Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame)

The BBQ Pit
1801

And that would be racist.

Yes, I know this, as it is a message board. If you somehow think that that reply is somehow contradictory, it is on you to show how, not just make some sort of snide implication. If you actually thought about it, and tried to point out how that is inconsistent, then you might even be able to figure it out on your own, all by yourself.

Let me know if you need help.

Meh, thanks spellcheck/autocorrect.

Just out of curiosity, is your use of HTH meaning of “Happy to help.”, or “Heil to Hitler”, it is hard to tell in that context.

1802

Are you checking all these people from Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, India, and East Asia also to make sure that they are not bringing with them any “retrograde religious beliefs”, and denying them if so?

If not, then why not? If so, then why ban all Muslims, rather than just the ones with “retrograde religious beliefs”?

ETA: Maybe you are not aware of this, but to be a racist, you don’t have to be racist against all ethnicities that are not your own. Just picking one and being racist against it is more than enough to get you the title very legitimately.

Also, you have already admitted to being a “paternal racist” in this very thread.

1803

—So you think “Muslim” is an ethnicity? Srsly?

—I don’t deny calling myself a paternalistic racist in this thread. But that goes with favoring reparations for slavery, increased funding for black school children, mandatory body cameras for police that cannot be turned off, etc. And my objection was not a Trumpian “I’m the least racist person in the world” but rather to rebut a claim that I favor an “ethnostate”.

—It would be a waste of resources to investigate the religious background of people from most parts of the world. But if they were from predominantly Muslim countries, I would want to see evidence they were freethinkers fleeing persecution or at least moderates with a demonstrated track record of fighting against conservative Islamic cultural oppression. In either case, I would welcome them. If they had never done anything to oppose the Muslim status quo but are now saying they are moderates? That is weak tea, and I am not interested. (Maybe if they passed a test in which they were interviewed by ex-Muslim atheists, feminists, or flamboyant gays.)

Certainly any family in which women and girls are wearing the hijab or being otherwise treated as second class is a hard pass (although it is tempting to take the women and their daughters to a separate room and ask them if they would be interested in seeking asylum without their male relatives).

—I never use autocorrect. And frankly, hiding behind that, as if you can’t see what is written, is a weasel move. Your specialty!

1804

…you are a disgusting excuse for a human being. Filth. As far as I’m concerned this is hate-speech. I certainly hope that this statement accelerates your exit from these boards.

1805

Welcoming Muslims, like America has done (in general) for many, many decades, makes communities like Dearborn, MI – generally progressive communities and people that are more welcoming of progressive values like LGBTQ rights than evangelical Christians. Because immigrants generally want to be a part of the community of the country they’re coming to, and only retreat into ethnic enclaves and ghettoes when there is no other choice. So welcome them and they assimilate, for the most part.

Be like SlackerInc, on the other hand, and advocate for discrimination based on religion or national origin, and end up with bitterness, less assimilation, more grievance (and more legitimate grievance), and bad things for everyone.

1806

Why does a critique of a religion, which in essence is an ideology with food restrictions and funny hats, trigger you more than a critique of a political point of view?

1807

…welcoming “immigrants from virtually any other part of the world, **as long as they are not Muslim”, **is not a fucking critique you ignorant piece of shit.

1808

…ok

1809

You’re living in the wrong country. Unfortunately for you we have a constitution that prohibits that sort of shittery. If you really want to persecute a religious group, could I suggest going to live in Nazi Germany?

(Unfortunately for you, they also took a dim view of the intellectually disabled)

1810

We are 37 pages in. I listened to the whole podcast.

Am I still the only one besides the OP who did it?

1811

Probably.

This has worked out semi-okay in the U.S. In terms of terrorism, there have been some notable exceptions, but not a huge number. More concerning to me is that I live near many Muslims here in Minnesota, including the ones on the other side of the wall from my apartment right now—and the men wear the same clothing as everyone else in my community, but the women go around in “Handmaid’s Tale” attire. What’s up with that? It’s not like the men are wearing robes or caftans. I call bullshit on that, even if it’s not anything aggressively aimed at non-Muslims.

