First of all, I think the "race"/IQ angle is inherently racist, and I also think that Harris has taken a clear stance pro Murray (see my last post, on top of page 84).
But I also have zero intention to wade through all of this again, so I just pointed to the part of this thread where it's already been covered. With further links, etc.
I agree with you, and I believe Sam Harris would agree with you too. He’s not at all pro Murray, he’s just opposed to the pile-on that’s taken place recently. He critiques a lot of Murray’s work quite pointedly. Here’s a snippet of the general theme of his critique:
“... I’m sure we can find hate supremacist organizations who love the fact that
The Bell Curve was published ...
Why look at this? How does this help society get more information about racial difference?”
The ‘
why’ is important. Harris recognises the danger in Murray’s research, as it could be misappropriated by certain hate groups. If certain ‘hate groups’ would approve of the work of a certain scholar, then that scholar has a responsibility to appropriately frame their position, or so Harris says. Harris isn’t particularly enamoured with Murray’s work in this respect.
Harris does not wade deeply into the science behind Murray’s general hypothesis, but does say the following:
“... 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”.
So, genes are important to intelligence - Undeniably true. IQ appears to differ across races - also true, as statistics show. That’s about as deep as Harris goes. The reality is that a complex mix of sociocultural phenomena contribute to this ‘iq disparity’. What Harris never does, much as it might pain certain people in here, is suggest that white people (or Asian people, really, as they fare best in Murray’s research) have some sort of biological or intellectual superiority over any other race. That is a deplorable suggestion.