# 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:** 71
**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 25, 2018, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1401 "2018-04-25T21:13:06Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > So many of them have a lot of intellectual deficits, and it takes intensive effort to get them closer to grade level. Interestingly, I feel the same way about 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 25, 2018, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1402 "2018-04-25T21:13:44Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Interestingly, I feel the same way about you. But he has a video of a piece of paper with a high test score on it! What more evidence of genius could you possibly want? ---
**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, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1403 "2018-04-25T21:16:10Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I presume you recognize the fact that, across the country (not per district), black kids get considerably less funding on a per capita basis than white kids, right? Could that fact be at least partially responsible for differences in achievement levels? It sure could, if true. But you need to demonstrate its truth before we just accept the premise. We’ve been kicking this around a while now, and I haven’t seen anything conclusive one way or another. (Anything that doesn’t include federal spending, preschool, and SpEd is bullshit; if it doesn’t include nutrition programs I can live with that.) ---
**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 25, 2018, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1404 "2018-04-25T21:16:43Z")
I want this to be the bottom post in this thread, because I think I really captured \*\*SlackerInc’s \*\*ignorance, and I don’t want it to get lost: * * * **SlackerInc** , you really are fucking stupid. For everyone who doesn’t care enough to read through **SlackerInc’s** vast wall of stupid to understand what he’s blathering on about, here’s a simple math example: [ul] [li]There’s a school with 99 white students and 1 black student, and it receives $10,000 in funding, which is equally distributed across the students.[/li][li]There’s a second school with 1 white student and 99 black students, and it receives $100 in funding, which is equally distributed across the students.[/li][/ul] Now obviously, black students receive less funding on the whole; a total of $199 in funding for 100 black students And, equally obviously, white students receive more funding on average: a total of $9,901 for 100 students. Now a person of normal intelligence would look at the above fact pattern and think to themselves “boy, black students sure get less funding!” But **SlackerInc** is not a person of normal intelligence, no matter what his mommy told him when he was growing up, so when he looks at the above facts he thinks to himself “if you look at only the mostly black school, both black students and white student receive $1 of funding, which is totally fair. And then if you look at only the mostly white school, both white students and black student receive $100 of funding, so that’s fair. So everything’s fair” If you understand why the above reasoning is wrong, then congratulations, you’re smarter than **SlackerInc**. To summarize, **SlackerInc** is fucking stupid. ---
**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 25, 2018, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1405 "2018-04-25T21:23:05Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It sure could, if true. But you need to demonstrate its truth before we just accept the premise. We’ve been kicking this around a while now, and I haven’t seen anything conclusive one way or another. (Anything that doesn’t include federal spending, preschool, and SpEd is bullshit; if it doesn’t include nutrition programs I can live with that.) If you’re not sure, then what are your conclusions based 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:** [April 25, 2018, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1406 "2018-04-25T21:26:09Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > If you’re not sure, then what are your conclusions based on? If I’m not sure about what? Which conclusions? Specific language, please. ---
**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 25, 2018, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1407 "2018-04-25T21:31:35Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > If I’m not sure about what? Which conclusions? Specific language, please. How about this one: “I want black schoolkids to get even more funding than they do now. So many of them have a lot of intellectual deficits, and it takes intensive effort to get them closer to grade level. The average white kid will be fine with less funding.” ‘even more’ implies that you think black schoolkids are already getting a lot of funding. What is your basis for this belief, if you’re not sure if they even get as much as white kids overall? Further, how can you blame genetics for test score disparities if you don’t even know if school funding is anywhere close to equal? ---
**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 25, 2018, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1408 "2018-04-25T21:35:28Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > If you’re not sure, then what are your conclusions based on? Does he keep dragging you back in? That’s fine; if I have to re-post my “SlackerInc is fucking stupid” end-of-thread summary, I may re-write it to include some of his other greatest hits, like the one where he triumphantly posted a sentence from Wikipedia…where his reading comprehension clearly failed him. And of course the time \*\*Kimtsu \*\*tried to explain a simple logical puzzle to him with an analogy about cows and dogs, leading \*\*SlackerInc \*\*to conclude that \*\*Kimtsu \*\*thought students were actual cows.And why did it take like three people, a cow analogy, and a mathematical example to explain a simple logic problem to a guy with a “high IQ”? And the time SlackerInc tried to prove that IQ mostly followed the maternal line, by posting a paper that only tested for maternal IQ correlation and didn’t test paternal IQ at all. …actually this might take a while, so have fun pounding your head against this particular low-IQ wall. Also if anyone has any suggestions for inclusion in the end of thread “\*\*SlackerInc \*\*is a moron” summary, please let me know ---
**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, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1409 "2018-04-25T21:51:25Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > How about this one: > > “I want black schoolkids to get even more funding than they do now. So many of them have a lot of intellectual deficits, and it takes intensive effort