The nobel prize winner supports the idea of natural racial inequality

Site Issues 2007 Archive Room
#1

James D. Watson - an American biochemist who co-discovered the structure of DNA with Francis Crick in 1953 (was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962). The discovery prompted the development of the molecular biology field and expanded studies in genetics.

Dr. Watson signing autographs after a speech at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on April 30, 2007.

Watson, who is a secular humanist, is known for his frank opinions on politics, religion, race and the role of science in society.

In his interview to the Sunday Times Magazine published on October 14, 2007, he opined that there is scientific and anecdotal evidence supporting racial differences, such as, (among other things), the statistically lower scores of black people on some intelligence tests.

He says that he is “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,” and I know that this “hot potato” is going to be difficult to address. His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.”

#2

“Hot Potato”…talk about an understatment!

#3

IIRC he has a book signing tour coming up - coincidence?

The problem with research like this is that it really isn’t worth a lot unless you rule out all factors other than genetics - which he appears not to have done. Nutrition, schooling, etc. are all critical to the development of intelligence. Furthermore, IQ testing itself is a very subjective “science” - it is rather hard to set up a test which is totally neutral to background. Rather a lot of them require a good grasp of reading and numeracy, which simply isn’t taught over much of Africa for reasons of simple poverty.

#4

Yeah, um, I believe there is something called “cultural bias” regarding such tests. And one needs to look no further than the inequality of school funding to guess which kids will perform better on an IQ test or a university…

It’s about money, not natural selection, as indeed, whites coming from a “low-socioeconomic background” will also generally perform poorly…

And Nobel Prize or no, one may be highly intelligent in one area, and a complete idiot-savant in general…

#5

The academic results depend on personal abilities, talents and commitment to study. Poor school funding, low incomes of parents, even some hostile social environment have never been crucial and often become additional insentive to study.

#6

Excelente mst Racist dr.Watson;)
It’s interesting what ethnical groups belong he themself?
Is he arian?

#7

Evidently all the objections to Mr Watson will be traditionally reduced to personal attacks.

#8

Black people generally have larger wedding tackle compared to Asians. Is that also racist?

Black people are more likely to have sickle cell anaemia, a genetic disease, than whites. Is that also racist?

#9

Um dude, I was a trained teacher. I wasn’t a very good one (at the secondary level) I’ll admit, but I beg of you to spare me the the utter shit that this savant spews is somehow a confirmation of some idiotic racial superiority theory. The factors of class inequality, poverty, and lack of a stable family-life are far greater factors to the formation if “IQ” than are any inherent genetic or sexual superiorities regarding intellect. You also need to factor in things such as the “dominate/dominated culture” theory(I forget the exact term) that show some inherent rejections of what is perceived and “the man’s” education by certain minorities…

This is just the nature vs. nurture argument, which has been shown to be largely bullshit in so many social experiments, including where inner-city US kids go to special schools that are highly funded and incorporate special techniques where they are “taught” how to outperform their suburban (mostly white) counterparts by apealing to their competitive spirit…

If he was truthful with his DNA stuff, then he’d admit that there are Africans that are closer genetically to Scandinavian blonds than they are too other black Africans, and vice versa…

Oh, and by the way, I also would not confuse drive & work ethic with potential intelligence either - since not all kids that do well in school as evidenced by high marks, are necessarily “smart.” IMO

#10

Uh, no. “Commitment to study” is a “learned behavior” incorporated via “modeling” by a parental role-model. What happens when there is no proper “role-model?” What happens when the teachers really don’t teach, have no textbooks or ones that are old and falling apart?

Oh, I forgot, a (edited PK) school located next to a chemical dump in some inner-city shithole, with one-fourth the funding of the counterpart suburban school, is supposed to yield the exact same test results…:rolleyes:

#11

Anyone who really wants to study this needs a more balanced view. Read “Savage Inequalities” by Johnathon Kozol…

#12

Such language Nick! Mind you I agree with all of what you said though. And PDF for that matter. Intelligence and IQ is very subjective and a hard thing to pin down. Why does Africa do so badly? Well the answer is surely in front of us and in a lot of cases down to us too.

#13

No, but some Asians might think it unfair. So, a bit like IQ tests, they might develop scaled rulers that make sure that their dongers are at least as big as African dongers.

As distinct from black dongers, because African pygmies are black without being too impressive in the wedding tackle department.

Melanesians are black but, despite their impressive and often curled penis gourds, they’re not huge in the donger department. If they were, they wouldn’t need to advertise with the penis gourds.

The race superiority issue is quite easy to prove. You get a twenty year old bloke from the backblocks of the Sudan and a ten year old, either brand, from Belfast.

Get two identical cars and give each bloke a key that will open the car assigned to them, and tell them to start it. The Sudanese, having spent all his life in a grass and plastic sheet hut in a refugee camp where there weren’t any locks on their primitive shelters, will ponder what the key is for. The Irish kid, having grown up in the civilised West, will look at the key and think “I’m not starting the car. When you do that, they blow up.”

