Charles Murray On Human Diversity | Basing Social Science on Scientific Evidence
What this covers
After writing the book, The Bell Curve, Charles Murray became a controversial figure in the US Social Science scene, and was much maligned in the public arena. His work has been misinterpreted as being racist and sexist, and at Middlebury College students forcibly stopped his guest lecture and rioted.
As often the case with stereotypes, Murray is instead a thoughtful scholar who has tried to base his social science research on data from empirical science, something that should be standard, but isn’t.
Lawrence wanted to discuss his most recent book, Human Diversity, with him. It is far from controversial, and instead is a clear effort to explain often complex genetic concepts in a popular format. He makes it clear that he focuses on only well understood and well accepted concepts, and the discussion we had was instructive and enjoyable. He is a delightful and thoughtful individual and I believe that comes out in our dialogue.
Many people will condemn the discussion without listening to it, just as they condemn his writing without reading it. But if you take the time, you might be pleasantly surprised, as well as learning some new things about the world.
One of the purposes of The Origins Podcast is to connect science and culture, and Murray connects hard science with social science issues in a refreshingly honest and detailed way. Indeed, if all social scientists and policy makers took his approach, it's possible that the overall tenor of popular discussion would improve. And while Murray and Lawrence do not share political views on a number of issues, thoughtful discussion is far preferred to blanket cancellation and denunciation or a refusal to even engage.
Consider supporting the podcast and the Origins Project Foundation at https://www.originsproject.org/
To see commercial-free, full HD video episodes, join us at https://lawrencekrauss.substack.com/
Thank you for your support!
The Origins Podcast, a production of The Origins Project Foundation, features in-depth conversations with some of the most interesting people in the world about the issues that impact all of us in the 21st century. Host, theoretical physicist, lecturer, and author, Lawrence M. Krauss, will be joined by guests from a wide range of fields, including science, the arts, and journalism. The topics discussed on The Origins Podcast reflect the full range of the human experience - exploring science and culture in a way that seeks to entertain, educate, and inspire.
Full Episodes Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXLv1PHLilU&list=PL5R87nA_A7ijBql86ZL1_PAM8GDM1M_VC
Source description (no synthesized summary yet).
Murray argues that social science must ground itself in biological evidence rather than ideology, and that understanding human diversity across sex, race, and class through genetic and environmental factors is essential for crafting just policies that enable human flourishing rather than pursuing egalitarian outcomes that deny observable differences.
- Social scientists have been captured by ideological orthodoxy that denies biological reality, constraining discussion of sex differences, racial genetic variation, and the role of intelligence in class structure
- Recent advances in genetics and neuroscience provide conclusive evidence for biological bases of human diversity that social policy must acknowledge
- The goal of policy should shift from reducing inequality of outcomes to creating 'valued places' where people of all abilities can flourish, which requires accepting rather than denying human differences
This asset isn't compiled yet
You're seeing its claims, ranked. Compile it to build the argument threads, weight them, and check each claim against your library — the full view.
Males show a greater tendency to exhibit gender-typical choices in more gender-egalitarian countries, which is surprising and lacks a quick explanation.
“a great deal of what accounts for the widening differences is men not women... men show more tendency to have gender typical choices uh in more gender egalitarian countries which i find very interesting and i don't have a quick snapping explanation for that”
A key finding was that even at the very high end of mathematical ability in the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth, women who had both extremely high math and extremely high verbal skills were more likely than men to pursue people-oriented or verbally-oriented careers, suggesting that when capable of multiple paths, women gravitate toward people-oriented work.
“there are more women than men who had the very high verbal skills in these sets and they in a way males have fewer choices than females do at the high end because with an awful lot of the females in this program their math and their verbal were both in the top percentile whereas you had a fair number of the guys who were absolutely brilliant at math and hopeless at verbal”
Increased prenatal testosterone is associated with reduced eye contact and smaller vocabulary in toddlers at 12 and 24 months, showing neurobiological effects of hormones on social behavior early in development.
