Sam Harris and the Myth of Perfectly Rational Thought

[Jim__]

63. No, there's no contradiction.

From post #33:

But I do think Turkheimer and the other two folks he brought along for the ride do make a self-contradiction here. There are academics in that group who fall on Murray's side which Turkheimer admits.

What they actually said was:

Some well-informed scientists hold views closer to Murray’s than to ours.

If you want to call that Murray's side because they are closer to Murray than to the authors, you could. But that doesn't constitute a contradiction. Being closer to Murray than to the authors does not necessarily constitute junk science. They are quite specific about what they mean by junk science:

... unfounded genetic conclusions about race and IQ [are] hardly a mark of rational tough-mindedness. The fact is, there is no evidence for any such genetic hypothesis — about complex human behavior of any kind. Anyone who speaks as if there were is spouting junk science.

Being closer to Murray than the authors does not mean that these academics hold to any unfounded genetic conclusions about race and IQ. If they do, then the authors would say that these academics were spouting junk science. But, of course, Turkheimer et al make no such claim about the academics.

The real problem falls back on Harris. He deliberately invited a controversial author onto his podcast. He supported the claims of that author. So far, so good. This podcast could easily be taken as the opening salvo of a debate about Murray's claims. Harris had to know there was a pretty good chance that someone would respond. Turkheimer et al did. Their response was substantive. Harris chose not to treat it that way.

As to the accusation about junk science, Harris had at least two possible substantive replies: he could have denied that Murray had actually reached such conclusions about race and IQ, or, he could have claimed that those conclusions were supported by valid science. Unfortunately, Harris did not choose to join the debate that his podcast invited, instead, he chose to complain about the tone of the response.