Section 1. The backstory.
Last year Sam Harris had Charles Murray on his podcast to talk about IQ, race and Murray’s reputation. Vox published a critique. Also see the counter, and the counter counter. Then last week, spurred on by a twitter discussion of David Reich’s new book, Ezra Klein wrote 6000 words Sam Harris, Charles Murray, and the allure of race science. Harris responded by publishing their email correspondence. Which mostly backfired. So yesterday Harris announced on his podcast he has invited Klein to be his guest. That podcast will be recorded in a day or two, around April 5 or 6. It should be excellent because Ezra Klein and Sam Harris are both first rate, very sharp, and extremely reasonable. I highly recommend both their podcasts. And yet, I’m pessimistic. [Update. Podcast with transcript here.]
Why? Let me attempt a (hopefully) constructive explainer. Thus I’ll crib the voxsplainer format for this post. Don’t be a hater.
Section 2. The Nerd and the Manager.
If you read the Klein/Harris published email exchange, you’ll note one person is arguing in what I’d call nerd-mode, the other in manager-mode. Everyone uses both modes. But for a civil discussion both people need use the same mode.
When Ezra Klein talks healthcare, he’s in nerd-mode. In the weeds. He made his name blogging about healthcare. He knows all the policy details. So for healthcare he can argue with experts, and critique them. But when Klein is talking race and IQ, he’s in manager-mode. Let me quote from his email to Harris:
Which brings me to the podcast. I really think that core discussion over the scientific dispute here is the important one, and I don’t want to present myself as the best person to have it. So to the extent I can persuade you that the disagreement is legitimate and good faith, I still think an actual expert in this field would be a better guest than me. The Heier note and Flynn piece only underscores the point: there are clearly experts on both sides of this, and I think there is something in the non-Murray side’s presentation you are having trouble hearing as serious, or as honest, and I think finding the boundaries of that disagreement would be the most interesting and enlightening conversation here. I am not a race and IQ expert and don’t play one on podcasts, so I don’t want to be the other side of that debate.
Manager-mode is about social proof. A manager knows how to listen to a team of experts and build a consensus. Or barring consensus, can select which expert(s) to follow. But a manager is not an expert. Klein says experts from the Vox piece disagree with the experts Harris cites. Harris replies:
As a point of comparison, you can see how Siddhartha Mukherjee handled Murray in his book The Gene, and in my most recent podcast with him. As I told Mukherjee, I don’t think he was fair to Murray, and I think he is bending too far in his definition of “intelligence,” but the discussion was far more respectful and balanced (and honest) than what you published in Vox.
Why not publish Haier’s rebuttal? His presentation of the science is far more mainstream that Nisbett’s (or Mukherjee’s, for that matter).
Harris’ is talking in nerd-mode. Harris knows the details. He knows which experts are right, which are wrong, which are spinning. And when you’re in nerd-mode (as I am right now writing this post), you find it nearly impossible to understand why anyone can disagree with your facts. You’re reluctantly led to conclude lingering disagreement must be due to ill motives. Trust me. I use twitter. I’ve spent plenty of time in nerd-mode hell.
But of course in real life human cognition is highly evolved to swim in the ocean of social proof. We mostly live in manager-mode. We it take for granted the views of our in-group are correct. This dynamic appears to me to explain what happened. Harris published the emails in nerd-mode. That backfired because most people read them in manager-mode, which was the mode Klein was using at the time.
This bodes ill for the upcoming Harris-Klein podcast. Harris will argue expert details. Klein will respond by pointing out to experts who disagree. But there may be a way out.
Section 3. Music break.
But first. All good Voxsplainers have a 1990’s music break. Here’s mine.
The awesomeness of Weezer shall not be denied. On to section 4.
Section 4. Framing the IQ debate around what’s changed since 1994.
The Bell Curve was written 24 years ago in 1994. Perhaps we can reconcile nerd-mode and manager-mode by looking at trends over time. The nerd can point to changing details. The manager can point to changing scientific/public consensus. Both can be happy.
