Support NeoGAF

[The Technomancer]

Oh christ 2:18 long? Fine

 

[HStallion]

I can see this thread going in the way of all the others where we throw out ad hominems in lieu of discussion.

If anyone who thinks this is wrong wants to listen to the podcast and fancies talking about it with someone who has an open mind, feel free to pm me, id be glad to have the discussion.

The point is its racist hogwash from a man who barely know's what he's talking about at times.

 

[cackhyena]

I can see this thread going in the way of all the others where we throw out ad hominems in lieu of discussion.

If anyone who thinks this is wrong wants to listen to the podcast and fancies talking about it with someone who has an open mind, feel free to pm me, id be glad to have the discussion.

Good idea. These threads are 9/10ths people who won't even listen to the thing. Shit show.

 

[HStallion]

Good idea. These threads are 9/10ths people who won't even listen to the thing. Shit show.

You're free to defend it here. You know a discussion is a two way street and I see you're biggest contribution is basically "listen to it". Bring up some points, defend your views. Don't just get dismissive because people are tired of hearing once more about the bell curve. Its not new, its not special, its just ugly.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

*grabs popcorn*

 

[excelsiorlef]

No. I listened to this episode. He flat out asks Murray why he even considers this worth looking into. There's nothing to gain from it.

So he had the guy on to talk about the thing he thinks has no value in talking about?

And in the process of interviewing the guy about the thing he thinks has no value he comes to state he believes it to be true....

And then while believing the in the thing he thinks has no value he defends the guy who wrote the thing that he believes has no value by saying those who disagree with the thing that he believes has no value but is none the less true are doing so to be PC....

Which is to say Sam Harris believes in the Bell curve but thinks there's nothing to be gained in talking about and proves it by having the guy on to talk about it, give his stamp of truth to it and then accuse anyone who disagrees of being PC....

Sure

 

[Angelus Errare]

I can see this thread going in the way of all the others where we throw out ad hominems in lieu of discussion.

If anyone who thinks this is wrong wants to listen to the podcast and fancies talking about it with someone who has an open mind, feel free to pm me, id be glad to have the discussion.

lol

 

[televator]

Back in vogue

 

[Muffin1611]

Good idea. These threads are 9/10ths people who won't even listen to the thing. Shit show.

Uh-huh. I'd like to see the context in which the quotes in the OP aren't completely racist.

I did. He didn't come off that good.

There's even quotes in the OP.

Thought so.

yeah. Dawkins, Maher and Harris especially attract special kind of folks here on GAF

Maher had a white supremacist on his show without even trying to counter him. He even gave spur-of-the-moment acknowledgement to transphobic statements because he wasn't prepared for that shit. Criticism is more than warranted.

 

[ZanDatsu]

Easy to spot the people who didn't bother listening to the podcast. Anyone who did come away from that discussion viewing either of them as racist is beyond help at this point.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Easy to spot the people who didn't bother listening to the podcast. Anyone who did come away from that discussion viewing either of them as racist is beyond help at this point.

Care to argue against the quotes?

Because the Bell curve is bullshit

General listen to 2 hours of them talk really isn't a defense against this specific quotes

 

[Timedog]

Care to argue against the quotes?

Yeah, if you listened to the whole thing and agree with Harris or whatever, or think the quotes lack context, please present actual argument instead of whining.

 

[Kid Kamikaze10]

Whew, I wish a bunch of women of color intellectuals got half the leniency guys like Harris get on the regular.

If you think he's right, justify it.

Because all I heard and read was basura.

 

[WHOAguitarninja]

Easy to spot the people who didn't bother listening to the podcast. Anyone who did come away from that discussion viewing either of them as racist is beyond help at this point.

Pretty much. It's pretty clear that when the outrage button gets pushed, many people tend to reason emotionally to the conclusion that validates their outrage. I sure know I've been guilty of it before. It's a tough impulse to stay.

 

[Mumei]

Link: https://angrywhitemen.org/2017/04/2...l-curve-during-interview-with-charles-murray/

"People don’t wanna hear that a person’s intelligence is in large measure due to his or her genes, and there seems to be very little we can do environmentally to increase a person’s intelligence — even in childhood. It’s not that the environment doesn’t matter, but genes appear to be 50 to 80 percent of the story. People don’t want to hear this. And they certainly don’t want to hear that average IQ differs across races and ethnic groups."

Well, I'm glad Sam Harris has settled the issue of the effects of environment of cognitive functioning. Anyway...

