Am thomas sole had a rather untraditional background, ansti, and still made it highly successful as an intellectual. He earned bachelor's phd, the whole thing, harvard professor, cornell professor, and author. So to what extent, is he just sow he's just so smart that he was able to overcome these disadvantages? Or are their lessons for us to learn, politically about about his life and success? I'm not sure i agree with that characterization. Tom's an empirical thinker. He's looking at the experience of blacks and other groups prior to these huge welfare state interventions,. And then looking at their experience after those interventions were put into place. The data
Shermer speaks with Jason Riley about Maverick — the first-ever biography of Thomas Sowell, one of the great social theorists of our age. In a career spanning more than a half century, Sowell has written over thirty books, covering topics from economic history and social inequality to political theory, race, and culture. His bold and unsentimental assaults on liberal orthodoxy have endeared him to many readers but have also enraged fellow intellectuals, the civil-rights establishment, and much of the mainstream media. The result has been a lack of acknowledgment of his scholarship among critics who prioritize political correctness.
Shermer and Riley discuss: Riley’s documentary on Sowell; Sowell’s philosophy that “there are no solutions, only trade-offs”; mismatch theory and affirmative action; race and IQ; why Riley thinks liberals make it harder for blacks to succeed; political correctness; BLM, antiracism, reparations; charity and welfare; income inequality and UBI, and much more…