Sam Harris and the Myth of Perfectly Rational Thought

[Major Nikon]

71. The point is essentially 'where's the beef'?

The article Vox published accused Murray and by extension Harris of peddling pseudoscience. So this leads me to read the article to try and figure out where the allegation of pseudoscience is. I can't find it in any place other than on point #5. Maybe you can, but it seems as if you're looking for implications where as I'm looking for direct contradiction, and the only place I found it was in point #5 which I'm not entirely convinced is anything other than the interpretation by Turkheimer et al on what was presented which may or may not be a correct summation of what was presented to begin with.

The best approach is to remove all the semantics out of the equation and try to understand what Turkheimer et al are saying. What I think they are saying is that as far as group IQ differences go, there's no scientific basis for a causal relationship with genetic differences. In other words, the offspring of two highly intelligent people will more likely produce a more intelligent person, but science doesn't support the extension of that principle among genetically similar groups. My further understanding is it's on this point that Murray and by extension Harris disagree. They further disagree on which is the mainstream view.

Disagreement is one thing, but Turkheimer et al and by extension Vox, go one step farther by declaring it pseudoscience. I don't think this is supportable unless Turkheimer et al is prepared to accuse many other people in the field of peddling pseudoscience. I'm pretty sure he realized that as well which is why he walked that back.

It may be true that Reich disagrees with Murray on a great many things, but the only disagreement I'm particularly interested in is what was covered by the Vox article, and on that Reich quite clearly directly contradicts Turkheimer et al. Reich is also one (albeit a pretty influential one) out of others who hold that view. There's also more who fall on Turkheimer's side.

You are correct about Turkheimer et al debating Harris. I skimmed over the same email exchange you read and got the exact opposite out of it which is my mistake.

As far as Harris debating Turkheimer et al, I don't really see that as all that productive. We already have an idea about what they disagree on and Turkheimer has already walked back the pseudoscience comment. What Harris takes issue with is Vox never did, and the fact that they didn't lead to at least contributed to some measure of violence against Murray and his associates which is exactly the heart of the matter that Harris wanted to address to begin with.