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Considering the overall patterns present in figure 5.5, two results stand out. First, while researching examining how neighborhoods affect children's outcomes has focused exclusively on the child's own environment, there is very strong evidence suggesting that the parent's childhood neighborhood, experienced a generation earlier, is at least as important to the development of cognitive skills—and in the case of applied problems assessment, the evidence suggests the parent's environment during childhood may be more important than the child's own environment. Second, the multigenerational impact of neighborhood poverty is substantial. Living in poor neighborhoods over two consecutive generations reduces children's cognitive skills by roughly eight or nine points on the standard IQ scale, or slightly more than one half of a standard deviation.

To provide some perspective on the magnitude of this estimated effect, it may help to consider some estimated effects of other factors that are thought to be related to intelligence or cognitive ability. For example, in 2007 a study was published showing that firstborn children had higher IQs than their second-born siblings. The study received an enormous amount of attention in the press and scrutiny in the academic world, as it purported to show strong evidence that firstborn children were smarter than their siblings. With all this attention, the magnitude of the estimated difference between firstborn children and their siblings was about three points on the same scale I am using for the current analysis. The cumulative impact of neighborhood poverty is three times as large as the "firstborn" effect.

Another, perhaps more relevant example, is the effect that schooling has on children's cognitive ability. After considering the literature on this subject, Christopher Winship and Sanders Korenman concluded that a year of schooling improves children's cognitive ability by somewhere between two and four points. This means that the effect of being raised in a family that lives in a poor neighborhood over two consecutive generations is roughly equivalent to missing two to four years of school.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Pretty much. It's pretty clear that when the outrage button gets pushed, many people tend to reason emotionally to the conclusion that validates their outrage. I sure know I've been guilty of it before. It's a tough impulse to stay.

Same applies to you... by all means please explain those quotes... Two hours of audio shouldn't be needed to explain those quotes

 

[The Technomancer]

Three minutes in, I'd like to see all this research correlating intelligence trends and race considering that the entire idea of "genetic race" is an incredibly narrow concept barely used.

EDIT: He literally opens the interview bending over backwards to present Murray as a misunderstood victim, the fuck are you all talking about?

 

[Verelios]

I am good.

Pro tip people, you don't need a sliderule or a formula to say you hate Niggers. Just say it, be honest with yourself and everyone

Truly

 

[Muffin1611]

Easy to spot the people who didn't bother listening to the podcast. Anyone who did come away from that discussion viewing either of them as racist is beyond help at this point.

This is such a lazy argument. You aren't allowed to judge something based on accurate quotes now? I wonder how any article would work that way then.

If there's important context that's missing from those quotes, sure, add it. But I severely doubt looking at these specific quotes that any of you can add any context vindicating this shit.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Sam Harris is a POS. Probably the worst example of the term 'liberal' outside of the neoliberal garbage we have in congress and clowning around in the media.

"Who cares about Palestine?? Israel needs more land!" "durr durr durr LEFTIES AFRAID OF SAYING "RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM"! Muslims are bad just cause they are bad and stuff!"

 

[unpopularblargh]

Again. I listened to the whole thing. He didn't come off that good. Plus there's more at the link in the OP.

 

[HStallion]

Pretty much. It's pretty clear that when the outrage button gets pushed, many people tend to reason emotionally to the conclusion that validates their outrage. I sure know I've been guilty of it before. It's a tough impulse to stay.

You're free to explain how any of the quotes in the OP aren't racist if you'd like or you can just keep saying how pig headed we are for not giving him a chance and letting our passions get the best of us. Spare me.

 

[Extollere]

I don't think Harris is an outright racist. But it's frustrating how blind he is to racist arguments and coded racism. It's also equally ridiculous to hear him bitching about being called a racist when he basically sets the traps and walks into them himself.

 

[darkistheway]

Having listened to only the first ten minutes I kinda see what Harris is going for here - he seems to be arguing that the merits of The Bell Curve have never been discussed in a dispassionate way. The controversial nature of the book prevented that.

It is basically the same (tired) point he has about Islam and Islamists.

My understanding of the issue is pretty limited but I admit to holding a very large bias against any claims of genetic differences between the 'races.'

If IQ scores between ethnic groups are different, I am going to assume any number of the many confounds are responsible before I would ever consider genetics. Between individuals, sure but not groups. We are all human.

 

[Dan]

Easy to spot the people who didn't bother listening to the podcast. Anyone who did come away from that discussion viewing either of them as racist is beyond help at this point.