“we found that toddlers at at 12 and 24 months of age who had we had identified as having lower fetal testosterone now at higher levels of eye contact and larger vocabulary or putting the other way around the higher level of prenatal testosterone the less eye contact you now make and the smaller your vocabulary”
Sex differences in mathematics become progressively larger as a sample becomes more selective and as the type of math skill becomes more advanced, visible in competition data like the IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad).
“sex differences in mathematics become progressively larger as a sample becomes more selective and the type of math skill becomes more advanced”
Every individual has skills and talents that differ from statistical group means, and must be treated as an individual rather than as a representative of group averages.
“these are statistical statements every individual and and i think it's really important”
The initial increase in women entering STEM fields in the 1970s-1980s demonstrates that removal of artificial barriers does affect behavior, but the stabilization of these proportions for the past 30 years suggests that further increases would require additional explanation beyond discrimination.
“these increases which i think were directly the result of opening up of opportunities had stabilized very quickly they stabilized by the late 1980s or early 1990s in most cases and they've now been pretty stable for 30 years...the fact that it's stabilized in the last 30 years indicates that a burden of proof has shifted somewhat so that if you're going to say that still because of racist sexism that women aren't doing this stuff okay you can try to make that case but you got to make the case you can't just assert it”
Heritability of IQ increases with age, from about 0.3-0.4 in five-year-olds to 0.5-0.6 in adolescence to nearly 0.8 in full adulthood, suggesting that genetic influences become more pronounced as people develop and exercise greater choice over their environments.
“the heritability of iq normally for five-year-olds is pretty low it's maybe 0.3.4 and uh it goes up and so by adolescence it's up around 0.5.6 and by full as you know full maturity it can rise up near 0.8”
Evolution has proceeded much more rapidly than previously thought possible through 'standing variation' - the rapid increase in frequency of genetic variants already present in populations when environmental conditions change to favor them, rather than requiring new mutations.
“the big thing that was found out after the genome was sequenced and that was in the early 2000s is that evolution can take place much more rapidly through what's called standing variation”
If shared environment accounts for only 20% of variation in test scores, and any intervention program comprises only a small fraction of a child's total environment, then even an extremely effective program can produce only modest improvements in outcomes due to simple mathematics and fractional constraints.
“if it's the case that the shared environment only accounts for 20 let's say of that and i'm probably being generous um okay so you've got 20 that can be twiddled with through really effective programs presumably but the problem is that any intervention you have is going to comprise a small fraction of the total environmental environment that the child is in and so simply as a matter of math you're looking at a potential change even given a really good program that is severely constrained”
Early-childhood education effects typically attenuate over time and do not produce sustained gains in IQ or income, contrary to repeated media narratives of 'miraculous increases.'
“you have short-term effects on the exit test sometimes a lot of times you don't it was attenuate over time and yeah the overall the overall story is genes are a big portion”
More women now receive professional and doctoral degrees than men in the United States: as of 2016, 93,000 women earned professional degrees compared to 84,000 men, with women's doctorate completion exceeding men's every year, demonstrating that universities are not systemically excluding women from higher education.
“in 1960 20 men got a professional degree for every women who did because it was legislated the women were excluded by 1970 the ratio was less than ten to one by 1980s it was less than three to one in 2005 it became equal women caught up with men since then more women have gotten more professional degrees than men every year um as of 2016 93 000 and change women got professional degrees compared to 84 000 for men”
Racism and sexism are no longer decisively important in determining who rises to the top of society, as ethnic differences in economic attainment and income nearly disappear when controlling for IQ, though racism and sexism still play some role that remains contested as to whether it is large or small.
