Charles Murray’s Human Diversity is not as controversial as you might think, Tyler Cowen says:
Overall this is a serious and well-written book that presents a great deal of scientific evidence very effectively. Anyone reading it will learn a lot. But it didn’t change my mind on much, least of all the most controversial questions in this area. If anything, in the Bayesian sense it probably nudged me away from geneticist-based arguments, simply because it did not push me any further towards them.
Murray of course will write the book he wants to, but my personal wish list was two-fold: a) a book leaving most of the normal science behind, and focusing only on the uncertain and controversial frontier issues, in great detail, and b) much more discussion of the import of culture.
Most of all, I am happy that America’s culture of achievement is inducing Murray to continue to produce major works at the age of 76, soon to be 77.
Yes on culture. I tend to distantly recall a book by Sowell many moons back that outlined how due to the imposition of segregation that all levels of black society lived together, doctors with janitors. That its removal meant that the rich flocked to more upper middle areas leaving the once thriving communities to deteriorate. That wedlock, bastardisation, single families, dropouts and crime followed. Average levels of IQ is not all.
Some ask: if a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound?
I ask: if a tenured academic likes it, can it be good?
I used to read Sowell. Sowell once said that the reason Black people are violent is because they were raised in White Southern culture which was violent. That’s when I quit reading Sowell and haven’t read a word of his since.
I used to read stuff like National Review until one day I just realized it was all bunch of mindless nonsense meant to fill our minds up with busy body notions that had nothing to do with the real problems in the country and that none of their solutions would make any difference at all in the big scheme of things.
Sam J.,
Your observations can be summarized thus: What have Conservatives conserved? Nothing! They are further left than 60s liberals.
In all fairness, National Review was the Turning Point USA of its day. There’s a difference of about 40 IQ points, but the core concept is the same.
Where National Review was all about radical Marxist notions in the guise of (fun-house-mirror) golden age Americanism lifted straight from the works of Ayn “Crazy Eyes” Rand, Turning Point USA is nakedly about anal sex, endless wars, tattoos, and free market obesity.
This is the face of American conservatism: https://i.postimg.cc/jjmcDgj8/lady-maga.png
And, yeah, I know what you’re thinking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrWuMwRKH2c
I gotchu: https://i.postimg.cc/cLxxW78v/big-think-black-man.jpg
The cesspool of leftism pollutes everything it touches, with the media and the university almost beyond salvage.
If Murray can shine a small light of scientific inquiry into topics that leftists would prefer to leave obscured, he is doing what little can be done.