Not everyone has 135 minutes to spare to listen to a defense of racial IQ comparisons. The selections from that blog seem more than enough to draw some basic conclusions.

 

[Thaedolus]

Yeah I listened to the whole thing and I don't think any less of Sam. Race affects environmental factors which affect intelligence. That's the sole point which can be understood to understand why he's not fucking white washing or using this data to promote racism.

Take a fucking minute and think things through before subscribing to outrage porn

 

[Nafai1123]

Three minutes in, I'd like to see all this research correlating intelligence trends and race considering that the entire idea of "genetic race" is an incredibly narrow concept barely used.

EDIT: He literally opens the interview bending over backwards to present Murray as a misunderstood victim, the fuck are you all talking about?

I have no idea. I listened to about 5 minutes and came to the same conclusion. As soon as he said "these are some of the strongest facts we know" or some such bullshit I just couldn't keep going.

 

[Mister Wolf]

So he had the guy on to talk about the thing he thinks has no value in talking about?

And in the process of interviewing the guy about the thing he thinks has no value he comes to state he believes it to be true....

And then while believing the in the thing he thinks has no value he defends the guy who wrote the thing that he believes has no value by saying those who disagree with the thing that he believes has no value but is none the less true are doing so to be PC....

Which is to say Sam Harris believes in the Bell curve but thinks there's nothing to be gained in talking about and proves it by having the guy on to talk about it, give his stamp of truth to it and then accuse anyone who disagrees of being PC....

Sure

That about wraps it for me. Couldn't have said it better.

 

[1.21Gigawatts]

People don’t want to hear this. And they certainly don’t want to hear that average IQ differs across races and ethnic groups".

The most important factor at play here is nutrition, though.
Asian countries rank highest, with up to 108 in average IQ. Because their diet includes a lot of rice, fish and vegetables.

Countries with a severely malnourished population rank lowest. (Around 60)
If you'd raise a large number of newborns from one of those lowest ranking countries in a western country, the average IQ of this group would later be pretty much in line with the average IQ of the country they've been raised in.

 

[ModernBoxes]

Here with go with the reflexive "He's a racist."

He could very well be wrong, but in an alternate dimension where he is stating true facts such subjects will still have this emotional outrage. The guy is not a white supremacist and no friend to Republicans, but he will support something that is *true* regardless of the controversy and sensitivity surrounding it.

Ten people outraged by these remarks will jump in with a group already outraged by previous controversial positions to create one giant group spouting hyperbole.

 

[The Technomancer]

The problem with a genetic correlation of race and intelligence is not because intelligence cannot have a large genetic component, but because race does not

 

[cackhyena]

You're free to defend it here. You know a discussion is a two way street and I see you're biggest contribution is basically "listen to it". Bring up some points, defend your views. Don't just get dismissive because people are tired of hearing once more about the bell curve. Its not new, its not special, its just ugly.

I just don't see Harris as a racist. I can't say I bought what Murray was selling, tho. There were some comments that made me raise my eyebrows (soemthing along the lines of environmental factors not playing as huge a role as I'd always come to think made me go wut), but I've never researched much of this. I'm just weary today, period. Not meaning to come off testy.

 

[HStallion]

Here with go with the reflexive "He's a racist."

He could very well be wrong, but in an alternate dimension where he is stating true facts such subjects will still have this emotional outrage. The guy is not a white supremacist and no friend to Republicans, but he will support something that is *true* regardless of the controversy and sensitivity surrounding it.

Ten people outraged by these remarks will jump in with a group already outraged by previous controversial positions to create one giant group spouting hyperbole.

So aside from complaining about the Gaf hivemind, what about responding to the quotes in the OP.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Here with go with the reflexive "He's a racist."

He could very well be wrong, but in an alternate dimension where he is stating true facts such subjects will still have this emotional outrage. The guy is not a white supremacist and no friend to Republicans, but he will support something that is *true* regardless of the controversy and sensitivity surrounding it.

Ten people outraged by these remarks will jump in with a group already outraged by previous controversial positions to create one giant group spouting hyperbole.

We live in this dimension

 

[darkistheway]

The problem with a genetic correlation of race and intelligence is not because intelligence cannot have a large genetic component, but because race does not

I honestly think the belief that race as a concept even exists is a massive problem.

We need to discard it entirely. It has no basis in reality.

 

[Armaros]

Here with go with the reflexive "He's a racist."

He could very well be wrong, but in an alternate dimension where he is stating true facts such subjects will still have this emotional outrage. The guy is not a white supremacist and no friend to Republicans, but he will support something that is *true* regardless of the controversy and sensitivity surrounding it.