to get them closer to grade level. The average white kid will be fine with less funding.” > > ‘even more’ implies that you think black schoolkids are already getting a lot of funding. What is your basis for this belief, if you’re not sure if they even get as much as white kids overall? > > Further, how can you blame genetics for test score disparities if you don’t even know if school funding is anywhere close to equal? I’ll rephrase the “even more” sentence. “Even if black kids are currently getting more total funding than white kids in America’s public schools, I’d support their getting even more.” As for your “further” question, the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study is pretty persuasive, particularly given that its authors clearly were not keen to push a “racialist” agenda and in fact twisted themselves in knots (as Scarr later admitted) trying to give it a different spin. In that study, all the subjects were adopted by “advantaged white families”. The adoptees with two white biological had the highest IQs at age 7. Next, significantly lower, were those with one white and one black biological parent. Lowest of all were those with two black biological parents. ---
**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 25, 2018, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1410 "2018-04-25T21:59:58Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It sure could, if true. But you need to demonstrate its truth before we just accept the premise. We’ve been kicking this around a while now, and I haven’t seen anything conclusive one way or another. (Anything that doesn’t include federal spending, preschool, and SpEd is bullshit; if it doesn’t include nutrition programs I can live with that.) You actually do talk like a dumb climate change denier that tell us repeatedly that if we do not talk about the huge CO2 contributions from nature to the atmosphere that then what humans contribute to the atmosphere (that is not insignificant) should be ignored. That is a really stupid argument. The reality is that federal spending helps. But it is not correcting the inequities that are observed locally and at the state level. ---
**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 25, 2018, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1411 "2018-04-25T22:11:01Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > As for your “further” question, the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study is pretty persuasive, particularly given that its authors clearly were not keen to push a “racialist” agenda and in fact twisted themselves in knots (as Scarr later admitted) trying to give it a different spin. > > In that study, all the subjects were adopted by “advantaged white families”. The adoptees with two white biological had the highest IQs at age 7. Next, significantly lower, were those with one white and one black biological parent. Lowest of all were those with two black biological parents. **iiandyiiii** , have you seen the [follow-up study by Drew Thomas](http://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/5/1/1)? He concludes: most of the IQ disadvantage of Black adoptees disappears when one allows for attrition in the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, and acknowledges the results of other studies. Diagnosing these artifacts suggests a nil hypothesis: East Asian, White, and Black adoptees raised in the same environment would have similar IQs, hinting at a minimal role for genes in racial IQ differences. ---
**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 25, 2018, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1412 "2018-04-25T22:15:30Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > **iiandyiiii** , have you seen the [follow-up study by Drew Thomas](http://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/5/1/1)? He concludes: > > most of the IQ disadvantage of Black adoptees disappears when one allows for attrition in the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, and acknowledges the results of other studies. Diagnosing these artifacts suggests a nil hypothesis: East Asian, White, and Black adoptees raised in the same environment would have similar IQs, hinting at a minimal role for genes in racial IQ differences. Maybe a better quote from the same paper: Drawing together this paper’s re-analyses, I conclude that East Asian adoptees raised by Western Whites score about on par with non-adopted Western Whites, and that there is no consistent IQ difference between Black adoptees raised by Whites and White adoptees raised by Whites. Further, I estimate that East Asian adoptees tend to have IQs about equal to the relevant norms, and possibly a little below. This is what a nil hypothesis, and presumably a “culture-only model”, would predict, but it violates the hereditarian expectation of superior East Asian IQ And finally, To the extent that the nil hypothesis is true, genes are not so likely to be the main cause of racial IQ differences. ---
**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 25, 2018, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1413 "2018-04-25T22:21:19Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’ll rephrase the “even more” sentence. “Even if black kids are currently getting more total funding than white kids in America’s public schools, I’d support their getting even more.” > > As for your “further” question, the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study is pretty persuasive, particularly given that its authors clearly were not keen to push a “racialist” agenda and in fact twisted themselves in knots (as Scarr later admitted) trying to give it a different spin. > > In that study, all the subjects were adopted by “advantaged white families”. The adoptees with two white biological had the highest IQs at age 7. Next, significantly lower, were those with one white and one black biological parent. Lowest of all were those with two black biological parents. That doesn’t tell us anything at all about genetics, unless you’re positing that society doesn’t treat people differently based on race. Further, I’ve repeatedly referenced a Scarr study that you’ve continuously ignored that _directly tested_ the genetic hypothesis by looking at test scores and ancestry of black children, and it found that black children with greater levels of African ancestry scored no differently than black children with higher levels of non-African ancestry. That’s pretty much the only study that’s directly looked at ancestry and test scores, while controlling for societally-assigned race, that I can find, at least, and it directly refutes your hypothesis. ---
**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 25, 2018, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1414 "2018-04-25T22:23:56Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > **iiandyiiii** , have