“my proposition is that racism and sexism are no longer decisively important in determining who rises the top to support that proposition i'm about to demonstrate that ethnic differences in two major components of class economic attainment and income nearly disappear for people at similar iqs”
Social sciences have been captured by an ideological orthodoxy that is 'scared stiff of biology,' preventing them from integrating biological understanding into social theory despite biology being in a 'golden era' of progress that provides unprecedented opportunity for social science to become a full participant in scientific inquiry.
“social sciences have been in the grip of an orthodoxy that is scared stiffer biology and so i think it's really great to see that combination of of using uh signs to as the basis of of decision making”
Diseases like sickle cell anemia and Tay-Sachs show that genetic differences between populations have long been known but were treated as exceptions, when in fact population genetic differences in disease-relevant genes are systematic.
“there are in you know in certain diseases we already know that there are there are group selection effects that what you call race or populations that different populations are more susceptible to certain diseases we've known that for decades... the sickle cell anemia uh has to be genetically different in uh and and that the sacs syndrome has to be genetically different between uh ashkenazi jews and other populations we've known that for a long time”
Sex differences in personality are consistent worldwide and tend to widen in more gender egalitarian cultures, a finding replicated multiple times with no countervailing studies of similar quality finding the opposite.
“we have replication after replication point number one I think I had three or four at the time I was writing the book there have been more that have come out since then point number two is there are no countervailing studies out there of similar quality remotely similar quality that find the opposite a narrowing of these differences”
Human beings have intrinsic worth and dignity that has nothing to do with their intelligence, abilities, or productivity—worth is based on character, not talents—and people differ in strengths and weaknesses but no one is superior or inferior as a person.
“i reject claims that groups of people either sexes or races or classes can be ranked from superior to inferior i reject claims that differences among groups have any relevance to human worth or dignity”
Human populations are genetically distinctive in ways that correspond to self-identified race and ethnicity, which is demonstrable through cluster analyses using genetic markers that have no known phenotypic effects, such that 23andMe can accurately predict continental ancestry.
“how do you suppose it is the 23andme is able to tell you that you are 82 german and uh 14 french and so forth and the answer is it's not just that you can tell the differences in the continental races but you can by using genetic markers uh go down to very very uh fine granular uh understandings of of your origins of your ancestors”
Physics differs from social science in that measurement error in physics is generally smaller and better understood, whereas in social science measurement error is substantial and often not adequately accounted for, though science fundamentally requires quantifying uncertainties rather than ignoring them.
“it's a big deal in all of science the only difference is in physics we can know we know our measurement error is generally better than you do in social sciences but it's in the inherent part of science and it frustrates me that people don't realize that that's the great thing about science is we can try and quantify quantify our our uncertainties instead of just ignoring them”
Male and female brains show measurable biological differences in structure and lateralization (division of labor between hemispheres), with male brains more lateralized and female brains showing greater inter-hemispheric communication through a larger corpus callosum, differences tied to prenatal testosterone exposure.
“there is not really an argument among neuroscientists that male brains are lateralized much more than female brains and that it is a direct result of the testosterone surges prenatally that bind with receptors in the brain”
Lewontin's fallacy is the mistake of claiming that because only 15% of genetic variation exists between human populations rather than within them, between-population differences cannot be important, failing to recognize that even small percentages of the genome can have large phenotypic effects.
“in the technical literature it's called lawanton's fallacy yeah and uh that people were writing about it as early as the 1980s uh that the idea that just because uh humans are mostly the same on on the vast majority of these variants doesn't mean that the remaining differences can't be important”
The shared environment (family income, parental education, parenting styles, neighborhood quality, school quality) plays only a minor role in explaining variation in personality, ability, and social behavior, as revealed by twin studies comparing identical and fraternal twins raised together.
“the surprising part was how little was explained by the shared environment”
Being good at something is intrinsically rewarding to humans and shapes vocational choices, as Aristotle noted, and people naturally gravitate toward activities they enjoy and at which they can achieve competence, which is a fundamental truth about human nature that should not be controversial.
