The Bell Curve
Book by Charles A. Murray and Richard HerrnsteinWikipedia
78
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24
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21
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Search complete. 78 mentions across 24 episodes found for "The Bell Curve".
Sep 17, 2026
Molly CongerHOST
They were trying to convince everyone else that they'd already found the answer they were looking for.
Molly CongerHOST
Just like the 100 pages of footnotes at the end of The Bell Curve, or Charles Murray's attempt to dress up his argument for race science in the garb of legitimate academic work, having this nominally scientific-sounding professional organization and its accompanying outlet for publishing their work gave this collection of vicious racists and outright Nazi sympathizers the appearance of serious academics interested in serious scientific pursuits.
Molly CongerHOST
It gave them the gravitas they needed to con their way into a courtroom for Wickliffe Draper's final Hail Mary in the fight against integration.
Molly CongerHOST
Nearly 10 years after the Supreme Court ruled that school segregation on the basis of race was unconstitutional, the race scientists found a way to present their side of the argument in court, and the entire legal strategy and all of its experts were bankrolled by the Pioneer Fund.
Nathan CofnasHOST
My guest today, Dr. Charles Murray, doesn't need an introduction to the listeners of this podcast, HIAC Chair Emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute, co-author of The Bell Curve in 1994, and more recently, books including Human Diversity and Facing Reality.
Nathan CofnasHOST
So we'll jump right into the flame war.
Nathan CofnasHOST
I say there is obviously a connection between intelligence and human worth.
Daryl DavisGUEST
All right? And then he goes on to say, um, that Black people, which I've heard many times since then, are born with a smaller brain than white people.
Daryl DavisGUEST
Now, at that time, there was a book that had come out, uh, which was a, a crock of nonsense, called The Bell Curve, and, and it said something similar to that.
Daryl DavisGUEST
So the Klan quickly adopted that as their Bible, you know?
Coleman HughesHOST
Mm-hmm.
Gil DuranGUEST
A very pro-Trump guy who in my book is the center of this sort of cult of apocalyptic billionaires who believe it is their destiny to destroy democracy.
Gil DuranGUEST
And so the important thing about the cognitive elite term, though, is that it comes from a different book, a book called The Bell Curve from 1994, which was a very controversial early race science book that argued that intelligence is genetic and was sort of, you know, a big early success for the racist science crowd who always wants to argue that white people are naturally more intelligent than everyone else.
Gil DuranGUEST
And so there's a direct through line there to this eugenics, racist thinking to the sovereign individual, to this idea that tech founders and engineers should be the people who run society.
Gil DuranGUEST
And that idea goes way back, all the way through the Early part of the 20th century, you see this idea that technology means everything can become more efficient automatically through technology.
David GerardHOST
[laughs] Oh, so Lex Fridman went there?
Valerie VeachGUEST
Yes, and he go- he did a whole podcast on The Bell Curve.
Valerie VeachGUEST
Like, he, he, he goes there.
Valerie VeachGUEST
Yeah, and he was actually the first person that I heard, like, like, openly entertaining ideas that I knew just from- Being a person in the world, like we're sort of problematic.
Katharine BirbalsinghHOST
And by the way, Kofnas is not the only race scientist.
Katharine BirbalsinghHOST
Famously, Charles Murray wrote The Bell Curve in 1994, which very controversially argued that there were average differences in intelligence between racial groups.
Katharine BirbalsinghHOST
Now, what's interesting in comparing Charles Murray with Nathan Kofnas is that they are actually very different.
Katharine BirbalsinghHOST
Charles Murray argues that IQ exists and that it might vary between groups, but he is very clear that IQ isn't the same as moral worth.
Michael MarshallHOST
Charles Murray said to do this.
Michael MarshallHOST
Charles Murray, in case anyone isn't aware, is the author of The Bell Curve.
Michael MarshallHOST
He's a eugenicist who wrote a book about how black people don't have as high an IQ as white people and about how white people are basically intellectually and morally superior.
Michael MarshallHOST
He wrote that while being funded by the Pioneer Fund, which is a eugenicist organization.
Dark EnlightenmentGUEST
But that's not the way the world works.
Dark EnlightenmentGUEST
And once you accept that, you know, once you have read, like, "The Bell Curve" or gotten exposure to any of Jerry Taylor's work or, I don't know, dealt with a woman-
Pete QuiñonesHOST
[laughs]
Dark EnlightenmentGUEST
...
2 HRS 22 MINS LATER
Dark EnlightenmentGUEST
You're literally being chased out by, you know, insane, violent, non-white people wielding machetes.
Dark EnlightenmentGUEST
You gotta take whatever loss you can and move, and it's gonna cost you more time, and it's stressful, and, you know, all of these things, right? These, all of these increased costs that just make it more and more and more difficult.
Dark EnlightenmentGUEST
And so y- you know, and many years ago when I was new to all these sorts of ideas, I was just like, "I gotta tell these people about the truth, like the bell curve is a thing, and, and that's why there's this, this problem here." And then, oh my gosh, dude, everybody knows.
Dark EnlightenmentGUEST
Lindsey Graham knows.
Dark EnlightenmentPANELIST
But that's not the way the world works.
Dark EnlightenmentPANELIST
And once you accept that, you know, once you have read, like, "The Bell Curve" or gotten exposure to any of Jared Taylor's work or, I don't know, dealt with a woman, it just falls apart.
Pete QuiñonesHOST
[laughs] Oh, you got m- uh, you had me right there at the ending.
Pete QuiñonesHOST
Um, well, you know, the economics thing is sure.
2 HRS 21 MINS LATER
Dark EnlightenmentPANELIST
You're literally being chased out by, you know, insane, violent, non-white people wielding machetes.
Dark EnlightenmentPANELIST
You gotta take whatever loss you can and move, and it's gonna cost you more time, and it's stressful, and, you know, all of these things, right? These, all of these increased costs that just make it more and more and more difficult.
Dark EnlightenmentPANELIST
And so y- you know, and many years ago when I was new to all, all these sorts of ideas, I was like, "I gotta tell these people about the truth, like the bell curve is a thing, and, and that's why there's this, this problem here." And then, oh my gosh, dude, everybody knows.
Dark EnlightenmentPANELIST
Lindsey Graham knows.
Ian MastersHOST
So let's talk about then the privileged, which come in many forms and have many apologists.
Ian MastersHOST
As you discuss the natural aristocrats such as John Adams, who feared the tumult of too much democracy, the social Darwinists led by Yale professor William Graham Sumner, who blamed the poor for their own miseries, those who preached the gospel of production, including Henry Ford, who wanted an industrial hierarchy in which the best people ruled over compliant inferiors, utilitarian racists who advocated for eugenics and a racial hierarchy, meritocrats like Harvard professor Richard Herrnstein, who described an economic caste system based on intelligence in his co-authored book, The Bell Curve, and most recently technocrats who seem to see themselves as superior because they are closest to the machinery destined to outstrip and supplant fallible fresh and blood humanity.
Ian MastersHOST
Now, in the last quote there, referring, of course, to the tech bros, the techno-utopians, who really do dominate our politics.
Ian MastersHOST
I mean, in the last cycle, Elon Musk spent about $300 million and helped elect the Republicans and Trump.
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