In the rest of the West, it has not remotely worked out the way Andy and others paint this rosy picture of.

Because BB and others are conflating religion and ethnicity. As if Libyans, Bangladeshis, Persians, Bosnians and Pakistanis are all the same ethnic group. Or for that matter, as if Pakistanis and Indians are not basically the same ethnic group.

BB also conveniently neglected to quote the part where I said people from the Muslim world who rejected the religion or at least its conservative tenets were welcome here as far as I am concerned. :dubious:

Given all these carefully delineated caveats, the fact that people like BB, ostensible progressives, go apoplectic with rage against me is mind-bogglingly irrational and even Orwellian.

1812

…no I fucking well am not you fucking moron.

I quoted exactly what you said you stupid shit. There were no caveats in the sentence you quoted, in fact:

There were no caveats in the entirety of that post.

What was in that post though was “FTR.” Which I’m going to assume means “For The Record.” Its entirely reasonable to ignore everything else you have written because as far as you are concerned this is your official position on the matter.

You can’t weasel out of this one.

1813

Here’s what I wrote about my initial impressions in another thread:

“
Well it seems obvious that different populations with vast genetic disimilarities may evolve the same trait. Bats have wings, butterflies have wings. They are not closely related. I am an hour into the podcast right now, and the podcast is focusing on race and IQ.

The claims Murray is making are;

  1. iQ is valid
  2. blacks score a full standard deviation below whites, and Asians 3 points higher
  3. They have normed these scores against so many criteria that they really can’t be argued
  4. to account for these differences in a way that is environmental rather than genetic you need to show that blacks on average suffer from a 1.5 standard deviation disadvantage versus whites on average in America in terms of environment (which includes nutrition, which is important because it is often not included in environmental criteria in similar studies)
  5. Groups don’t define individuals
  6. Intelligence doesn’t equal value
  7. A bunch of stuff about bell curves that is true pertaining to variance within groups being greater than variance between individuals within groups
  8. He has been unfairly prosecuted for presenting simple fact.

My reactions:

A. The math between #2and #4 do not actually add up. This is such a basic and fundamental blunder that I would guess there is a subtlety here that did not get explained in the podcast such as that it takes a 1.5x times difference in environment to equate to a 1x difference in standard deviation of intelligence, but is somewhere covered in the book. This however is a big blunder and a big explanatory gap and you just can’t throw it out there as if it isn’t, and ignore it in a discussion. A careful person making a careful argument should know to address it.

B. #4 is presented as if it is a huge number that could not possibly be real, and therefore trying to explain this difference away environmentally is a similar improbably large stretchstretch. However, when I look at it and translate it, what this actually comes out to is this: to explain the measure difference in IQ between blacks and whites in America as measured by Murray (I make no warranty on the validity of his statistics) one would need to say that the environmental disadvantage suffered by blacks is 21%. Or in other words, the average black kid is raised in an environment which is 21% worse than the average white kid.

Again, I make no warranty as to the quality of the statistics being put out by Murray, I am simply accepting them at face value as if they are true so that I am looking at Murray’s arguments in their own terms. My gut reaction is that I do not see 21% as being the stretch that Murray seems to think it is. In fact, if I were just to take a WAG at the systemic environmental inequality between blacks and whites in America based on socioeconomic factors I would say 20% and feel that I was being especially conservative (I, always conservative in WAGs,) I would guess the real number is higher. This seems like he is refuting his argument in his own terms. Feel free to place whatever number you want in here to decide if you think Murray is making a good argument.

C. In his insistence that he was norming properly he raised several factors as evidence to suggest that he did so comprehensively. He did not norm against several issues that I mentioned in a previous post, which are quite obvious, imo, and has also failed to mention several others that I did not mention simply because they were complex and not easy to describe in a sentence or two but that any idiot who spends any time fucking around with statistics should be aware of.

D. My expectation and prejudice going into this podcast was that the reaction against it was going to be a histrionic moral panic over something that is actually not controversial, and is rather mild.

