I think he's a very intelligent and thoughtful guy. I think most of the time when people take issue with something he says it's because they don't want to hear it because it clashes with their view of the world.

Yeah, his whole "debate" with Ezra was pretty painful for this reason. Sam makes specific points in long diatribes completely ignored and bypassed when it's Ezra's turn. I do love hearing Sam slowly get pissed off, though. The master meditator.

Anybody listen to his podcasts? What do you make of his feud with Ezra Klein?

Jordan Peterson must be really eating into this guy's market share.

...and Sam should have acknowledged that any research showing resulting differences must be taken in that context (genes are not necessarily static over a lifetime and environment influences the expression and development of these genes).

I have not had a chance to listen to the podcast yet (and from what I hear, it's not a very interesting listen), but their email exchange was hilarious. My favorite part was Harris threatening -- twice -- to make the exchange public, and then following it with the postscript "it appears this has backfired."

Sam Harris says his moment came in 2006, at a conference at the Salk Institute with Richard Dawkins, Neil deGrasse Tyson and other prominent scientists. Mr. Harris said something that he thought was obvious on its face: Not all cultures are equally conducive to human flourishing. Some are superior to others.

“Until that time I had been criticizing religion, so the people who hated what I had to say were mostly on the right,” Mr. Harris said. “This was the first time I fully understood that I had an equivalent problem with the secular left.”

After his talk, in which he disparaged the Taliban, a biologist who would go on to serve on President Barack Obama’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues approached him. “I remember she said: ‘That’s just your opinion. How can you say that forcing women to wear burqas is wrong?’ But to me it’s just obvious that forcing women to live their lives inside bags is wrong. I gave her another example: What if we found a culture that was ritually blinding every third child? And she actually said, ‘It would depend on why they were doing it.’”

I don't consider the regressive left "progressive."

Who cares?