“people generally enjoy things they're good at like you talked about why you're into history they also like the experience of being good at what they do a fundamental truth about the nature of human enjoyment that goes back to aristotle”
A large rigorous California study in the early 2000s found that achievement tests do as good a job as the SAT even for disadvantaged students, which changed Murray's view on the appropriate role of the SAT.
“this was an article in the aei magazine uh lawrence was uh this was an article in the aei magazine uh by the way i'm sorry you didn't have a better experience today usually well i loved it i thought it went really well it was only afterwards the argument was this and i had to be persuaded by data because i didn't want to believe the data this was a big california study that was done in the early 2000s and they concluded that achievement tests do just as good a job even in schools for disadvantaged kids as the sat”
Krauss identifies a problem with contemporary academia and media: universities have become increasingly hostile to scientific discussion of human diversity, with students able to prevent careers through protest, deny tenure to postdocs, deny tenure track positions to assistant professors, remove tenure from established faculty, and issue administrative reprimands for discussing biological aspects of diversity.
“you can't really um uh incorporate biology into social science without being inconspicuous that the the and i'm intrigued being said the price can be protest by students denial of tenure tenure track employment for post sorry denial of tenure track employment for postdocs denial of tenure for assistant professors or reprimands from the university administrators you're being very tame it actually includes even more than that you can now be you can now have your 10 or 10 year evoked tenure is no longer what it used to be”
Parents intuitively recognize that they cannot change their second child to be more like their first, suggesting that traits are less malleable through parenting than commonly assumed.
“any parent who has had more than one child knows that those two kids had characteristics that were quite different from the get-go that you recognized in the first few weeks of life in some cases and furthermore i think parents of more than one child recognize there is no way that they are able to change the second kid to be more like the first kid or vice versa”
Social scientists often base their discussions on ideology or preferences rather than referring to scientific literature, which is problematic for both public policy and the credibility of social science as a field.
“social scientists often base their discussions on ideology or preferences and don't refer to the scientific literature and he thinks it's really important for public policy and social science to base their discussions on science”
Geneticist David Reich at Harvard stated that people must stop claiming races have no important genetic differences because they will be overrun by 'a tsunami of data,' and that labeling those who suggest significant genetic differences between groups as racist is indefensible, even though important differences won't necessarily be great.
“david reich a very highly respected geneticist at harvard i almost hate to bring him into it because quoted by charles murray is certainly not david reich's idea of a good time but he said it in the new york times op-ed piece okay and he said it very eloquently people have got to stop saying that what we know as races don't have any important genetic differences they're going to just be run down by the tsunami i think he used the word the tsunami of data”
The new upper class (cognitive elite) in advanced societies is significantly cut off from mainstream society in culture and values, and has inadvertently damaged wellsprings of human flourishing through its distinctive cultural model.
“a new upper class that i described in coming apart another one of your books not just influential and affluent but smart highly educated with its own distinctive culture significantly significantly cut off from the mainstream of american society”
The SAT is a better measure of general intelligence (g) than achievement tests, but has accumulated cultural baggage that makes it serve as a status signal for upper-middle-class kids rather than a tool for identifying poor children with high ability.
“the ssat insofar as that even though it's been bastardized in the last 25 years still is a better measure of g general intelligence than than achievement tests”
Removing standardized tests as a screening tool is particularly harmful to disadvantaged children because it removes the best tool for identifying them, whereas the criticism that these tests are 'racist' conflates racism with self-selection problems.
“it is taking away from them the best tool for identifying them and that is that's a crime yeah yeah okay uh okay absolutely”
Diversity and equity initiatives in universities have not produced the changes in demographic representation that would be expected if legal barriers were the primary barrier, suggesting that other factors—including differences in preference, ability, and field-specific distributions—are more important determinants of who enters various fields.
