In 1995, Charles Murray was speaking at Calvin College. One of our teachers offered us extra credit if we would go. There was a lot of bad things in the news about Charles Murray at the time, but he completely charmed the audience (me included). Everything he said in the speech seemed so reasonable and moderate, it was hard to imagine why so many people were upset with him.
In 2017, Charles Murray somehow got himself back into the spotlight. If my memory of the chronology is correct, some students protested one of his speeches, and then Murray become one of the cause celebres for the anti-cancel culture movement. Sam Harris had Charles Murray on his podcast.
I listened to that podcast episode in full, and commented on it in this post here. I gave Murray a somewhat cautious, but largely favorable write-up in that post. Murray came across as so reasonable and moderate, it was difficult to see why so many people were upset with him.
Enter Youtuber Shaun, who thoroughly takes apart Murray's book The Bell Curve and demonstrates why it is such bad science, and why Murray and his collaborator were deliberately skewing the data to fit their thesis. And suddenly, it becomes clear why so many people have been upset with Murray.
I suspect the reason Charles Murray has been able to stay relevant for as long as he has is because he is so charming in person. But perhaps appearing so moderate and reasonable in speeches and interviews is all part of Murray's grift. It allows him to mask the insidious arguments of "The Bell Curve" behind a facade of reasonableness and moderation.
At any rate, Shaun's video is definitely worth watching, for a thorough critique of all the problems with The Bell Curve.
The Bell Curve
Ours was one of the very few bookstores in Toronto that stocked the book, back in the day. We carried it for the same reason we carried The Satanic Verses and other books of notoriety, "freedom of the press/expression" and all that. But handing this book over to excited customers was one of my first gloom-inducing experiences of eagerly pursued confirmation bias.
ReplyDeleteOh right? So this thing was not only in the news, it was actually selling a lot of copies as well? I guess that shouldn't surprise me, but I suppose I had been assuming this was one of those books that was talked about but never read.
ReplyDeleteIt was initially very popular, thanks to its notoriety. And it remained in demand right up to the day I left, some four years later. The general rule of thumb for stock was keep a copy on the shelf if it sells once every three months, and this did better than that. Which is remarkable, because I can't recall one other book "devoted" to stats that did anywhere near so well.
ReplyDeleteNow that I think of it, we sold The Turner Diaries also. Special order, but still.
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