46 Comments

I know this is late, but I just wanted to go back and comment on how incredible it was to see someone engage with Mr. Murray like this. Rather than ignore his work, or call him a racist, you had a serious conversation with him: it was such a pleasure to see.

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Murray's premise is utter trash

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The scope of these discussions is far too narrow. I look at the entire picture of how we got here. Without that understanding, you can talk about these issues 24/7/365 and it won't make a dent. This is part 1 of 2 in the finale of my series:

https://onevoicebecametwo.life/2021/07/02/two-sides-of-the-same-counterfeit-coin-part-12-a/

I have an idea that could turn the tide -- which is soon to follow in Part 12-B.

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Why I suspect your friend Charles Murray is a racist--that is he has fossilized bigotries about people based on the racial group they belong--is because while you have faith that black people in general can develop their cognitive skills to compete with Ashkanazi Jews in general over time if they improve their culture, he seems to have faith that the weight of "black" genetic heritage will weigh them down, assuming they don't implement a breeding program. He did give a touching "miracles happen" reply at the end though.

I'm a bit disappointed that you didn't question him more deeply about his views on his perspective on race, genetics, and iq. His first unjustifiably smug response about quarters landing on their side and the evolution of isolated populations gave the impression that he thought there was some scientific consensus that because populations that developed in different geographic locations show some relatively small genetic variation, that the genetic variation they do show explains differences in variations in tests of cognitive abilities. Which is just ridiculous. That sort of evidence doesn't exist. And it takes the faith of a racist to think outcomes of modern cognitive tests are sufficient to have confidence that genetics is the best explanation for racial disparities in performance on cognitive tests.

As for his book, I read the bell jar like 20 years ago. It sounds like he is just saying the same thing - there are statistical differences in performance on iq like tests between racial groups -- and he seems to have added crime to that as well (or at least some crime; he didn't assess things like imperialist war I assume). Yes I already know and acknowledge those disparities. He seems to have left it up to readers to speculate about the causes. But the causes are perhaps the most important question if we are going to change anything. I'll read the book once I can get it used or from a library. For anthropological reasons.

I agree with him that disparities are not best explained by contemporary "systemic racism", but I find his semi concealed attachment to a genetic narrative to be disdainful. A person doesn't need to think their own race is Supreme in all things to be a racist. And whenever someone, usually a white guy who is proud of "the Enlightenmemt" and proud of their intelligence points out that asians in general perform better than white people in cognitive tests and that other things like musical ability are important too, I have the suspicion that they personally don't think that being a grammy winning rapper is as great of an accomplishment as inventing the steam engine. For him to suggest that intelligence isn't that big of a deal is disingenuous. He wrote a book on human accomplishment that expressed his opinion that the arts declined following the 1800s--so any black artistic achievements following their emancipation from slavery are sadly not up to par. And he also wrote about "dumb" people, especially dumb black people, in the Bell Curve. Despite clearly having a higher iq than average, *Murray* must be really dumb if he actually thinks he thinks that intelligence is not a big deal. Charles Murray is either lying or proof of how a person can have a relatively high iq and still be a moron.

But don't worry Glenn, I'm no where near wanting to see you canceled. Carry on. But the next time you have Murray on, can you invite me too? I'd love to ask him some questions.

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I think Murray puts too much stock into genetic explanations. Given the Flynn effect, where average IQ in the US increased 3 points per decade for 100 years, surely nutrition, environmental, and cultural factors play a huge role. Let’s try addressing those disparities before resigning ourselves to genetic explanations.

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*That* was a truly remarkable interview and discussion. Thank you both for your decency, good will and intellectual honestly in these troubled times.

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I thought long ago, and hyperbolically so, that if 50%, or 22 million, of blacks hated whites, the chance of whites encountering that hatred is minimal. But if 20%, or 46 million, of whites hated blacks then blacks chance of encountering that hatred is more than minimal. However, on the side of blacks, whatever number actually hate whites, are a growing number of whites who boast of how much life is easier for them because of the color of their skin.

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Maybe I am ignorant. I have not read the book and I am sure that I am missing something, but my critique of Murray is that he loses all reality in the abstractions.

