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DNA pioneer James Watson is blacker than he thought
The Times Online ^ | December 9, 2007

Posted on 12/10/2007 6:57:09 AM PST by Daffynition

JAMES WATSON, the DNA pioneer who claimed Africans are less intelligent than whites, has been found to have 16 times more genes of black origin than the average white European.

An analysis of his genome shows that 16% of his genes are likely to have come from a black ancestor of African descent. By contrast, most people of European descent would have no more than 1%.

The study was made possible when he allowed his genome - the map of all his genes - to be published on the internet in the interests of science.

“This level is what you would expect in someone who had a great-grandparent who was African,” said Kari Stefansson of deCODE Genetics, whose company carried out the analysis. “It was very surprising to get this result for Jim.”

Watson won the Nobel prize, with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, after working out the structure of DNA in 1953. However, he provoked an outcry earlier this year when he suggested black people were genetically less intelligent than whites.

This weekend his critics savoured the wry twist of fate. Sir John Sulston, the Nobel laureate who helped lead the consortium that decoded the human genome, said the discovery was ironic in view of Watson’s opinions on race. “I never did agree with Watson’s remarks,” he said. “We do not understand enough about intelligence to generalise about race.”

The backlash against Watson forced him to step down as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York state, after 39 years at the helm. He had said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospects for Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really”.

The analysis by deCODE Genetics, an Icelandic company, also shows a further 9% of Watson’s genes are likely to have come from an ancestor of Asian descent. Watson was not available for comment.


TOPICS: Education; Health/Medicine; Science
KEYWORDS: africa; bellcurve; cuenelsonmunz; genetics; gigo; godsgravesglyphs; haha; helixmakemineadouble; hoax; iq; irony; jameswatson; mattridley; mtdna; signaphinothing
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Oops.
1 posted on 12/10/2007 6:57:11 AM PST by Daffynition
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To: Daffynition

Doh!


2 posted on 12/10/2007 6:59:47 AM PST by claudiustg (You know it. I know it.)
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To: Daffynition

Can he still be called a racist with this discovery? Probably not.


3 posted on 12/10/2007 7:00:33 AM PST by rineaux (How dare you, how dare you question the Clinton's wrecked record.)
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To: Daffynition
JAMES WATSON, the DNA pioneer who claimed Africans are less intelligent than whites, has been found to have 16 times more genes of black origin than the average white European.

I love it.. I always love to point out to people who claim they are 'pure' anything that genetically, the differences we identify as racial (skin color, hair color, etc) are smaller than the genetic differences that separate individuals, technically, if you trace everyone back, we all are just mutts. :->

4 posted on 12/10/2007 7:01:54 AM PST by mnehring (..one candidate did not display any moderateness or liberalism...Fred Thompson - Rush Limbaugh)
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To: Daffynition
They should check the First Black President on this!

(about as likely as Chelsea getting DNA-tested for Web Hubbell genes, I'm sure).

5 posted on 12/10/2007 7:02:09 AM PST by traditional1 (Thompson/Hunter '08)
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To: Daffynition

I don’t see any irony here. Watson did not say that any white person will be smarter than any black person.


6 posted on 12/10/2007 7:02:53 AM PST by freespirited (I'm voting for the GOP nominee.)
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To: Daffynition
James Watson

James Watson, 1955

He does kind of have that North African, Berber look.

7 posted on 12/10/2007 7:03:14 AM PST by SpringheelJack
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To: mnehrling
I always love to point out to people who claim they are 'pure' anything that genetically, the differences we identify as racial (skin color, hair color, etc) are smaller than the genetic differences that separate individuals

Whatever floats your boat, but it's lost on me how that renders the differences trivial. I've never been able to figure out how a full standard deviation difference in average intelligence between two groups is insignificant, and I certainly can't tell you with a straight face that a two standard deviation average difference is.

8 posted on 12/10/2007 7:12:55 AM PST by freespirited (I'm voting for the GOP nominee.)
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To: freespirited

Intelligence is more based on cultural and environmental factors, not racial. In all situations being equal testing scenarios, you don’t see the standard deviation that you do if you pull those with diverse environmental backgrounds.


9 posted on 12/10/2007 7:17:19 AM PST by mnehring (..one candidate did not display any moderateness or liberalism...Fred Thompson - Rush Limbaugh)
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To: mnehrling
Intelligence is more based on cultural and environmental factors, not racial. In all situations being equal testing scenarios, you don’t see the standard deviation that you do if you pull those with diverse environmental backgrounds.

Sorry, but that is utter nonsense. The one standard deviation difference between white and black populations in the U.S. is one of the most consistent findings in psychometrics.