Ten people outraged by these remarks will jump in with a group already outraged by previous controversial positions to create one giant group spouting hyperbole.

So Sam isnt racist but he subscribes to racist newsletters?

Because the Bell Curve is like the holy grail to white suprmacists trying to rationalize their hatred for minorties in an 'intellectual' manner.

 

[SkyOdin]

I love how he also includes the whole "Columbus sailed to the west to prove the Earth was round" BS.

I'm trying to unpack that quote and it is causing my brain to hurt. It would help if to know whether or not Sam Harris subscribes to the idealized storybook version of Christopher Columbus who proved the world was round, or whether or not he knows about the reality of Columbus. Since Christopher Columbus was the flat-earther of his own era.

Everyone who knew anything about the Earth knew it was round, and they even had an accurate idea of how large the Earth really is. They just didn't know that there was a continent out there, and thus thought a sea voyage west from Spain to reach India would require crossing an empty hemisphere of nothing but sea. Columbus didn't believe the science, and instead thought that the world was shaped like a pear far smaller than the actual Earth, with the Garden of Eden at the narrow end, and he believed he would be sailing uphill and downhill at various legs of his journey. He also believed that he would be able to resupply at the mythical country of Prestor John, which he believed existed on an island to the west.

Christopher Columbus was the only guy who went to the Americas in his era not because he was smarter than anyone else, but rather because he was the only conman who was both crazy/stupid enough to try it and charismatic enough to actually get someone else to pay for it. By all rights he should have died adrift in the middle of the ocean, but instead he was lucky enough to blunder into an unknown continent. Thus, he accidentally led one of the most historically important voyages in human history. Not that he ever admitted to it, since he went to his grave insisting he sailed to India.

Trying to make a connection between Columbus and intelligence is a foolish path to take in an argument.

 

[ModernBoxes]

So aside from complaining about the Gaf hivemind, what about responding to the quotes in the OP.

I plan on listening to the full podcast not read an article that interprets context for me. I'm just very familiar with how Harris ends up in these positions sometimes. The guy isn't malicious in the least.

We live in this dimension

The point went over your head. It doesn't matter what he said, if it challenges something sensitive there will be outrage all the way to the first reply in the thread. The guy doesn't shout from an ivory tower dictating things... he has conversations.

So Sam isnt racist but he subscribes to racist newsletters?

Because the Bell Curve is like the holy grail to white suprmacists trying to rationalize their hatred for minorties in an 'intellectual' manner.

I know you're using that as a metaphor, but some people want to read everything, even the garbage. Insulating yourself against all those who don't doesn't align with you is how we ended up with Trump as president. Dismissing all viewpoints because you don't like the bodies that contain them is the same.

There's nothing intellectual about white supremacy... it's an inferiority complex. I know very little about the bell curves overall argument(ethnicity vs ethnicity?), but I would not be surprised if intelligence was treated genetically just like appearance or risk of disease. I do not see why skin color would correlate with intelligence, so I'd have to listen to the podcast to see if Sam is saying white people are smarter than black people.

 

[Muffin1611]

Yeah I listened to the whole thing and I don't think any less of Sam. Race affects environmental factors which affect intelligence. That's the sole point which can be understood to understand why he's not fucking white washing or using this data to promote racism.

Take a fucking minute and think things through before subscribing to outrage porn

Race isn't a fucking thing that has to do with genetics. It's a social construct. Black people don't all have the same genes, neither do whites. Certain groups of ethnicities do.

Race affects environmental factors, yes, because of racism. Why is he claiming then that "50 to 80 percent" of intelligence comes from genes?

I plan on listening to the full podcast not read an article that interprets context for me. I'm just very familiar with how Harris ends up in these positions sometimes. The guy isn't malicious in the least.

The point went over your head. It doesn't matter what he said, if it challenges something sensitive there will be outrage all the way to the first reply in the thread. The guy doesn't shout from an ivory tower dictating things... he has conversations.

One doesn't need to be malicious to buy into racism.

To your second part: Some things don't need to be challenged. I can assure you that there certainly is no scientific consensus that race plays a major role in intelligence besides shaping environmental factors. You don't need conversations with people saying that.

 

[Aikidoka]

Here with go with the reflexive "He's a racist."

He could very well be wrong, but in an alternate dimension where he is stating true facts such subjects will still have this emotional outrage. The guy is not a white supremacist and no friend to Republicans, but he will support something that is *true* regardless of the controversy and sensitivity surrounding it.

