Posted on 01/12/2019 5:23:13 AM PST by reaganaut1
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory revoked the honorary titles held by its longtime leader James D. Watson on Friday, describing as unsubstantiated and reckless his recent remarks about genetic differences in intelligence among racial groups.
Dr. Watson, one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century, had apologized after making similar comments to a British newspaper in 2007. At the time, he was forced to retire from his job as chancellor at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island, but he has retained his office there, as well as the titles of chancellor emeritus, Oliver R. Grace professor emeritus and honorary trustee. The graduate school of biological sciences at the research center is named for Dr. Watson, and the laboratory held a 90th birthday party for him last spring.
For the past decade the laboratory, like much of the scientific community, has engaged in a delicate balancing act with regard to Dr. Watson: holding him at arms length for reinforcing unfounded racial stereotypes, while still honoring him for his contributions to science. Dr. Watson, with Francis Crick and Rosalind Franklin, helped discover the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, and he went on to help to shape the subsequent revolution in molecular biology.
But his recent comments effectively reverse the written apology and retraction Dr. Watson made in 2007, and require the severing of any remaining vestiges of his involvement, Cold Spring Harbors chief executive, Bruce Stillman, and its board of trustees chairwoman, Marilyn Simons, said in a statement.
[...] In the film, Dr. Watson references a view that average I.Q. differences between blacks and whites reflect underlying genetic differences shaped by natural selection.
But leading geneticists say that even modern DNA studies are currently unable to validate such hypotheses about differences between human populations.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No need to run from any truth. Our position needs to be that, even if such differences were real, everyone should be equal under the law, and that nobody’s achievement has to be limited by a group statistic.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory revoked the honorary titles held by its longtime leader James D. Watson on Friday, describing as unsubstantiated and reckless his recent remarks about genetic differences in intelligence among racial groups.
...
The way racism is defined, the truth can be racist.
Right now we have a global crisis in which millions of non-white people, decades or centuries after throwing off white colonialism, are desperately trying to get into the pockets of the world administered by whites.
...
Maybe that’s because whites, as defined by liberals, are a global minority.
Oh great.
Here’s where FR nut bin demonstrates their favorite “science” topic like the libs are with “climate change”.
Frankly if there are people that think seriously that blacks are intellectual inferior to whites FULL STOP, then you need to take an IQ test themselves so we can have a name and a score to go with the people that are so in love with this topic.
I hope he researched William Schockley before he went down this path. It is the hill you will die on, in every possible way, even going back 60 years ago. This is the ultimate blasphemy and you will be burned at the stake in every metaphorical sense possible. It will likely cause the loss of his family too (see William Schockley).
He’s over 90 years old.
Let him be. Stop baiting the Doctor to further incriminate himself. We have nothing to gain, and it only stresses him.
He is entitled to his empirical conclusions.
It is an article of faith of our current civic pseudo-religion that there are no differences in intelligence between ethnicities or sexes. To suggest otherwise is blasphemy, even if you are supported by evidence. We should go wherever the evidence leads. Our belief that all men are legally and morally equal does not mean we have to pretend that they are physically and mentally equal if they are in fact not.
All that said, I dont think the evidence actually supports Dr. Watson. There was a studyI forget where to find it at the momentcomparing IQs of members of the same ethnic groups who were raised in different parts of the world. Compare the average IQs of West Africans in West Africa vs, the children of West African immigrants in the US, and compare those to the descendants of West African slaves. You think you find that the average native West Africans have IQs well below 100, the average descendants of West African slaves have IQs somewhat below 100, but the average children of West African immigrants to the US have IQs well OVER 100. Yet however you define race, they are certainly part of the same race.
Likewise, the study showed that while Ashkenazi Jews and East Asians in the US have IQs well above average, East Asians in East Asia and Ashkenazi Jews in Israel have IQs in the 90s.
The difference seems to be being a member of a population that culturally values education. West African immigrants bring some undesirable cultural traits with them, but they tend to stay married and push their kids to do well in school so they can be doctors and lawyers, just like Ashkenazi Jews and East Asians in the US, and they achieve similar results. The descendants of slaves dont share that culture, unfortunately, with predictable results there as well.
Uh huh.
“[...] In the film, Dr. Watson references a view that average I.Q. differences between blacks and whites reflect underlying genetic differences shaped by natural selection. But leading geneticists say that even modern DNA studies are currently unable to validate such hypotheses about differences between human populations.”
Don’t scientists use theories to explain things, and test the theories with the available evidence? If Watson studies generations of IQ test data and makes a hypothesis, how is that not valid science? Because it makes leftists uncomfortable?
What is the leftist explanation? “Underserved communities”?
Unless you're a Democrat.
just having some fun. Your post was eloquent.
The Left are ardent proponents of Darwin’s theories on evolution and survival of the fittest over The Creation of God Almighty.
Of course their dogma will be rebuffed when one points out that homosexuality (and it’s sortof sister, transgenderism) are not genetically based in any demonstrable way; it’s a choice.
The points expounded by Dr. Watson have enough exceptions to make them doubtful, in my opinion, as I have known many very well educated and intelligent people from all races, creeds and colors to cause me to doubt them.
I see genetics as an amazing medical breakthrough but not one that will allow for broad brush categorization. Having said that, if we ever discover a hypocrisy gene, Leftist will be 100% homozygous.
Leftists are infuriated by people saying there may be innate racial differences in intelligence because they are afraid it is true.
“Blacks are exactly the same as whites, except blacks are better singers and athletes.”
Said without a hint of cognitive dissonance...
Which is why the globalists are the new colonialists. They realized the real economic power was in Western Civ countries, but they couldn’t control it. They would not be able to grow economic power in the Third World because it would never progress to a sufficient extent. But they knew they could rely on its ignorance to get themselves voted into power, so they had to import it.
So science is bound by PC.
The main thing the people who bitch about Watson are missing is that by ignoring the link between race, DNA, and Intelligence we may never develop therapies that can boost the IQ in people who desire to be more intelligent.
I am all for recognizing the difference, then developing the technology to help children who may be born with an IQ disadvantage to be able to overcome it.
Another point showing the Left is anti-science.
They know better than conservatives do that it is true. Their social welfare spending priorities indicate an intense desire to compensate for it. Conservatives are far more willing to give everyone a chance to prove their capabilities, regardless of what statistics say.
Definitely.
Racist now means disagreeing with a Progressive.
Mankind’s problems, at their heart, are moral and spiritual.
These two things drive culture.
And politics then is downstream from culture ...
“just as surely as the fact that East Africans win all of the world’s major marathons could be indicative of some kind of genetic superiority.”
And it’s nothing but racism that dictates every NBA team be almost entirely composed of black players even though blacks make up only about 12% of the US population??
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