When we are talking of race, what are we even talking about? He is saying that people from one subcontinent vs another? He is saying those that lived in this valley vs another? Where are we drawing the genetic line? How long, and how much genetic mixing do we need to have before we end up as another race? He is tracing the data to a source that correlates well, but this does not mean causation. How can we say that the bell curves overlap when you are arbitrarily sorting people based on a perceived characteristic, i.e. genetic roots of continental cohorts. There are infinitely many to sort the group and create bell curves based on the attributes that readily present themselves for measurement, but why do we choose these?

Honestly, the whole basis of his work is fundamentally flawed on the assumption that genetic differences at one level display themselves in humans in measurable ways. This would imply that I am my brother and he is me. Is my neighbor included in my group? Is my ancestors neighbor 40,000 years ago included in my group despite the fact that he crossed the Siberian plane to the Americas? Or he went north of the south of the Mediterranean sea?

He even mentions that our thinking on this has changed (example of Gould and the races being the same), but now that we can measure and see the differences of standing variation in the population we are better equipped to determine the genetic differences based on geography. But at what point does someone differ enough to show the characteristic differences? He is taking data from two readily available source, genetic sequences and IQ and calling them causation. It is exasperating.

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He dives more deeply into the science of population genetics in "Human Diversity," his previous book. It's solid statistical inference put to a big data task, and it holds up very well. This is compounded with the fact that most people's self-identification is highly correlated to their ancestral breeding population back hundreds of years (albeit not tens of thousands of years).

That said, I agree with many fellow posters that he downplays the role of culture and environment too much. Genetic propensities tend to reinforce themselves, so even if a certain population only had a slightly higher tendency toward criminality (e.g. low agreeableness, low conscientiousness, low IQ), a community filled exclusively with that population would form a feedback loop where that trait was enhanced. A variation of this hypothesis is the broken-window effect.

So for me, the sweet spot is acknowledging population differences and studying genetic differences with proper funding, but in the public realm, focus heavily on improving our meritocracy and the culture of achievement so that we can finally see if "victimized" populations will rise to meet the challenge of equal opportunity without the influence of policy crutches, personal excuses, or race hucksters telling them they can't do it. Then, if there's still a notable difference, at least we'll have studied it well enough to know what sort of gene therapies will fix it.

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Maybe you should read the book. He is very careful not to discuss or speculate about causation.

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Isn't that like writing a book expositing how the number of drownings and Nicolas cage movies has a very strong correlation? (https://tylervigen.com/page?page=1)

If what you say is true then the whole book is without a causative mechanism and therefore is just a spurious relationship. Science is about falsification. Good social science is about teasing out the causation from extremely complex and multifaceted phenomenon. If what you say is true, this is bad social science.

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The claims are 1 self-defined racial groups in America have different violent crime rates and 2 self-defined racial groups in America have different means and distributions of cognitive ability.

Both of those claims are falsifiable. I'm not sure why you think somebody has to paint an entire causal picture about a subject in order to write a book about it.

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Based on the conversation, I don't think Charles makes any claim about racial groups. He looks at genetics of those of African/European/Asian/etc. descent.

But what I am trying to point out is that its an arbitrary abstraction based on categories that are predefined by geologist and have mapped well for geneticists. Sure people on the same continent share characteristics, but why draw the line at continent. To the point about causality, the problem is he is making a spurious correlation. We claim knowledge about how genes present themselves I.e. this gene sequence means high cognitive skill. But I am skeptical that these claims are robust and well defined. The complexity of genes and human traits is unfathomable. Charles points to correlations that look compelling to our pattern seeking brains, but we cannot know that it is a causative.

I am not sure about the self defined racial groups point. Race is a fiction. If I define myself as something then that has no bearing on what is in my genes, nor what my life outcomes are. The distribution of ability within the groups goes back to my previous point: why are wr drawing the lone where we draw it. Are Dikembe Mutumbo and Lebron James in the same bell curve? Why? Because of the melanin content in their skin? Because they both have ancestors that trace their roots to Africa? Well so do I, but you would call me white. Its an arbitrary distinction based on things that are easy to measure.