This expectation and prejudice appears to be incorrect.

E. Sam Harriss does not appear to know enough about this subject to be aware of what is going on, and should probably stick to philosophy. This is the most charitable possible interpretation that I could extend him.”

I may need to change some of this. I did a little research trying to see what the current state of thought was concerning the differences in IQ (if any) between the races. I couldn’t find much that was current (or didn’t know where to look.). This might be because IQ is supposed to measure how smart you are intrinsically. Looking for racial differences in IQ may be an area of research that produces career suicide.
But lots of people are interested in racial differences in SAT scores. This is supposed to measure how ready you are for college. Nobody is saying it says how intrinsically smart you are.

So here’s a link from the journal of black education on the subject:

Here’s an opinion piece from the Washington Post:

These talk about a gap in SAT scores roughly equivalent to the same gap in IQ scores described in the podcast.

This presents an interesting problem: let’s say you have two tests. One test supposedly measure how much gas a gas tank can hold (analagous to IQ.). Another test measures how much gas is actually in a given tank (SAT.)

Now imagine if every time you run this test, both tests always give you the same answer. It doesn’t matter If some tanks have just been filled up and if some are in cars that have been driven a while since being filled. You still get the same answer for both tests.

This suggests you have a problem with one of the tests, and it’s not measuring what you want it to.

(Yes. I’ve oversimplified the analogy. Please don’t point this out. I’m just giving the gist of the problem.)

1814

In my understanding, most of the rest of the west (i.e. Europe) has not been nearly as welcoming, culturally speaking, to Muslim immigrants. Which has resulted in far more ostracized populations and ghettoized communities to a significant degree.

What you advocate would make us less safe. Welcoming Muslims makes us more safe.

As for the women you speak of, what are their daughters and granddaughters wearing? In 20 years it won’t matter if the only ones who wear the full face covering outfit are the grandmothers and a few very newly arrived folks.

1815

BB, you can’t just exclude everything I write except for one post, because that post happened to contain the letters “FTR”. :rolleyes:

And yes, you have absolutely conflated religion and ethnicity. If you dispute that, then please explain the ethnic difference between Pakistani Muslims (whom I am very leery of) and Indian Hindus and Sikhs (whom I’m cool with).
Andy, your position is that the America of Donald Trump, Joe Arpaio, and the Moral Majority is more welcoming to Muslim immigrants than is the Scandinavia Bernie Sanders wants to emulate? Really? :dubious:

ETA: I hope you’re right about the cultural decay rate of these oppressive gender norms. It’s possible. But the history of the Amish, Mennonites, and Calvinists I referenced upthread is not encouraging in that regard.

1816

…this page is 37 pages long and has been going for over a year. I’m not going through the thread looking for “a disclaimer” when you have made it crystal clear and for the record exactly what your position is. What was the point of that particular post if not to tell us something you “have perhaps not said?”

I fucking well have not.

What the fuck is this shit? This is what I said:

Where exactly did I conflate “religion and ethnicity?” Please be fucking specific. Your question has fuck-all to do with anything I’ve said. You are just trying to defend the strawman you’ve set up.

1817

You’re surprised that people get upset at your desire to persecute certain religious groups? You are aware that, historically speaking, the persecution of religious groups has not ended well, right?

You were surprised that people were upset when you confessed you were a racist. You were surprised that people were upset when you confessed that you want to persecute Muslims. Maybe you shouldn’t be surprised when people get upset about whatever shitty little personality deviancy you reveal next.

1818

EE, that was a much better effort. Your tired jibes about my supposed intellectual disability miss the mark badly and quite obviously to any slightly unbiased observer. But “shitty little personality deviancy” is new and fresh, and cleverly supported with cherrypicked and slanted, but not patently untrue, references to things I have actually said. Well done, I’m proud of you for bouncing back.

1819

Suicide-killing is many things, but “wimpish” is not one of them.

What, you think they’d have been more courageous if they did their killing from the other side of the globe using drones? Now that really is the killing method of wimps.

1820

^This.