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."
saving for later
> So, how about who functions better in todays society as contributing and functioning human being, operating within our given societal norms. You could start by asking the large population (percentage) of blacks in prison why they got there...?? Is it white oppression? Is that it?
Watson spoke about “Intelligence”, and I guess I am saying that “intelligence” wouldn’t be the right measure.
The “white” and “black” thing in the US I have never understood, and greater minds than mine have tried. I suspect the answers to that question are far more complex than what can be explained by “intelligence”.
This is not true. I do not believe this for a second.
A very nice comparative, you both made excellent points. It boils down to the metrics utilized to determine intelligence. I am not sure you could exactly identify the metrics used as “caucasian centric” because Asians score 10 points higher on average on IQ tests.
I am just going to observe, interesting discussion. My theory counters the one posted, but still it is an interesting discussion. My theory is that I would have been stupid no matter what ethnicity I was born into, heh :)
Whatever one thinks of the tests, the results are incontrovertible that the black population taken as a whole has a lower mean/median IQ than the white population. Of course, it's also true that Ashkenazi Jews, the Chinese and Japanese have higher mean/medians than 'white' people. It's not 'racist' to note those facts.
There is also apparently an interesting phenomenon involving men and women: while the average for (white) men and women is the same at 100, the women's distribution is said to cluster more closely about the mean. What that means is that there are more men and fewer women at the extremes -- more men at the genius level but also more men who are mentally retarded. This could go a long way towards explaining some of the disparity between men and women in the professions requiring brilliance or something close - the hard sciences and mathematics.
Now, none of this means that any individual man is smarter than any individual woman, or that any individual white, Jew, Chinese or Japanese person, is smarter than any individual black person. Nor does it mean that cultural phenomena are irrelevant in determining how members of any population or subpopulation develop their natural talents which affects achievement significantly (perhaps as much as raw talent).
Instead of focusing on demanding that every group be 'equal' what would make more sense is to encourage the cultural traits that enable individuals in every group to achieve at the highest level possible for that individual. Bill Cosby, an obviously intelligent black man, is right that it is up to blacks to foster a culture that encourages achievement instead of handicapping blacks out of the gate.
After reading many comments, it appears that truthism lives on both sides of the political spectrum.
TRUE STATEMENT: Men are on average taller than women.
LIBERAL RESPONSE: Oh yeah? Then why was Ingrid Bergman taller than Mickey Rooney?
He was speaking with Africa’s native population in mind. Unfortunately that continent could use a human genome boost. Look at the Middle East, stuck in the ninth century because of Islam’s brainwashing. They need a genome boost, too.
Perhaps.....but it increases your odds of making a good guess.
LIBERAL RESPONSE: Oh yeah? Then why was Ingrid Bergman taller than Mickey Rooney?
CONSERVATIVE RESPONSE: Yes, as a GENERAL STATEMENT that is true. It doesn't mean that EVERY man is taller than EVERY woman. That's why is is called a GENERAL statement.
Exactly!
With ol Watson talking like that I’m surprised the UK let him in plus UK has lots of hate speech and racism laws
Is Verboten!!
He didn't find my family's "Irish Drunk" gene?
Unfortunately, most blacks vote for Democrats.
Everyone seems to have forgotten about the book “The Bell Curve”, including Steven Rose, the gentleman quoted at the end of the article.
"If he knew the literature in the subject he would know he was out of his depth scientifically, quite apart from socially and politically."
This awful commie Steven Rose is Jewish born and always organizing anti Israel boycotts so that tells you where he's at
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Find out more about navigating Wikipedia and finding information Steven P. Rose (born July 4, 1938 in London, United Kingdom) is a Professor of Biology and Neurobiology at the Open University and University of London. Rose studied biochemistry at King's College, University of Cambridge and neurobiology at Cambridge and the Institute of Psychiatry.[1] His research focuses on the biological processes involved in memory formation and treatments for Alzheimer's Disease. He has written several popular science books and regularly writes for The Guardian newspaper. From 1999 to 2002, he gave public lectures as Professor of Physiology at Gresham College, London. His work has won him numerous medals and prizes.
Rose is famously outspoken on political issues, being politicised by growing up in a Jewish family in London, England during World War II.[2] He is a prominent supporter of the academic boycott of Israel.[3] He has described himself as 'anti-Zionist'[4].
Rose is a critic of evolutionary psychology and adaptationism, and has written books with fellow scientist, Richard Lewontin.[5]
Rose is a regular panelist on BBC Radio 4's ethics debating series The Moral Maze.[1] He is married to the sociologist Hilary Rose with whom he shared the Gresham professorship, and with whom he has written and edited a number of books including Alas Poor Darwin: arguments against evolutionary psychology
Professor Rose is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association.
Steven Rose, with his wife Hilary, in response to Israeli military actions in the occupied Palestinian territories, advocated the initiation of a boycotts of Israeli academics in a widely publicized open letter to The Guardian on April 06, 2002.[6]
“Stupidest thing I ever read. This guy, naturally, defines intelligence from an entirely white Eurocentric white, and hes apparently not smart enough to realize that different peoples develop differnt kinds of intelligence.”
Different kinds of intelligence? More detail please
Well, some good can come out of this. The next time someone mentions how great it was for ALGore to get the Nobel Prize, just remind them of this fellow.
You are correct that you’d be more likely to survive in the Outback with an Aborigine than a Finnish PhD.
However, the problem arises if, say, thousands of Aborigines migrate to Finland. They don’t do very well on tests to get into college or to get high paying jobs. The cry then goes up to give them quotas because it’s unthinkable to suggest that they might just not be as adept at physics, chemistry, business management, or accounting as Finns.
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