Dr Watson: Racist?
James Watson, co-discoverer of the Molecular structure of DNA managed (brilliantly) to generate huge publicity for his book, "Avoid Boring People" by suggesting to the Sunday Times that Africans were less intelligent than other races, causing a predictable storm from the usual suspects, demanding that he apologise to everyone, and probably pay reparations for slavery too.
The fact is Africans are on average less intelligent: That is because Africa is the continent with the highest rates of childhood malnutrition, which has a direct and obvious effect on brain development and therefore adult intelligence. Whether there is a genetic component is moot. Researchers in the area tend to find what they're looking for: racists say "yes". PC types and those who want public funding for any future research say "no". There's no doubt that Dr Watson's comments such as
“people who have to deal with black employees find this[black intelligence being equal to that of "us"] not true”are inflammatory, but he's an old man, and they did things differently when he were a lad. All he is doing is saying that he doesn't hold to the "doctrine of zero group difference".
“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”.Quite. What is not reported is whether Watson mentioned that the likelihood of the variation in intelligence being so great amongst individuals, whatever their race, that to put people together in racial groups, is so poor a predictor of the likely performance of individuals in any given task as to make the exercise redundant. Basically there is greater difference within races than between them. Failure to mention this vital point is racist, and his attempt to do so is distinctly half-arsed:
“there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level”And merely indicates a widely held revulsion against positive discrimination. My instinct is to dislike the hectoring tone of the race relations industry every time someone suggests that the world is not as they would like it to be. However looking for differences between races has malign effects on individuals who may be treated differently by others as a result of such research. When you think about it like that, why ask the question in the first place? If you can come up with an answer to that without being racist, do so in the comments.
Race is best ignored, by treating people as individuals. I've found judging people by their shoes more informative than the colour of their skin. What is certain however is that a randomly selected cross section of BNP voters are likely to be considerably less intelligent on average than a random cross section of Black people. So let anyone judging people on the back of Dr. Watson's comments make of that what they will.
26 immoderate opinions:
I will agree that his comments are unwise and badly phrased. I don't believe that they are malicious
I do by no means adhere to the idea of zero group difference, it is idiocy. But so is judging people by skin colour. Moral and religious beliefs and values, behaviour, and cultural indicators are far better criteria.
That somebody can show a correlation between an ethnic group and a particular characteristic is not racist. Your argument that the only reason for doing such research (is racism) is deeply flawed. Just because the supposed findings press most peoples PC button it does not mean that they are not valid.
Be honest, if the findings were a tendency by the African ethnic group towards intellectual superiority would this post be the same?
I agree with your assertion that variance between individuals is sufficient to make variance within. groups largely insignificant, however as a libertarian it is your obligation to defend against positive discrimination.
if the findings were a tendency by the African ethnic group towards intellectual superiority would this post be the same?
Would it f***! Nobody went on the barricades when the BBC reported that the kids who do best at school were Chinese and Hindu.
I mean, fair do's AVBD, the average is no way of predicting the intelligence of the person standing in front of you, but Dr W was only reporting the overall trend.
Well, I for one would want to know what this research(?) is based upon. I don't know what to think. But boy, would it suck if I'm not more clever because of my racial/ethnic descent. CRAP!
Dr W has now been banned from public speaking anyway, sothat's that debate shut down.
What is certain however is that a randomly selected cross section of BNP voters are likely to be considerably less intelligent on average than a random cross section of Black people.
Im a BNP member, and I have an IQ, rated by mensa, of 137.
Jackart,
You better hope Tery Kelly doesn't read your blog. He'll go completely apopolectic.
BNP member wrote:
"Im a BNP member, and I have an IQ, rated by mensa, of 137."
I think that was smudge from the printer roller and should be 37.
For someone who claims an IQ of 137 you haven't yet grasped the concept of apostrophes.
Given that most of humanity is fairly cretinous, is anybody really that worried about whether it can or cannot be shown that there is a difference in average IQ between different ethnic groups?
Personally, I couldnt give a toss. This is a freedom of speech issue not a racism issue. It just really gets up my arse that if the supposed findings sloped the other way then the reaction would be completely different.
I think my point is that whether he is correct or not, his findings simply aren't particularly relevant to modern life. But he has the right to present those findings, without being pilloried by the PC brigade, provided that he has the evidence to back them up.
I would be very surprised, our correspondent not withstanding to find that the BNP didn't contain more than its fair share of sub-literate knuckle draggers.
Whether they are stupider than the Labour party is another question, and one on which I will pass.
Henry: I don't believe Terry can read. I think his jottings are random simian thumpings of the keyboard.
I'm a UKIP member and have an IQ, rated by MENSA, of 154, under the Catell III B test.
Please note the following...