you seen the [follow-up study by Drew Thomas](http://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/5/1/1)? He concludes: > > most of the IQ disadvantage of Black adoptees disappears when one allows for attrition in the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, and acknowledges the results of other studies. Diagnosing these artifacts suggests a nil hypothesis: East Asian, White, and Black adoptees raised in the same environment would have similar IQs, hinting at a minimal role for genes in racial IQ differences. Also, if you’re interested, there was a [large 2018 study RE: test scores by ethnicity in Brazil](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.10544.pdf) (which is an interesting place to do ethnicity studies, I would think), which concluded: Overall, our analysis provides evidence that socio-economic variables play a major role in student’s performance in mathematics and writing examinations irrespectively of ethnic backgrounds and gives evidence that genetic factors may have little or no effect on group performance. ---
**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 25, 2018, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1415 "2018-04-25T22:25:45Z")
Thanks for those studies, **EE.** ---
**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, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1416 "2018-04-25T22:46:16Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The reality is that federal spending helps. But it is not correcting the inequities that are observed locally and at the state level. I don’t know about in your homeland, but here “The reality is…” does not count as evidence. Try again. ---
**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 25, 2018, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1417 "2018-04-25T23:25:51Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I don’t know about in your homeland, but here “The reality is…” does not count as evidence. Try again. Already posted in post #1384 You are not really trying are you? ---
**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 25, 2018, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1418 "2018-04-25T23:53:16Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I don’t know about in your homeland, but here “The reality is…” does not count as evidence. Try again. And I have to add: I consider my homeland as The United States of America. I became a citizen in 1996, my old country is El Salvador. ---
**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 26, 2018, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1419 "2018-04-26T02:09:12Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Already posted in post #1384 > > You are not really trying are you? I have never seen so much pot/kettle as in this thread. As I told you in post #1385, that does not count federal spending! So no, you have yet to address this. At all. Furthermore, the report cited there starts with the presumption that it costs 40% more to educate a poor child than an affluent one. So if an affluent child is getting (just to make an easy example) $1,000 in school resources, and the poor child is getting $1,300, this is counted as the poor child getting $100 less than the rich kid! When Mark Twain talked about “lies, damned lies, and statistics”, he really predicted that blatant massaging of data you see all too often in social science these days. ---
**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 26, 2018, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1420 "2018-04-26T02:23:45Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I have never seen so much pot/kettle as in this thread. > > As I told you in post #1385, that does not count federal spending! So no, you have yet to address this. At all. Nope, it is you again not reading the links. From the study cited: > [@](#): > > School districts that serve large populations of students of color and students from low-income families receive far less funding than those serving White and more affluent students. And despite widespread attention to inequitable school funding formulas — and courts that have declared them unlawful for shortchanging school districts serving large percentages of low-income students — too many states continue this unfair practice. > > School Funding by Students of Color > > In the U.S. today, school districts serving the largest populations of Black, Latino, or American Indian students receive roughly $1,800, or 13 percent, less per student in state and local funding than those serving the fewest students of color. This may seem like an insignificant amount, but it adds up. For a school district with 5,000 students, a gap of $1,800 per student means a shortage of $9 million per year. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Furthermore, the report cited there starts with the presumption that it costs 40% more to educate a poor child than an affluent one. So if an affluent child is getting (just to make an easy example) $1,000 in school resources, and the poor child is getting $1,300, this is counted as the poor child getting $100 less than the rich kid! When Mark Twain talked about “lies, damned lies, and statistics”, he really predicted that blatant massaging of data you see all too often in social science these days. Yeah, because it shows how shitty the Slacker statement was, it has to be wrong! /s Again, what they report too is: [https://1k9gl1yevnfp2lpq1dhrqe17-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/FundingGapReport\_2018\_FINAL.pdf](https://1k9gl1yevnfp2lpq1dhrqe17-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/FundingGapReport_2018_FINAL.pdf) > [@](#): > > To account for these additional needs, we repeated our analysis with the assumption: that it costs a district 40 percent more to educate a student in poverty than not in poverty. **This figure is based on the federal Title I formula** , and, in all likelihood, is an underestimate. **Research shows that it could cost twice as much, or more, to educate a student from a low-income background to the same standards as a student from a more affluent background.** > [@](#): > > In addition, federal funds make up a relatively small share of > public education funding. In 2013–2014, federal funds represented > 8.7 percent of revenues for public elementary and secondary > schools across the nation. See, National Center for Education > Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics (2016), “Table 235.10: > Revenues for public elementary and secondary schools, by source > of funds: Selected years, 1919–20 through 2013–14,” [https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16\_235.10.asp](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_235.10.asp) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=70) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=72)