By far the most popular critique of The Bell Curve when it came out was the New Yorker piece by Stephen J Gould. Take my word for it. I remember 1994. In fact I bought Weezer’s first album on a plastic disc in 1994 when it came out. It remains excellent. But I digress. Back to Gould. Scroll down to the Appendix below to read Gould’s original words (nerd-mode people only of course). Or just use my bullet point summary of Gould right here:
- The claim that IQ and g can use a single number to measure something real in the brain is a fallacy. “Nothing in The Bell Curve angered me more”
- Racial differences in IQ being mostly determined by genetic causes “is most surely fallacious”
- Murray claims social stratification based on IQ will occur because meritocracy selects for it. This requires that IQ “must be depictable as a single number, capable of ranking people in linear order, genetically based, and effectively immutable.” And “The central argument of The Bell Curve fails because most of the premises are false”
Now compare this to the Vox piece authored by Eric Turkheimer, Kathryn Paige Harden, and Richard E. Nisbett. Call it the THN piece after their last initials. Fortunately they bullet pointed their argument as below:
Murray’s premises, which proceed in declining order of actual broad acceptance by the scientific community, go like this:
1) Intelligence, as measured by IQ tests, is a meaningful construct that describes differences in cognitive ability among humans.
2) Individual differences in intelligence are moderately heritable.
3) Racial groups differ in their mean scores on IQ tests.
4) Discoveries about genetic ancestry have validated commonly used racial groupings.
5) On the basis of points 1 through 4, it is natural to assume that the reasons for racial differences in IQ scores are themselves at least partly genetic.
Until you get to 5, none of the premises is completely incorrect. However, for each of them Murray’s characterization of the evidence is slanted in a direction that leads first to the social policies he endorses, and ultimately to his conclusions about race and IQ. We, and many other scientific psychologists, believe the evidence supports a different view of intelligence, heritability, and race.
For comparison, here is Harris’ summary of Murray’s thesis:
- Human “general intelligence” is a scientifically valid concept.
- IQ tests do a pretty good job of measuring it.
- A person’s IQ is highly predictive of his/her success in life.
- Mean IQ differs across populations (blacks < whites < Asians).
- It isn’t known to what degree differences in IQ are genetically determined, but it seems safe to say that genes play a role (and also safe to say that environment does too).
What has 24 years wrought? I’d say Gould’s critique of IQ has fallen completely outside of acceptable scientific and social discourse. IQ is a meaningful construct is explicitly agreed to by THN in their 2018 critique of Murray. Gould’s two other points haven’t aged well either.
Now compare THN to Harris. The first 4 points from THN are similar to the first 4 from Harris. These are relatively secure. Though as noted by THN , experts differ on how strong they think those 4 claims are. But the 5th claim from THN and the 5th claim from Harris remain in public dispute. Namely, to what degree do IQ group difference have a genetic component, if any. This is disputed almost by definition since Turkheimer, Nisbett and Harden are in fact experts and they say it’s in dispute. So arguing in manager-mode, it makes perfect sense for Klein to justify his position. To add some additional social proof, here’s Kevin Drum saying the same thing in a recent short post. #5 is not mainstream public consensus.
One more point. In Klein’s 6000 word post on the allure of race science, he says:
Here is my view: Research shows measurable consequences on IQ and a host of other outcomes from the kind of violence and discrimination America inflicted for centuries against African Americans. In a vicious cycle, the consequences of that violence have pushed forward the underlying attitudes that allow discriminatory policies to flourish and justify the racially unequal world we’ve built.
To put this simply: You cannot discuss this topic without discussing its toxic past and the way that shapes our present.
I’d put it more bluntly. When you talk about IQ and race, you are providing (if misused) weapons of mass destruction to the worst elements of American society, both past and present. So if you decide to write about IQ, you can’t avoid talking about racism since anything you say can be weaponized. Which is why I needed to say so right here in my blogexplainer as well. Klein is correct about this.
Section 5. Where is IQ science going next.
Klein and Harris qualify as public intellectuals. But academics are the ones who define the acceptable limits of scientific discourse in their area of expertise. I follow Erik Turkheimer and Paige Harden on twitter, and it’s clear to me they wrote their article in a spirit of public service. And similarly, David Reich’s new book is public outreach as well. Academic outreach is a thankless task. Your colleagues claim you seek controversy to sell books. Partisans attack you. You can do permanent damage to your career.
