Mano has got it. Just go read that.
I’m just disgusted that anyone would still think a work written by a think-tank hack to justify the policies of the rich is more credible than the scientific literature on race.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Thanks for pointing to this.
In this interview, Murray defends the book thusly:
“Here is the paragraph in which Dick Herrnstein and I stated our conclusion:
“If the reader is now convinced that either the genetic or environmental explanation has won out to the exclusion of the other, we have not done a sufficiently good job of presenting one side or the other. It seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences. What might the mix be? We are resolutely agnostic on that issue; as far as we can determine, the evidence does not yet justify an estimate. (p. 311)
That’s it. The whole thing. The entire hateful Herrnstein-Murray pseudoscientific racist diatribe about the role of genes in creating the black-white IQ difference. We followed that paragraph with a couple pages explaining why it really doesn’t make any difference whether the differences are caused by genes or the environment. But nothing we wrote could have made any difference. The lesson, subsequently administered to James Watson of DNA fame, is that if you say it is likely that there is any genetic component to the black-white difference in test scores, the roof crashes in on you.
http://www.aei.org/publication/bell-curve-20-years-later-qa-charles-murray/
I guess the argument against the book is that the details of the book are those detailed by Mano and they are lying in their defense. Notice that he quotes Nicholas Wade’s book in arguing that race is not a social construct , when the evidence seems to be that it is.
Be fair PZ. Sam Harris is not _just_ anyone. He is a Big Name in atheism. He is a Bright. He is a Horseman, even. Plus he is a racist (and sexist) turdmuffin.