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I don't think the poverty of racial categories is really a counterargument to the point he's making here (in Facing Reality), though. What he's documenting isn't purely artefactual, whatever the underlying causes, and if he's responding to people who are moralizing about differences in allocation by race, he has to argue in the same terms.

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The best critique of CM's previous work, Human Diversity, can be oddly found in an Amazon review of the book (and the reviewer's website: https://psycheandsense.com/). It's thorough and quotes a lot of research. A few snippets from it:

"To begin with, Murray consistently overstates the evidence for genetic influence and understates the evidence for environmental influence on human diversity. He devotes large sections of the book to the former, often mentioning the latter only in passing, or in endnotes, or not at all. For example, Murray makes no mention of the Flynn Effect, one of the clearest indications of environmental influence on cognition (Mackintosh, 2011); he cites several sources on the validity of twin studies (pp. 215-217) but ignores Joseph’s (2015) extensive critique of that literature; he stresses the limits of early childhood interventions but says little about the social forces that undermine them (Protzko, 2015); and in discussing stereotype threat he emphasizes publication bias, yet says nothing about such bias in the publication of brain imaging studies, where it appears to be rampant (see Jennings & Van Horn, 2012). Along similar lines, the genetic methods and technologies that Murray admires often have serious reliability issues (for example, see de Gruijter et al., 2011 and Szpak et al., 2019), yet little or no attention is given to rigorous research designs finding environmental effects (e.g., Koch, D’Mello & Sackett, 2015). These examples are not exhaustive and several more will be given below. But Murray’s general stance is worth noting here—as is the fact that he frequently tags biological and genetic studies with adjectives like “seminal,” and “highly regarded” (pp. 102, 438), while ignoring or dismissing research widely recognized as supporting social construction (e.g., *Lewontin, 1972)."

"It should be kept in mind that nearly all the evidence that Murray cites to argue for genetic determination is correlational. Even the brain imaging studies he reviews typically show neural correlates whose causal relationships to developmental and environmental influences are complex, multi-directional, interactive, and largely unknown. Most college students understand that correlation does not prove causation; but they rarely grasp just how ubiquitous and persistent correlation/causation fallacies actually are. Even professional researchers commit these fallacies when they survey vast fields of interrelated variables and make conscious or unconscious assumptions about causation which they then import into interpretations of the data based on circular reasoning. Hereditarians like Murray are notorious for falling into these traps—and some, like Arthur Jensen, for diving into them."

I recommend reading the full review here: https://psycheandsense.com/review-murray/

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That review seems quite biased, eg

"often mentioning [environmental influence] only in passing, or in endnotes, or not at all" is not true and besides the book is literally about how genes affect things so it's a strange critique to say he focuses too much on genes -- the subject of the book,

also twin studies are the bedrock of an entire branch of social science called behavioral genetics which is quite well established now, critiquing Murray by saying he fails to cite a particular critique is missing the forest for the trees,

also Murray has never argued for genetic determination. We could keep going like this.

I think Murray is critiqueable like anyone else, but the points here don't strike me as particularly strong. If it'd be easier to appeal to authority, Glenn has spoken positively about Human Diversity on multiple occasions.

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I would be really interested to see you interview Gregory Clark. His coming book is called For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls, and while he tries to avoid racial discussions it seems like his central thesis - that social status and success are heritable and genetic - would be of interest to you

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This book (published in 2015) was cited by CM in the end notes as a thorough but "breezy" read on Intelligence:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RTY0LPO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I am half way through it and it is worth reading.

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Fascinating talk. I think Murray is right about the woke culture being omnipresent now - e.g. there is a horror movie coming out about a "Karen" who terrorizes her neighbors with microaggressions that turn into murder. Sadly it's not a comedy because it sounds ridiculous.

https://www.tmz.com/2021/06/18/taryn-manning-karen-movie-trailer-terrifying/

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Word. Great discussion!

Today, pointing out facts on gaps in education, criminality, income, etc. has become bigotry, racism, White Supremacy, etc.

I was expecting Prof. Lours to mention how Dr. Thomas Sowell was one of the few people to push back hard against the insinuation of Black intellectual genetic inferiority implied by some of Murray's earlier works.