“and you make the point also that you can also see this difference and it it going the other direction that the that the removal of barriers for women has not only increased the number of women in stem but and it's increased the number of women education to the point that right now women at higher education outnumber men by huge factor most universities it's 60 women 40 men”
Dick Herrnstein refuted Krauss's claim that stratospherically high-IQ undergraduates were socially weird by showing that the admissions office had folders of equally intelligent students who also had good social skills, demonstrating selection bias in Krauss's observations.
“i used to argue with dick hernstein about this because i said look when i was undergraduate harvard i know some kids that had stratospheric iqs and i wouldn't trust them to make any kind of a common sense decision and they were really pretty weird and and dick said uh i could take you to the admissions office and pull the folders of another dozen kids that were every bit as smart in terms of cognitive ability but they also had good social skills”
The bulk of variance in success in life and earned income remains unexplained by measures of ability and socioeconomic background—researchers are lucky to explain half of variance in educational achievement and only a quarter of variance in earned income—so people do not live in a deterministic world ruled entirely by genes or social background.
“the bulk of the variance in success in life is unexplained by either nature or nurture researchers are lucky if they can explain half of the variance in educational achievement attainment with measures of abilities and socioeconomic background they're lucky if they can explain even a quarter of the variance in earned income by such measures”
Effect sizes for individual sex differences in personality and cognition are typically small, but when cognitive abilities and personality traits are aggregated as profiles rather than examined separately, the combined effect can become meaningful, and one cannot validly treat conceptually related dimensions as independent.
“if you take each you know personality characteristic and cognitive ability and social behavior separately and say what are the effect sizes between men and women the answer is most of them are are small and those who say that it's wrong to think that these differences are a big deal like to deal with them one at a time and another set of scholars say you can't do that that if you have uh 15 personality characteristics what you're interested in is a profile”
A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) is a location in DNA where a base pair can take on different variants, with different allele frequencies across populations, such that continental populations show correlations in allele frequency around 0.7 while within-continental populations show correlations around 0.97-0.99.
“snip and snip single nucleotide polymorphism and what that means is that you have a base pair in dna you have two different or could be more uh very variants on it and it can take on different alleles”
When Lawrence Krauss was a department chair and hired someone who was not a woman, he was required to write a letter explaining why, indicating that diversity considerations were already institutionalized 30 years ago.
“i was a chairman of a department in the 1990s and uh and um and i you know i i saw how even then if we we were working hard to to get women in into physics departments and every time we made a hire that wasn't a woman i always had to write a letter explaining why and that was 30 years ago”
Newborn girls within two days of birth show stronger interest in human faces while newborn boys show stronger interest in mechanical objects, suggesting sex differences in attention emerge before socialization, though this 2002 study with 102 subjects is unreplicated and should not be taken as definitive proof.
“the most dramatic example of a finding from infancy which led to considerable publicity was a 2002 study presenting evidence that newborn girls no more than two days old after birth showed stronger interest in a human face while the newborn boy showed stronger interest in a mechanical mobile it's a it's a single unreplicated study with a sample of 102. not proof to take the bank but its finding was in line with many other studies”
It is easier to harm children through bad parenting or abuse than to improve outcomes through good parenting, analogous to entropy in physics—it's much easier to damage than to build, which is a property of nature.
“it was really a property of entropy in physics but effectively it's just a lot easier to do bad than it is to do good it's a lot it's a lot easier to damage your children than to to than to improve them i think and and it's just i think a property of nature”
A valued place in society is defined as a social role where one would be genuinely missed if absent, which can come from family and children, community engagement, meaningful work, or faith communities, and society should be structured to maximize such valued places across the full range of human abilities.
“by a valued place i mean if you were gone people would miss you and that can be because of a family and spouse and children it can be because of a community that would miss you i suppose it can be because your place of employment will miss you uh it can also be because your faith community will miss you”
Advanced societies have replaced one form of unfairness with another: the old unfairness was artificial barriers preventing talented people from realizing their potential; the new unfairness is that talent itself is largely a matter of genetic luck, creating an undeserved cognitive elite whose success is unearned.