Ten people outraged by these remarks will jump in with a group already outraged by previous controversial positions to create one giant group spouting hyperbole.

Right, Harris would totally have voted for Obama a third term. Stop the outrage peoples....

But, yeah, it's always a shame to have Harris be such a prominent science figurehead.

 

[excelsiorlef]

I plan on listening to the full podcast not read an article that interprets context for me. I'm just very familiar with how Harris ends up in these positions sometimes. The guy isn't malicious in the least.



The point went over your head. It doesn't matter what he said, if it challenges something sensitive there will be outrage all the way to the first reply in the thread. The guy doesn't shout from an ivory tower dictating things... he has conversations.

I mean it does matter what he says... If this story was Sam Harris has Murray on and fights against the Bell Curve this thread wouldn't need to exist...

 

[The Technomancer]

This guy literally just talked about studying blacks as a race and then hispanics as "an" ethnic group

 

[BeauRoger]

Race isn't a fucking thing that has to do with genetics. It's a social construct. Black people don't all have the same genes, neither do whites. Certain groups of ethnicities do.

Race affects environmental factors, yes, because of racism. Why is he claiming then that "50 to 80 percent" of intelligence comes from genes?

Well, that part is fairly accurate. Its taken from monozygotic twin studies, where psychologists track down identical twins separated from birth and compare them. Massive studies have been made in this field, and the ones ive read usually come up with with correlations around 0.7, and ive never seen one under 0.5.

 

[CopperPuppy]

So he had the guy on to talk about the thing he thinks has no value in talking about?

And in the process of interviewing the guy about the thing he thinks has no value he comes to state he believes it to be true....

And then while believing the in the thing he thinks has no value he defends the guy who wrote the thing that he believes has no value by saying those who disagree with the thing that he believes has no value but is none the less true are doing so to be PC....

Which is to say Sam Harris believes in the Bell curve but thinks there's nothing to be gained in talking about and proves it by having the guy on to talk about it, give his stamp of truth to it and then accuse anyone who disagrees of being PC....

Sure

Yup.

What's funny is the only thing you'll hear from those defending this is: "Yeah but have you actually listened to it?"

 

[sphagnum]

Race isn't a fucking thing that has to do with genetics. It's a social construct. Black people don't all have the same genes, neither do whites. Certain groups of ethnicities do.

Race affects environmental factors, yes, because of racism. Why is he claiming then that "50 to 80 percent" of intelligence comes from genes?

I think the idea is that intelligence is largely derived from genetics, and while races don't exist there just so happen to be regions of the world where large populations that suspiciously correspond to our ideas of races have such high or low IQs due to mating with each other. I think.

A lot of racists like to point to a study done in Minnesota years ago where they checked on black kids adopted by white families and found that their IQs were still lower than white kids', while ignoring similar studies where adopted kids of different races scored equally well or better.

 

[Shai-Tan]

I personally think there is likely underestimation in environmental effects due to uncontrolled variables which also affect personality psychology but that article there is grasping and using sloppy reasoning to make it seem like their conclusion is settled science and murray et al are pseudoscience.

 

[thesoapster]

They addressed this in a section in the podcast, though honestly I cant remember how they did it

I can't imagine how. Designing a test to measure intelligence is already controversial enough, even within a culture.

 

[Muffin1611]

Well, that part is fairly accurate. Its taken from monozygotic twin studies, where psychologists track down identical twins separated from birth and compare them. Massive studies have been made in this field, and the ones ive read usually come up with with correlations around 0.7, and ive never seen one under 0.5.

But not in the way it is framed. It's framed like there are massive differences between, as he said ethnic groups and race (the latter doesn't make any sense) because of it.

 

[Nafai1123]

If Harris wanted to have a real conversation about this he should've brought in someone that's actually studied developmental theory. Didn't know much about Harris so I checked out his Wiki and apparently he got his PhD in cognitive neuroscience but his thesis was "The moral landscape: How science could determine human values." His focus seemed to be religion and spiritual philosophy.

Hardly seems to be competent enough on this topic to have a reasonable discussion about it, racist or not.

 

[David H Wong]

Race affects environmental factors, yes, because of racism. Why is he claiming then that "50 to 80 percent" of intelligence comes from genes?

What percentage do you think it is? I thought 50-80 was the consensus, with most research landing closer to the 50 mark.

That is, coming from GENES, not RACE. If he just stuck to that part I don't think people would be protesting him.