It’s human nature to remember who your enemies are, even after you forget why. Read Ezra Klein’s excellent piece How politics makes us stupid, on Dan Kahan’s work. So even if our understanding of IQ continues to shift over time, I doubt existing reputations will change, for Murray or anyone else. There are always new (and old) reasons to dislike your out-group (1,2,3). [Update. Along those lines, Matthew Yglesias just wrote a post taking Murray to task not for his IQ position, but for his social policies, The Bell Curve is about policy. And it’s wrong.]
On the plus side, as Razib Khan noted recently on twitter, the public clearly benefits from academic public engagement. So I hope more academics reach out, despite the risks. And I hope Harris and Klein continue their work as public intellectuals, finding some common ground. Ideally talking nerd-mode to nerd-mode, or manager-mode to manager-mode. Perhaps even reviewing the history and possible future of IQ science. [Update. Peak manager-mode from the actual podcast was when Klein said “To prepare for this conversation, I called Flynn the other day. I spoke to him on Monday.”]
So let’s finish by asking where is IQ science going? Answer: genomics, genomics, genomics. Polygenic scoring. Embryo selection for IQ.
But we are not there yet. To see why read this piece by Antonio Regalado DNA tests for IQ are coming, but it might not be smart to take one.
Appendix. Gould’s 1994 critique of The Bell Curve.
Here’s key quotes from Gould’s 1994 critique of The Bell Curve, plus a link to the full article. Here’s Gould:
Praxtime by Nathan Taylor 
Your bias on this is very strong. I haven’t read anything that makes me think that Gould’s take hasn’t aged well, and I’ve read plenty. It’s all the same stuff over and over. And “human general intelligence is a scientifically valid concept”? It is? Because we say we can measure it? You’ll have to excuse me while I raise my chin off my desk. If you want to say that we measure how good people are at some tests and call that IQ, fine, but to say that’s intelligence is, frankly, insulting. I’ve read Stuart Ritchie’s little book and it flails around looking for some reason why we should care about IQ and fails. People are interested in IQ because it makes people with high IQs assume a sense of superiority (unfounded, IMO).
If Stuart Ritchie’s book didn’t convince you about IQ, of course I won’t either. I guess I would just point out that the critique of Charles Murray published in Vox, which has a title of Charles Murray is peddling junk science about race and IQ, says the following:
Intelligence is meaningful. This principle comes closest to being universally accepted by scientific psychologists. Every clinical psychology program in the country trains students in IQ testing, tens of thousands of IQ tests are given in schools every year, and papers in mainstream scientific journals routinely include information about intelligence, even when IQ is not the main object of study.
And Ezra Klein’s piece makes no attempt to say IQ isn’t real. But instead argues that discrimination and america’s tarnished history on race explain IQ differences.
And finally, a year after The Bell Curve, and in particular Gould’s critique saying IQ wasn’t meaningful, the scientific body which is responsible for psychological testing, which covers IQ testing, issued a famous statement in 1995 saying IQ was real. Because too many people read Gould and got mistaken views of the science. See wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence:_Knowns_and_Unknowns
Again. I’m not going to change your mind. I only want you to be aware that my assertion of the meaningfulness of IQ is accepted by the american psychological association, and by those writing at Vox who absolutely detest Charles Murray.
Richard Feynmann scored 124 on a High School IQ test. He is rated as one of the top ten physicists of all time but his IQ probably wouldn’t have got him into the top 100 of his Yid dominated School.
There are plenty of plausible explanations for this; he was having an off day when the test was administered; the test was slanted towards verbal reasoning; he thought the test was uninteresting crap and tossed in random answers.
Or perhaps his true IQ actually was 124. After all IQ is just a test score, not actual intelligence although it may correlate very well with intelligence. But intelligence is subjective, an abstract concept, it exists but we can’t measure it directly, like we do human height.
And if IQ merely correlates strongly with intelligence there will be outliers which don’t, such as the good Mr Feynman. And there are high IQ people who seem to lack common sense, perhaps in reality they are simply not as intelligent as their score suggests.
Do I believe this stuff? Not really but I think Feynman’s score does raise interesting questions as to what exactly IQ is.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-the-next-einstein/201112/polymath-physicist-richard-feynmans-low-iq-and-finding-another