie studios’ bottom lines, corporate shakeups, efforts to redress inequality, etc. So there is apparently a longtime member of the Academy who released what sounds like his version of the “Google memo”, lambasting the woman currently running things for going too far with her diversity project. One accusation they mentioned was that she supposedly declared that they would not admit any more white men into the Academy. This is an astonishing claim and an extremely radical policy if true, but the journalists discussing his memo did not engage with that at all. They went on in the next breath to say he will likely get pushback from all the people who want to see the Academy become more diverse and inclusive. So, wait…it either has to continue to be a hidebound club of rich and reactionary old white men, or stop allowing white men to join at all?!? What about bringing in more women and minorities, making the ratio more diverse and reflective of the country, but still continuing to admit a few especially deserving white men? They do, after all, still represent a huge chunk of the population: in fact, there are more non-Hispanic white men in this country than there are black men, black women, Hispanic women, and Hispanic men, **combined.** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=66) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=68)