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."
(1) It wasn't her discovery. The critical x-ray image of DNA was taken by Raymond Gosling in Franklin's lab nine months before Watson saw it. She had plenty of time to submit a paper if she understood the implications of that photo. She did not do it.
(2) She has received credit for what she actually did, which was to run the lab where that critical photo was taken. Franklin's contribution to the discovery is extremely well known. She and Gosling published an article on their DNA images in the same issue of Nature that contained the Watson-Crick article.
(3) She did not share in the Nobel Prize because she died in 1958. Watson and Crick received their Nobel in 1962. The Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously.
When Watson and Crick saw that x-ray photo, Franklin was already on her way out of King's College, moving to a different job where she would not work on DNA.
She made her contribution, but she did not discover the structure of DNA.
Intelligence
Hard Work
Sociability
Athletic Ability
Honesty
Etc.
Are all races equal in all categories?
The chance that all races are equal in all categories is nonexistent.
Ever been to an NBA game?
So, 99.9% of Caucasians are 'average'?
Does al have an actual expertise?
I don’t know if the medians between races are different, but there’s a huge difference between the high end and low end of each race:
William F. Buckley, Jr. vs. Al Gore
Thomas Sowell vs. Sheila Jackson Lee
Wait, maybe it’s the difference between conservative and liberal.
Yeah, the lib nut jobs will immediately jump all over this guy and castigate him as being obviously prejudiced, letting personal biases and beliefs influence his work, etc. etc. Yet they will turn right around and claim that every single so-called scientist pushing global warming is a saint and above reproach, and couldn’t possibly be biasing their results/conclusions... ;-/
I agree with your other posts on this thread but not this.
Historically Jews ...at least urban Jews and that would be most since they were rarely allowed much land rights ....Jews outperformed in Europe same as here.
not sure where this notion they were dullards before America comes from
btw....i have 5 kids (and this is not for you but for grandmaster deep voice), it is foolish to think intelligence is more conditioning and "food in the womb" than genetics....that is laughable
My thoughts ‘eggsactly’. The 60s/70s hippie, liberal trash, were overwhelmingly white and I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that the lefty liberal trash of today is overwhelmingly white.
and those differences are all too painfully apparent.
many of those here spouting their behavioral nonsense are doing so for personal reasons....can’t say I blame them
but Thomas Sowell...so oft quoted as the thinking black man here....doesn’t run from the facts Watson stated
in fact he studies why
no shite
Details, please.
Wishful thinking. Some folks like to make up their own facts to buttress their own opinions.
so you are saying that blacks who vote 90-95% for lefty liberal trash are somehow not lefty liberal trash but whites who vote for lefty liberal trash are lefty liberal trash?
I could no-hit the RedSox too, but it ain't bloody likely. Really this thread is getting pretty precious.
that guy you just posted to is our resident afrocentric nutjob....and I think he runs more than one moniker.
The two major players in my success are both Black and while I respectfully disagree with some of their opinions they are very intelligent and teach me well. Sounds like another article to drum up race discrimination from whitey.
So true. They have created entire new departments at every college to buttress feel-good PC fairy tale nonsense.
Thousands of imbeciles actually get advanced degrees in them, and go to work (sic) for the goobermint.
i hope the fate of our nation, conservatism or even just this forum is not in the hands of these brainwashed fools opining platitudes and politically correct myths on this thread
Great illustrative question. Obviously not.
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