“the evidence is conclusive enough to warrant treating them as facts the implication is that advanced societies have replaced one form of unfairness with another the old form of unfairness was that talented people were prevented from realizing their potential because of artificial barriers rooted in powerlessness and lack of opportunity the new form of unfairness is that talent is largely a matter of luck and that the few who are so unusually talented that they rise to the top are the beneficiaries of luck in the genetic lottery”
Murray believes some people have greater capacity for religious faith than others due to genetic variation, which he compares to tone deafness: some people have genetic difficulty accessing faith experiences, though this does not mean faith is not real, just as tone deafness does not mean Beethoven is not beautiful.
“i think it's i think it's similar to tone deafness um for genetic reasons some people are tone deaf that does not mean that the music of beethoven is not beautiful it means they for not reason's not their fault can't hear it uh same as color blindness literal color blindness i think that in matters of faith there is a genetic element”
Murray's wife, a Quaker, serves as his editor and has had a moderating influence on him, having initially been turned off by his conservative reading list but unable to reconcile that with his deep personal decency, a dynamic that reflects how reasonable people can disagree on politics while maintaining intellectual integrity and personal respect.
“she said you know she looked at your conservative reading list and was a you know and was sort of turned off by it but ultimately had a hard time reconciling that with a deep decency you had as a human being”
The new upper class should celebrate and model marriage as an institution that gives most people the best chance of creating a deep fulfilling intimate relationship, community as valuable whether in small towns or urban neighborhoods, productive work, and religion—not by passing laws but through cultural advocacy.
“what the new upper class can do is honor the wellsprings that means for example celebrating marriage not just as one of many options but as an institution that gives the most people the best chance of creating a deep and fulfilling intimate relationship”
Universal basic income (UBI) is preferable to current welfare systems as a means of providing adequate material subsistence, though income redistribution alone cannot solve the deeper problem of meaningful valued places.
“i will say parenthetically i'm in favor of the universal basic income yeah”
Social cognition skills, including the ability to read emotions and decode social information, are practically valuable in fields like criminal interrogation where women may outperform men due to their generally higher social cognition abilities.
“there are a wide variety of applications of these social cognition skills yeah no it's it's uh by the way did your wife take the test did you did did you no i never got her to take it okay i might well i might as well fess up she scores higher on all kinds of standards sure okay good good then good excellent um okay but now let's get to the vocational part of this because it it really resonates with something that that is very a very important social issue for me anyway in academia which is this issue of diversity and you started by saying people generally enjoy things they're good at like you talked about why you're into history they also like the experience of being good at what they do a fundamental truth about the nature of human enjoyment that goes back to aristotle and and when it comes we're living in times where there there is there are differences between the proportion you know not just in gender but in race in of of of individuals in university departments and background demographics and and what what we're told without any evidence without any studies without any supporting empirical data is that that's due to racism or systemic racism”
In more gender egalitarian countries like Sweden, women have greater freedom to pursue vocations aligned with their preferences rather than economic necessity, whereas in less egalitarian countries like Pakistan women with engineering capability may pursue it due to limited high-paying job options, explaining why gender-typical vocational differences are larger in egalitarian societies.
“if you are a woman who is capable of being an engineer in pakistan you are capable of taking up a profession that pays pretty well and there are not that many you don't have an abundance of opportunities if you're a woman in pakistan to get a job that has a good pay so you may not want particularly to be an engineer but the incentives to do so are compelling if you are that same woman with exactly that same skill set in sweden uh you do have abundant choices and so you don't have to go with the one or two that will make a decent income for you you can go with a wide variety of choices”
Krauss was skeptical about Murray's 10-year timeline for major social science revolutions, noting that in his physics experience he proposed things in the 1980s that still haven't been completed, and his inclination is that things will get worse before they get better.
