Conversations with Bill Kristol: Charles Murray III (taped February 7, 2018; transcript)

Charles Murray · 7 Feb 2018

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Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Reversing a cause of a social problem does not necessarily solve it years later

Their wordsAnd, as years went on after Losing Ground, I became a lot more aware of the way in which something can be a cause of a problem at one point in time, but reversing it isn’t necessarily going to be the solution to the problem ten years later.
Our reading
The 1960s social reforms were a major contributor to rising out-of-wedlock births

Their wordsI will still defend the proposition that the social reforms of the 1960s were a major contributor to the acceleration of out-of-wedlock births.
Our reading
Abolishing welfare would not restore the old norms around family formation

Their wordsAnd so, I had to come with terms to the fact that I don’t think getting rid of the welfare system would in any way fully restore the same kind of milieu, in which teenage boys and teenage girls made decisions about this sort of thing.
Our reading
For low-income people, the social fabric that made families form has frayed enormously

Their wordsFamilies only form in the first place because there are very powerful social and economic pressures when kids are 20 years old to do that thing. And that fabric has just frayed enormously, for low-income people.
Our reading
The environment siblings share explains far less of how they turn out than once thought

Their wordsIt is settled science that this shared environment the siblings have explains far less about how they turn out than we thought it did.
Our reading
The family matters for how children turn out, but less than once thought

Their wordsSo, the family is still important, it is not as important as I used to think.
Our reading
Heredity matters more than he understood in the 1980s

Their wordsI did change my mind on that as well. I wasn’t as conscious of the role of heredity in the 1980s as I became when I was working on The Bell Curve.

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