As neither of them starts the car, the objective assessment of the intelligence task proves that a twenty year old Sudanese is only as smart as a ten year old Irish kid.

The researchers, energised by this result, then gave keys to a potato, a rock and cuckoo. The potato and the rock didn’t start the car, but the cuckoo took the key without starting the car. This proves that a twenty year old Sudanese and a ten year old Irish kid are no smarter than a potato or rock, but cuckoos are thieves.

Therefore, the UN shouldn’t devote any more attention to resolving conflicts in the Sudan or Ireland than it does to wars between potatoes, while cuckoos are a local problem best left to police who aren’t Sudanese, Irish, potatoes, or rocks.

This is racial science at its logical best. :smiley:

#14

Uh, no. “Commitment to study” is a “learned behavior” incorporated via “modeling” by a parental role-model. What happens when there is no proper “role-model?”

There are plenty of examples around us that testifies that children of poorly educated, under-previlaged white parents succeed in studyings and acheive brilliant academic results without any “modeling” by a parental role-model or even against parental will.

What happens when the teachers really don’t teach, have no textbooks or ones that are old and falling apart?

In the Soviet Union nearly old intelligentsia was either killed
or forced to emigrate in 1917 -21. The conditions of studying in the Soviet Union of 1920-30ss were not better than in some Sudan and much worse than in the most poor negro slum of the modern US.

However, the USSR did not fall behind other states in education and science. It created a powerful military industry, sent first satellite and first man to the space and even the reports issued by CIA stated that an average soviet pupil is much better in natural sciences than his American counterpart.

#15

Get two identical cars and give each bloke a key that will open the car assigned to them, and tell them to start it. The Sudanese, having spent all his life in a grass and plastic sheet hut in a refugee camp where there weren’t any locks on their primitive shelters, will ponder what the key is for. The Irish kid, having grown up in the civilised West, will look at the key and think “I’m not starting the car. When you do that, they blow up.”

There are lots of negroes in the USA and western Europe but their academic performance in Maths and natural sciences is not better than the one of a negro who remain in Africa. Actually the black students are almost absent in the departments related to sciences and engineering.

#16

Man that sucks Nick…Do you have the names of these two schools you mention? I would like to study them.

#17

Actually, read the book I posted, specifically in the section regarding East St. Louis…

#18

Go ahead and post them then…

There are also instances of African-American “geniuses” as well, and evidence that well educated blacks have performed as well, if not better, than an equivalent white grouping…

But unlike you, I’ll actually post some evidence rather than resort to blanket statements, half-truths, and semantics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Airmen

In the Soviet Union nearly old intelligentsia was either killed
or forced to emigrate in 1917 -21. The conditions of studying in the Soviet Union of 1920-30ss were not better than in some Sudan and much worse than in the most poor negro slum of the modern US.

But Marshall Stalin, as well as his predecessor Lenin, co-opted much of the “intelligentsia,” as in the 1920s and 30s’, it was still fashionable for the intellectual elites to harbor Marxist/Leninist/Trotskyist sympathies and a blinded Utopian view of distopian communism. In fact, many emigrated to the Soviet Union and many more contributed for abroad…

The Soviet authorities also spent a good deal of resources insuring that there was a politicized, educated class that had boundless resources to achieve engineering feats and the like…

Your analogy proves nothing. At the same time, there was a burgeoning American Black middle class that had to attend by and large separate facilities and indeed had to set up a “separate but equal” American as a whole series of “colored” newspapers, sports leagues, as even equality in the military, as society, was denied them. Black writers, musicians, and yes -even scientists - contributed greatly to the US cultural record, and to Europe as well, through the only effective avenues that were open to them, despite these hurdles…

However, the USSR did not fall behind other states in education and science. It created a powerful military industry, sent first satellite and first man to the space and even the reports issued by CIA stated that an average soviet pupil is much better in natural sciences than his American counterpart.

Again, because the USSR poured great resources into education and to selectively finding those that had various potentials, and used those of lessor intellect as labor, and even political dissidents as slave labor, to industrialize their country. Not even remotely similar. And many of those that left the USSR were hardly “intelligentsia,” many were just aristocrats turned out of power…

And by the same token, the Russians dominated the Soviet Union, and the Ukraine. does that mean that Russians are inherently more intelligent than other nationalities?

#19

How could you even directly compare the three educational systems? :rolleyes:

And are blacks better musicians than whites? Would anyone say that being a very good musician does not take a great deal of intelligence? Why is their contribution of the cultural record of music, not only to the United States, but of Europe as well, be so undeniably great then?

#20

There are also instances of African-American “geniuses” as well, and evidence that well educated blacks have performed as well, if not better, than an equivalent white grouping…

I would like to learn the names of these African-American “geniuses”. I does not mean African-American “geniuses” like Martin L King who as FBI and police reports show was frequently caught drunk while driving his car, beat and humiliated his women and plagiarized his thesis.

I mean African-American “geniuses” who have made some achievments in Science or Engineering, created some useful inventions, discovered some Phisical or Mathematical law or theorem, won at least one international contest on Maths or Natural Sciences.