“i'm surprised by your optimism in terms of a time frame reminds me in my you know physics experiments i was involved in proposing things in the 1980s that still haven't been completed but at the time i thought i'll be solved in 10 years i i i i i guess my we can talk about this the end but i'm my natural inclination right now and my what i tell all my friends is that i think it's going to get worse before it's going to get better”
Krauss notes that while he grew up with 1960s-1970s feminism that emphasized equal capability and limitless opportunity for women, he now sees a 'victimhood card' being played in contemporary discourse about gender, which he finds inconsistent with the data showing women now earn more degrees than men and universities have been actively recruiting women for decades.
“it's really interesting for me to see having had that sensibility to see the um the vic the vic the victimhood card that's being played a lot”
Murray's personal evolution on these issues involved being a natural liberal skeptical of both conservatives and social science, then becoming concerned about denials of biology in academic institutions, observing diversity programs at universities that deny reality by claiming no sex differences or that all disparities are due to white privilege, and recognizing these as ideological rather than evidence-based positions.
“uh the nonsense of of sort of diversity and equity programs at universities which i've been intimately involved with for 40 years at universities seeing how how how they denied reality and and and clearly things became impossible to talk about or generally accepted that were nonsense that there were no sex differences between men and women um that that all disparities in in the number of people in programs was due to white privilege or supremacy”
A faculty member in Canada was reportedly denied a scholarship or grant for stating that he treats everyone as an individual regardless of group category, which the diversity statement rejected as inadequate.
“a faculty member didn't get a scholarship didn't get a grant in canada a physicist because more or less he said i treat everyone as an individual it was this diversity statement”
The next 10 years will see major battles in social science as biological progress accelerates, fundamentally transforming the field and attracting different kinds of people.
“i think the next 10 years are going to see a lot of the major battles fought because the progress in biology is so rapid at this point”
Lawrence Krauss found in his teaching experience across elite and non-elite universities that at graduate level, standardized test scores above a competence threshold did not correlate well with future success, and mean differences between institutions were less striking than extremes.
“it's funny at least at the graduate level um beyond a certain threshold at least of competence i've i've always found that uh that the uh that it's very that um the scores really didn't correlate with how well the people would do in at least in the in the say the graduate entrance exams”
Even people of above-average intelligence have areas where they lack competence or intuitive understanding, exemplified by Murray's average score on a test of reading emotions from eyes (despite above-average IQ), showing that intelligence is multidimensional and people have varied strengths.
“i took the test and i took the test and i and i i took it very seriously and i spent time on it i stared at them uh okay i've been saying before my iq is above average my score on reading the mind in the eyes was precisely average for males okay and uh it's lower than the the one for females”
The task of mapping specific genetic variants to specific phenotypic traits is still incomplete despite rapid progress, with geneticists making 'incredibly rapid progress' that will likely clarify trait-specific genetic differences within the next 10 years.
“the conclusion from that is not about any specific trait we aren't there yet okay we're getting there the geneticists are getting there and they're making incredibly rapid progress that's why i say 10 years an awful lot of this stuff is going to be understood”
Krauss argues that agnosticism is functionally a form of atheism insofar as agnosticism means not finding arguments for God sufficiently convincing to believe, which is what atheism typically means, though the difference is not important compared to maintaining intellectual questioning.
“agnosticism is atheism if you take if you take atheism generally saying is well you're not willing to to not doubt in a sense you're not willing to you don't find the arguments convincing enough to say yeah i quote unquote believe which is what agnostic is that that's just a one form of atheism”
Murray evolved from agnosticism toward Christianity and Christian belief under the influence of his wife, people he met through her Quaker community, and other relationships, and describes himself now as having faith though still filled with uncertainties about many things.
“yeah oh no i well yeah in a way um i mean i've evolved uh over the last 15 years a lot under my wife's influence and also the people i met through her and also through other people so i'm afraid you would find me disturbingly shaky in my unbelief if we talked about it longer i'm still filled with uncertainties about all sorts of things um but yeah i've been i've been tending toward uh being religious and specifically christian”