A controversial social scientist spoke with Tucker Carlson about the "cognitive demands" of certain occupations and how racial IQ related to those demands, in addition to peddling more pseudoscientific racism.
On Carlson's show on the Fox Nation streaming service, Charles Murray, the co-author of "The Bell Curve", talked about his new book and differences between people "that are not explained by racism, let alone systemic racism."
Which was a fancy way of saying just racist things.
You can see their remarks here:
Murray: "Entry into certain kinds of occupations is limited, because the cognitive demands of those occupations mean that a whole lot of more white people qualify than black people, and even a higher proportion of Asian people qualify than white people."pic.twitter.com/z2E7bW3dSp— Brendan Karet \ud83d\udeae (@Brendan Karet \ud83d\udeae) 1623882372
Murray guested on Carlson's show where they talked about ideas in his new book, along with old ones that have been widely criticized.
The above clip, where Murray uses an example of the difference in IQ between Black and white nurses leads to a difference in job performance.
He said:
"Essentially, you have registered nurses, and we have data on fairly large numbers of registered nurses, Black and white, and the difference in mean IQ between the two of those is a dozen IQ points, which is a lot."
"It means you have a whole lot of extremely able Black nurses. You have some incompetent white nurses, but it does mean you have a difference in job performance, and that's eventually going to be reflected in income as well."
The argument Murray made is one that white nationalists have been pushing for years.
Two white guys discussing race issues. Wonder which side they\u2019re taking?— BrickmanInGA #PfizerVaxxed #MeidasMighty \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@BrickmanInGA #PfizerVaxxed #MeidasMighty \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8) 1623899717
The racist and classist elements to IQ scores have been exposed so thoroughly that anyone with this opinion should be laughed at by anyone serious.— The Nerdskull (@The Nerdskull) 1624217518
One of the worst things a/b guys like Charles Murray is they use a lot of words to try & hide their prejudice. His work starts w/his conclusion\u2014that one\u2019s ancestral genes can be instructive re: life outcomes. These two pgs just say \u201cI don\u2019t use the term race\u2014so I\u2019m not a racist.\u201dhttps://twitter.com/charlesmurray/status/1360942517492076548\u00a0\u2026— Dean Wallace \ud83d\uddf3\ud83d\uddfd (@Dean Wallace \ud83d\uddf3\ud83d\uddfd) 1624025522
Murray's book "The Bell Curve" became a very divisive work, often used by racists and alt-right figures to push a pseudoscientific narrative about inherent racial differences in intelligence. This has led to a lot of criticism of IQ as a sole standard for determining intelligence, and possibly its use as a test at all.
Murray's discussion with Carlson went on, with Carlson not challenging any of the outrageous claims Murray made. If you're familiar with Carlson at all, this is unsurprising.
Instead, Carlson's show is the perfect place for thinly disguised racism to be pushed, since that's what the internet says mostly happens there anyway.
the fox news white power hour discusses the possibility of race war against the feeble-minded blackshttps://www.mediamatters.org/fox-nation/fox-nation-tucker-carlson-and-charles-murray-discuss-race-science-and-speculate-race-war\u00a0\u2026— Bobby Lewis (@Bobby Lewis) 1623934526
I can't really stop thinking about the fact that Tucker Carlson had Charles Murray on his show, and what that means. I don't know if more attention being paid to it is better or worse either. I do know it's a sign of very bad things to come.— Alex Pagliuca (@Alex Pagliuca) 1623952916
Tucker pushing scientific racism again, because of course, he would. Tucker Carlson Brings Charles Murray On https://youtu.be/8X72VEdi3CE\u00a0 via @YouTube— Paige the middle aged T-girl \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\u26a7\ufe0f\ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08\ud83d\udd2d\ud83d\udcda\ud83c\udf39 (@Paige the middle aged T-girl \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\u26a7\ufe0f\ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08\ud83d\udd2d\ud83d\udcda\ud83c\udf39) 1624035259
@TuckerCarlson clearly has no fear of God.https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1405360170318839817\u00a0\u2026— Rosie Riveter #MeToo #BLM (@Rosie Riveter #MeToo #BLM) 1623899774
June 16th\u2019s episode of Tucker Carlson Today on Fox Nation featured a match made in race science hell. Tucker Carlson hosted Charles Murray, known for a career peddling pseudoscientific claims related to racial IQhttps://www.mediamatters.org/fox-nation/fox-nation-tucker-carlson-and-charles-murray-discuss-race-science-and-speculate-race-war\u00a0\u2026— nikki mccann ram\u00edrez (@nikki mccann ram\u00edrez) 1623898724
Murray's claims about IQ and race were not backed up with any studies or statistics, though they likely feature in his new book. However, if it's being pushed by Carlson as the truth, it should only be considered with more than a few grains of salt, if at all.