How much of this is genetic and how much is environmental is of course a subject of considerable debate. I think 50/50 is as good an estimate as any.

10 posted on 12/10/2007 7:22:33 AM PST by freespirited (I'm voting for the GOP nominee.)
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To: freespirited
I would love to see your source on this. Studies like the Miele and Grasso studies have shown that, while there are some genetic traits that impact intelligence, they are not distinctly racially passed, more related to individual family groups, and this still doesn’t overcome environmental impacts. At that, the infamous the Milwaukee Project pretty much debunked the blanket ‘racial’ difference argument.
11 posted on 12/10/2007 8:15:07 AM PST by mnehring (..one candidate did not display any moderateness or liberalism...Fred Thompson - Rush Limbaugh)
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To: Daffynition

A great grandparent who was black? I can trace all of my great grandparents.I would think he could too.


12 posted on 12/10/2007 8:36:30 AM PST by Gay State Conservative (Wanna see how bad it can get? Elect Hillary and find out.)
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To: Daffynition; CholeraJoe; blam; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 24Karet; ...

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·

 
Gods
Graves
Glyphs
Thanks Daffynition.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
 

· Google · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology magazine · Biblical Archaeology Society ·
· Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo ·
· History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·


13 posted on 12/10/2007 8:41:43 AM PST by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Monday, December 10, 2007____________________https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: mnehrling
I know pretty much nothing about genetics but I know a little bit about medical research and the “nature vs nurture” question.When deciding a “nature vs nurture” issue one method they use is to study identical twins raised apart and adoptees in general.Have any such studies been conducted in connection to intelligence?
14 posted on 12/10/2007 8:41:47 AM PST by Gay State Conservative (Wanna see how bad it can get? Elect Hillary and find out.)
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Matt Ridley:
Nature via Nurture

by Stan Pinnegar
November 21, 2003
Some scientists, he says, believe that chimpanzees do not have a theory of mind, that is, they cannot imagine what another chimp is thinking. But studies show ambiguity. Chimps, we are told, regularly engage in deception. A baby chimp, for example, pretended he was being attacked by an adolescent so his mother would let him suckle her. Baboons, the author tells us, have performed well enough at computer discrimination tasks to show they are capable of abstract reasoning.

In the chapter The Madness of Causes we learn about such mental illnesses as bipolar disorder and, in Blame Mother, schizophrenia. The author makes the sobering point that heritability of schizophrenia is high in Western society, roughly 80 per cent, or about the same as body weight and much more than personality. And did you know that a mouse has 1036 olfactory sensors in its nose?
Here's the book:
Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human Nature Via Nurture:
Genes, Experience, and
What Makes Us Human

by Matt Ridley

15 posted on 12/10/2007 8:46:50 AM PST by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Monday, December 10, 2007____________________https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: Gay State Conservative

Whoops, sorry, meant to ping you to #15.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1937345/posts?page=15#15


16 posted on 12/10/2007 8:48:30 AM PST by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Monday, December 10, 2007____________________https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: Gay State Conservative
The difference is that the twin studies deal with unique family groups while the prior discussion was counteracting a blanket ‘racial’ judgment. The fact is that what we see in individual family groups don’t reflect what the whole of the represented race because the family group differences far outweigh the racial ones (ie, any racial group is so diverse in family differences, blanket statements cannot be made for a whole based on what we describe as ‘race’)
17 posted on 12/10/2007 8:49:44 AM PST by mnehring (..one candidate did not display any moderateness or liberalism...Fred Thompson - Rush Limbaugh)
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To: Daffynition

Puts me in mind of what a joke the racial classification system is. Puerto Rico is shown as being 85% white, when anyone with a pair of eyes and a knowledge of history knows that this is not true. Most PRs have at least 25%-50% black African ancestry.


18 posted on 12/10/2007 8:50:19 AM PST by Clemenza (Rudy Giuliani, like Pesto and Seattle, belongs in the scrap heap of '90s Culture)
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To: Daffynition; SunkenCiv

Reminds me of “The Human Stain” in which a college professor who has hidden the secret that he is black is fired for making an innocent remark construed as racist.


19 posted on 12/10/2007 8:55:11 AM PST by CholeraJoe (Vote for Mike Huckabee or Chuck Norris will give you a wedgie!)
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To: Daffynition

Does that work?
I have a great-great-grandparent who walked out of the lowlands of Georgia, who always claimed to be Native American. Can genealogy tests now tell me if she was NA or of mixed NA-African heritage?


20 posted on 12/10/2007 8:55:33 AM PST by JerseyHighlander
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