The Erroneous Thinking Of Sam Harris

One of the most known personalities in the promotion of atheism and science-based thinking is Sam Harris. I follow him semi-regularly and appreciate his work. However, I can no longer stay silent in the face of his continued bias as represented in this recent podcast. Following are examples of this erroneous thinking:

He supports the Alt Right's “Intellectual Dark Web.” He believes that Islam is the only reason for 9/11, but ignores Israeli terror on the Palestinians. He accepts the discredited racial pseudoscience of Charles Murray. He doesn't accept the reality of systemic racism or unconscious bias. He is not accepting of the full spectrum of evidence regarding police violence. (link) (link) (link) (link) (link) (link) (link) (link) 

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11/27/2020 - UPDATE: This link debunks him regarding his claim that "the police used more deadly force against white people—both in absolute numbers and in terms of their contribution to crime and violence in our society."

12/10/2020 - UPDATE: This link shows his continuing "blind spot."

1/15/2021 - UPDATE: This link focuses on his whataboutism/false equivalency regarding the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6th.

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Bias And The Antidote

Any science-based thinker understands that our brains are not reliable for understanding objective reality, which leads us to many cognitive biases. For example, the term confirmation bias is defined as the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information that confirms or supports one's prior personal beliefs or values. 

A more recently-recognized cognitive bias is unconscious bias against those of another race. This latter bias is being strongly challenged by some. These links (here), (here), (here) present the issue and are used by me to attempt to clarify opinions over it. In my opinion, in spite of some justified issues with testing, the bias is real and causes harm. This Facebook post of mine contains some heated interaction between me and others that is illustrative of the issue.

Unfortunately, in spite of the present protests against racism affecting Blacks, I am afraid that the core message is being lost: humans have deep-seated biases, many of which are not at the conscious level. I choose to group all of these biases under the umbrella of "The Other", whether it is religion, race, sex/gender, or political philosophy. The antidote to all of this is humility, an open mind, and science-based thinking. Magical Thinking (Credulity) has to be marginalized significantly to have significant improvement, full-stop.