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."
You might be right but then I look at who they elect.
I don’t think guys who slap their names on their grad student’s work are so bright, either.
None.Ignore pigmentation and treat each individual as per their individual record.
Sort of like saying that we shouldn't reject the hypothesis that perhaps men have an inherent advantage in math, physics and peeing across the room?
Men on average have an advantage in these areas. With the exception of peeing across the room, this group average tells us absolutely nothing about the performance of any individual man or women. Again, treat each individual as an individual and there is no problem.
LOL WUT?
I looked up James D. Watson at the Open Secrets website to see if he donated to anyone. I came across this donor which looks like it’s him based upon a Google search using James D. Watson and Cold Springs.:
WATSON, JAMES D
COLD SPRINGHARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LABS/SCIENTIST
9/29/2003
$5,000
To Organize a Majority PAC
WATSON, JAMES D
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY
9/15/2004
$2,000
Clinton, Hillary Rodham
WATSON, JAMES D
COLD SPRING HBR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LAB
6/22/2001
$1,000
Harkin, Tom
WATSON, JAMES D
COLD SPRING HBR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LAB
1/15/2002
$1,000
Harkin, Tom
WATSON, JAMES D
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
PRESIDENT
9/21/1998
$1,000
D’Amato, Alfonse M
WATSON, JAMES D
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LABS
1/10/2000
$1,000
Harkin, Tom
WATSON, JAMES D
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LABS
7/11/2000
$1,000
Harkin, Tom
WATSON, JAMES D
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LAB
4/30/2002
$500
Harkin, Tom
WATSON, JAMES D
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
6/29/1998
$500
D’Amato, Alfonse M
WATSON, JAMES D
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY/SCIEN
6/25/2006
$250
Lamont, Ned
WATSON, JAMES D
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
5/1/2002
($2,500)
Harkin, Tom
WATSON, JAMES D JR
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LAB/SCIENTIST
10/20/2005
$2,100
Harkin, Tom
WATSON, JAMES D JR
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LAB/SCIENTIST
10/20/2005
$2,100
Harkin, Tom
WATSON, JAMES D JR
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY/CHANC
5/17/2007
$2,000
Clinton, Hillary
WATSON, JAMES D JR
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY/CHANC
3/17/2006
$2,000
Clinton, Hillary
WATSON, JAMES D JR
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LAB/SCIENTIST
12/22/2005
$1,500
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte
WATSON, JAMES D JR
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRINGS HARBOR LAB/CHANCELLOR
10/20/2006
$1,000
Kilroy, Mary Jo
WATSON, JAMES D JR
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY/CHANC
6/25/2007
$700
Clinton, Hillary
WATSON, JAMES D JR
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY/CHANC
6/25/2007
$300
Clinton, Hillary
WATSON, JAMES D MD
SEQUIM,WA 98382
PHYSICIAN
7/23/1993
$300
American Academy of Ophthalmology
WATSON, JAMES D MD
SEQUIM,WA 98382
PHYSICIAN
11/22/1994
$300
American Academy of Ophthalmology
WATSON, JAMES DAVID
DILLON,SC 29536
ATTORNEY
12/5/2001
$1,000
Sanders, Alex
WATSON, JAMES DEWEY
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LABS
9/20/2002
$10,000
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte
WATSON, JAMES DEWEY
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LAB
11/11/2004
$5,000
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte
WATSON, JAMES DEWEY DR JR
COLD SPRING HARBOR,NY 11724
COLD SPRING HARBOR LAB/PRESIDENT CA
7/31/2003
$2,500
Republican Leadership Council
I have noticed the similarities between stupid blacks and whites - the same type of moral values, same speech patterns, etc. We are in an age where certain stupid people are placed on a pedestal - AlGore - while certin intelligent people are ignored - Thomas Sowell. I see a common thread in real life and in television programs and movies. The ones who obtain positions of power are the sneaky, the not-so-bright ones, while the competent and intelligent ones must be smeared and destroyed. In real life - the Clinton Crime Family compared to President Bush, VP Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. In television programs, I think 24 is a prime example. The very existance of a Jack Baur threatens the insecure, the ignorant, the incompetent, so he must be destroyed. <P.
I have my own way of measuring intelligence. If I am invited into someone’s home, I look at what books that person reads, the magazines, the newspaper. I look at the music they listen to. Talking to them, I find out what kind of movies they like. What type of television shows they watch. That tells me more about them they they realize.
The blacks in the US are certainly more gullible as a group regarding politicians.
Unless 99% of the Caucasians that you see everyday are retards.
No. But Sowell is a genius and one doesnt run intto them everyday at the bar.
> However, the problem arises if, say, thousands of Aborigines migrate to Finland. They dont 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 its unthinkable to suggest that they might just not be as adept at physics, chemistry, business management, or accounting as Finns.
...which I guess demonstrates that “Intelligence” is a crude-at-best measure to use to figure out what is wrong.
Intelligence is supposed to be measurable irrespective of culture or education or upbringing. It is supposed to be entirely neutral, without bias.
That is stupid. Count the thousands of brilliant scientists coming out of Africa.
Havent we danced around the Bell Curve for decades and haven’t we devised methods to discredit it? Move along! Nothing new to see here.
barbra ann
You're right about his statement having no weight about specific people, black or white.
When you talk about averages, though, it has long been documented (but not readily talked about) that black scores on IQ tests and tests like the SAT, tend to average significantly below whites. The situation in the US is more complicated than it is in Africa, since such a large percentage of US blacks are genetically mixed, where someone may be referred to as "black" when he's genetically as much as 90% white
LAZARUS LONG
These days, hardly any research gets done that is not financed by a grant. The purpose of research is to get grant funding.
Doing politically incorrect research into racial differences pretty much ensures that you will not get any more funding
And with that statement, you prove your lack of understanding of the issue. ALL the data show that ON AVERAGE, blacks have lower intelligence than whites (about 10 IQ points IIRC). BUT--the Gaussian distribution around that average says that SOME blacks will be more intelligent than most whites.
The CORRECT thing to do (as William Buckley said long ago), is to judge people AS INDIVIDUALS on their INDIVIDUAL performance.
Even the results of "The Bell Curve" only indicated that on average those of European descent had a higher IQ than those of African descent. All the divided 'races' had representatives at the high and low ends of the IQ spectrum. An average IQ European descendant would still have a huge percentage of African descendants with a higher IQ than him.
Furthermore, the epigenome might have more of an effect than the actual genome. And then Watson would be smart to find out that there is little genetic basis for race. Some genes are more prevalent in some 'races' than others, but very few are exclusive.
Stupid old codger.
A useful PBS Nova video that shows that DNA does not completely control a human's intelligence, among other things: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/archive/date-20070724.html. (Aired today; around 47 minutes; the video will probably be replaced, eventually).
Also, a PBS link to written articles on the subject, if you don't have a fast internet connection: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/genes/?campaign=pbshomefeatures_4_novabrghostinyourgenes_2007-10-17.
As an aside, they surprisingly did not bring up Macroevolution.
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