AI Summary
5 min read"Your intentions as an author don't really matter that much. It's actually like what's in the text."
When Sam Harris and geneticist Kathryn Paige Harden last spoke, it was in the aftermath of a public firestorm over Harris's decision to host Charles Murray on his podcast. Harden had co-authored a Vox piece criticizing both Murray's science and Harris's decision to platform him. Six years later, Harden has published two books on behavioral genetics — and has herself been attacked as a eugenicist, called "Charles Murray in a skirt," and seen her work caricatured in major reviews. In this conversation, they revisit that old conflict, then dive into Harden's new book Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness.
The Reckoning with a Past Conflict
Harden went back and reread her original Vox piece from 2017. She was surprised to find that her memory had softened the piece's actual content. "I really had gotten into it intending to focus on that and remembered it that way and was surprised, unpleasantly surprised at just how much of the piece was not just 'I think Murray is wrong on the scientific points' but 'I think Sam is wrong, normatively wrong on platforming him.'"
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What you'll learn
- 1 Main Outline
- 2 (00:01) **Opening and Podcast Intro** - Sam Harris introduces the episode and the free version of the podcast, noting subscriber support model.
- 3 (00:24) **Setting the Stage: The 2017 Controversy Revisited** - Sam and Paige Page Harden revisit their fraught history from six years ago, when she co-authored a Vox piece criticizing Sam for platforming Charles Murray.
- 4 (04:27) **Paige's Reckoning with Her Own Past** - Paige explains how re-reading her original Vox piece changed her understanding of what she actually wrote.
- 5 (08:56) **The Changing Political Landscape** - Paige describes how her perspective on the stakes of the controversy has shifted over nine years.
- 6 (11:44) **Sam's View on the Scientific Disagreement** - Sam reflects that the scientific differences with Paige seemed minor and were magnified by political urgency.
- 7 (15:20) **Introducing Paige's New Book: "Original Sin"** - Sam introduces Paige's new book on the genetics of vice, blame, and forgiveness, calling it "super important."
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Sam Harris speaks with Kathryn Paige Harden about behavioral genetics, moral luck, and the problem of blame. They discuss Harden's book Original Sin, the controversy over Charles Murray and Ezra Klein, why behavioral genetics remains taboo, the meaning of heritability, nature and nurture as feedback loops, why biological explanations can increase blame, psychopathy as a continuum, a hypothetical cure for evil, embryo selection and IVF, and other topics.
Related Episode: #212 - A Conversation with Kathryn Paige Harden
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