But Murray has been clear to distinguish between the what (differences in outcome which are clear) and the why (culture, values, poverty, particular circumstances, etc. whose effects are unclear and not easily quantifiable or qualifiable).

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WOW, makes me proud to be an old intellectual! Erudite conversation like this is so refreshing in this age of quickie sound bites of “rousable” comments, often taken out of context. I urge you to LISTEN without shutting it off and sending out some comment that misses the point. Take the time to LISTEN, replay it if you need to….I did…it is worth your time to see how two intellectual powerhouses communicate with respect and integrity. Agree or disagree, but please pay attention to the process of communicating respectfully. Our conversation in this great country is getting so low that it is destructive to both sides of the political spectrum today. Please…..and May Almighty God, the Father the Son (+) and the Holy Spirit bless and keep you in His love. Amen.

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The scope of these discussions is far too narrow. I look at the entire picture of how we got here. Without that understanding, you can talk about these issues 24/7/365 and it won't make a dent. This is part 1 of 2 in the finale of my series:

https://onevoicebecametwo.life/2021/07/02/two-sides-of-the-same-counterfeit-coin-part-12-a/

I have an idea that could turn the tide -- which is soon to follow in Part 12-B.

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Thank you for your blessing..

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my prior is that worries about a white identity group rising and destroying American society are exaggerated

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I was quite unimpressed with CM in this episode of the Glenn show. In particular, it seemed like he didn't give satisfactory responses to two of Glenn's pushbacks - one related to a zoom in-zoom out analysis (more about that below), and another related to how CM is applying partitioning to explain disparities.

On the zoom-in, zoom-out issue, CM asserts that the left has launched an assault on the American credo by insisting that the state treat groups differently. I think his underlying point is that if you zoom in on an interaction between persons A and B, of different races, you simply can't ascribe racist impulses to one member, and zoom out to claim that those impulses are leading to systemic discrimination. You have to zoom in and treat A and B as individuals. However, it seems like CM's analysis relies heavily on group behaviors. So, if a group is disproportionately responsible for crimes in a certain area, why wouldn't I similarly zoom in and look at the character and life story of each individual being arrested? Why in that scenario does it not make sense to notice if that person had lead in his drinking water growing up, if that person was let down by his community, if he had a substandard education, if there were no job opportunities for him, etc. Why can I just zoom out and adopt race as a marker in my data analysis? CM didn't have a response to that.

In a fair labor market, yes, we could convince ourselves that there are no systemic issues, only skills mismatches and the lack of a pipeline of skilled minorities. Can we be certain that the labor market is fair though? Not always is my suspicion - https://www.nber.org/papers/w9873

This leads to the second point where CM fumbles. CM highlights group differences in cognitive abilities and ventures that they are feeding, in some way, differences in outcomes. He admits that racism is a factor, but the listener/reader is left to determine what proportion of the disparity can be attributed to it. Is it 60-40 cognitive ability vs. racism, or are there other variables involved? I guess we will never know...CM in his work seems to assert that cognitive differences explain a big chunk of the disparities. His public policies, therefore, recommend a very hands-off approach. And, as Ezra Klein has pointed out, he's been a very good policy entrepreneur. It's been over 20 years since the welfare reforms he inspired were passed, and I think the outcomes are mixed at best and awful at worse - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/20-years-welfare-reform/496730/

There is an obvious difference between regression and causal analysis. If I walked in tomorrow into a meeting at work and presented a regression without an underlying model, I'd be laughed out of the room. What is CM's underlying model in this case? Is he just looking at cognitive abilities and correlating them with certain outcomes? I don't really understand if that's the nature of a lot of social science research. If it is, it's remarkably flimsy. I think Nassim Taleb has lately been pretty brutal about CM's work and a lot of social science research in general. Nassim's speaking from a perch of mathematical statistics mastery. I have yet to see an adequate rebuttal to Nasssim's points.

I don't mind talking about this more, but if we're basing public policy on CM's claims, I feel like we're doing ourselves a real disservice.

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Murray has his reality to face and the Democrats have theirs: Thirteen percent of the population decides 100 percent of presidential elections.

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