Posted on 10/17/2007 1:36:52 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
'Black people are less intelligent than whites', claims DNA pioneer
One of the world's most eminent scientists is at the centre of a row after claiming black people are less intelligent than whites.
James Watson, who won the Nobel Prize for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, has drawn condemnation for comments made ahead of his arrival in Britain tomorrow for a speaking tour.
Dr Watson, who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, made the controversial remarks in an interview in The Sunday Times.
The 79-year-old geneticist said he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of 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".
He said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.
He includes his views in a new book, published this week, in which he writes that "there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically".
"Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so," he says.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission is now studying Dr Watson's remarks "in full".
Dr Watson arrives in Britain to promote his latest book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science.
Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, told the Independent: "It is sad to see a scientist of such achievement making such baseless, unscientific and extremely offensive comments.
"I am sure the scientific community will roundly reject what appear to be Dr Watson's personal prejudices. These comments serve as a reminder of the attitudes which can still exist at the highest professional levels."
Dr Watson was hailed as achieving one of the greatest single scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century when he worked at the University of Cambridge in the 1950s and 1960s, forming part of the team which discovered the structure of DNA.
He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine with his British colleague Francis Crick and New Zealand-born Maurice Wilkins.
He has served for 50 years as a director of the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory on Long Island, considered a world leader in research into cancer and genetics.
He has courted controversy in the past, reportedly saying that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual.
He has suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, proposing a theory that black people have higher libidos.
He also claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying: "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great."
Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University, told the Independent: "This is Watson at his most scandalous. He has said similar things about women before but I have never heard him get into this racist terrain.
"If he knew the literature in the subject he would know he was out of his depth scientifically, quite apart from socially and politically."
To this point, I was struck when watching the movie "Ray" just how good and successful a businessman Ray Charles was, IMO because he was literally insulated from the visual thing by his blindness. So he analyzed his career on par with any other musicians' — if [white] musicians were touring Europe, that's what he would do. He couldn't see the eyeball rolling of his managers, and just insisted on it, and was wildly successful in Europe as well as here. He broke color barriers constantly, again, I believe, because he just couldn't "see" them.
Shame on you, most hammers can hit the nail on the head, which is more than those two knuckle heads can do. I apologize to all hammers for you and especially blue grass brands.
ping...
The tyranny of political correctness and the specter of being labeled a "racist" has caused many to completely ignore empirical evidence for fear of it taking them to a place they don't want to go.
I, for one, want an investigation and empirical study of why, with the retirement of Jason Sehorn, there are no white cornerbacks in the NFL (/sarcasm).
Even if I thought it was true, I would not have said it...
In the end it comes down to inviduals. I work for a black manager - he’s the best boss I’ve ever had. I’ve soldiered with exceptional black officers and NCOs.
Each person deserves to judged as individual. You only use stereotypes or blanket judgements when you lack enough info to make an individual judgment and don’t have the time and / or inclination to gather data.
Send this along to Al Gore along with the names of actors who’ve been forced to sell their awards to make ends meet when their beauty and fame have left them.
It could turn out that his two biggest prizes will be his two worst memories.
The guy should have said that whites are less athletic and have smaller dingies than blacks. Of course, there would be no outcry over these remarks.
To me this is the same as a ‘true believer’ in creationism not buying data that conflicts and most likely invalidates the theory entirely.
If it’s true, on average, that blacks are disadvantaged intellectually I’m not sure what can really be done. Remove voting rights? That would affect the smart ones unfairly. IQ tests to vote? That would put too much stock into IQ tests and leave endless room for USSR style oppression.
I think the old man is talking about intellect.
What kind of “testing” helped him make this determination in Africa? Could cultural bias and an assumption of western style education have played a role?
The graph in post 27 looks about like the graphs I’ve seen over the decades (I used to be in clinical psychology - my particular area of interest was psychological testing). Typically, the delta between white and black populations comes out to be about a standard deviation - 15 IQ points on most IQ tests.
An IQ of 80 - 90 is usually thought of as "dull normal," or in other words, pretty much average with maybe a little bit of a lag.
sitetest
I just recently read another study where actual testing was done, in the native countries,that came out consistent with what our eyes show us.
Asians have an average IQ of 110, whites 100 and blacks 87
The author pointed out that looking at the development in the countries of origin substantiate his findings. Africa is still primitive except where Europeans have come in and brought technology like digging wells and electricity. He attributes that to a lower mean IQ.
But like in all things the mean or average is not the top or the bottom.
There are whites with IQs of 60 and IQs of 150.
So in every race there will be exceptional people and very slow or dull people .
Sounds about right to me. Jesse Jackson, get into the line on the left. Al Sharpton, get in there behind Jesse. Sign up for the brain implant..
Twin studies tend to support this.
I think we are all born with a maximum and a minimum IQ, the difference between them is nurture and experience .
Well, in the scope of history, I guess this is a less offensive remark. There was a time when the black race was considered less than human by so-called intelligent people.
‘Black people are less intelligent than whites’, claims DNA pioneer.”
Yeah, right.
Next he will be claiming that homosexuality is genetic.
Idiot.
That is evident from the political donations you have made in the past to smucks such as Queen Hillary Clinton, Little Tommy Harking both considered to be far left thinkers.
Personally good Doctor your choice of who you donate money tells me a lot about your lack of common sense.
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