Controversial Social Scientist Charles Murray Retires - 2018-01-07
Controversial Social Scientist Charles Murray Retires January 7, 2018,
We're going to spend the next few minutes talking about race and class in America with two people who've been thinking about these issues but in very different ways. In a few minutes, we'll talk with the head of the Kellogg Foundation, one of the country's largest. It's pouring millions of dollars into ending what it calls structural racism. But first, someone you may know for his controversial writings in social science, Charles Murray. He co-authored with Richard Herrnstein the book, "The Bell Curve," which looked at IQ as a determinant of socioeconomic status - a book many critics have derided over the years as racist. His other books include "Coming Apart: The State Of White America, 1960-2010" and "Losing Ground."
Mr. Murray recently announced that he'll be retiring as the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, moving into an emeritus role. He's giving a major address tomorrow to mark this transition, so we thought we'd take this moment to talk about his career. And I started by asking him about "The Bell Curve."
CHARLES MURRAY: Why did it become so controversial? It is because IQ all by itself is kind of a flashpoint, and IQ and race - if you put that into a book, even if it's one small part of a very long book, the book becomes about IQ and race. And so I think that what I experienced after that is as simple as I violated a taboo.