"... an IQ of 150 is a meaningless claim unless you know the actual test which was used ... A top 2% mark in any of these frequently used tests below qualifies you for entry to Mensa. The minimum test mark to get into Mensa is:
Cattell III B - 148
Culture Fair - 132
Ravens Advanced Matrices - 135
Ravens Standard Matrices - 131
Wechsler Scales - 132"
IQ is by and large meaningless. It may be a measure of intelligence but in my experience, the higher the IQ the more socially retarded the individual.
I was at school with an uber-intelligent chap who used to wander round the quad slapping his hands together reciting geometric theorems. It's all very well winning university challenge, but chances are you'll not get much in the way of shagging.
These characters are really funny. They just ingnore the fact that Europeans have produced absolutely none of the breakthroughs in human kind, and all civilization rests upon African science and civilization.
Just think, all religion is from Africa, medicine and even the medical symbols are from Africa, political systems and law are from Africa, mathematics comes from Africa. The Atomic Bomb came from African theory by Einstein(Jews are African), the Jet Airplane, and thus the space rockets eminate from Chinese science(Chinese are racially African).
Europeans were primitive until a racially African group(Romans/Italians) went there to civilize them, and that's just recent history.
Western contributions are mainly taking these breakthroughs and extending them. In essence the achievement is building a strong infrastructure.
While this is important work, let's not confuse it with the intelligence to invent the stuff in the first place.
Teehee.
Watson has also made negative comments on the libido of blacks (he says it's higher than that of whites), as well as on homosexuals (he says expectant mothers should be allowed to abort if their foetus is proven to be gay), which suggests that his comments are never innocuous, he believes the stuff he says. Worse, he believes that he deciphered DNA structure, he knows what he's talking about.
"all civilization rests upon African science and civilization."
That's a specious argument. Since the first humans came from Africa if you 'trace back' all the way you can attribute anything anyone has ever done to African credit. However, this activity has no realistic bearing on our current reality. If it did we may as well trace our evolution back further and credit the little critters who first learned to walk on land - that event made everything humans have done thereafter possible, may as well place all the credit there.
Also you have to allow for the fact that simply by virtue of being around first, some of the basic inventions and discoveries are bound to have been made by Africans. Many of those were a matter of practical survival springing from a basic need to sustain life. That does not imply that such an accomplishment would be unique to Africans - in fact those discoveries would have been made regardless of which geographical region early man happened to begin. The photoelectric effect, in contrast, is fairly unique to Einstein, and can be viewed in the context of 'would this discovery have come out of a different geographical region or people due to environmental and cultural factors'.
"Im a BNP member, and I have an IQ, rated by mensa, of 137."
Congratulations, you just attempted to defame an AVERAGE by citing an ANOMALY. There are always exceptions, that is why averages exist. If the average height of a male in the U.S. is 5'9" and you point out a basketball player at 7'0" you have not successfully voided the validity of the point. In fact, that tall guy is already factored in. Without him the average would be even lower. So basically, your presence at 137 in the BNP means that the average for everyone else is actually a bit lower than the current numbers indicate.
"I do by no means adhere to the idea of zero group difference, it is idiocy. But so is judging people by skin colour. Moral and religious beliefs and values, behaviour, and cultural indicators are far better criteria."
This is the key, because you are completely correct in saying behavior, values, and cultural indicators are more telling criteria to judge people on than skin color. But it does imply one critical truth - it is OKAY to judge people based on SOME criteria. So now that you are committed to the idea that judging people based on given observable and quantifiable characteristics is okay, consider this: cultural differences and values have a very real and strong correlation with skin color. You can't make that statement untrue by wishing humans did not see the world that way - we do. Just the same way attractive people group together and develop a certain cultural identity as a result, so do people of like ethnicity and race. We are a visually based people, it is part of our genetic wiring to see patterns and make assumptions based on groupings (dark clouds mean rain, glowing red rings on a stove top means don't put your hand on it) - this feature is in many ways what makes humans a successful species. We love to parade around saying there should not be groupings based on appearance but there are. In fact, African Americans are excellent at furthering this separation by clinging together on the absurd notion that they share a common history of slavery and thus need to ban together to overcome past adversity (an oxymoronic idea in itself), and maintain a cultural identity. The moment people of similar physical characteristics begin hanging out together they also develop a unique culture that influences their behavior, values, and beliefs. We all know what a 'nerd' looks like, and what a 'jock' looks like, AND we also know how they ACT (on average).
There is no way to reconcile an argument that says you CAN judge on culture and values but CAN'T judge on skin color, because in the vast majority of instances the two are in many ways one in the same. You have to decide then if it is ALWAYS okay to judge, or NEVER okay to judge. In my experience in making judgments (which have nothing to do with race) I find that coming to a conclusion based on an observable pattern and then being willing to make exceptions works much better than drifting through life blindly assuming nothing is necessarily correlated with anything else.
Dr Watson's comment are irrelevant to say the least. This is another attempt by a senile and wasted old man to regain the argument on race. He is one of a dying breed who felt that control is fast slipping through their racial fingers.
The IQ tests are designed by Westerners; the test are done by Westerners and the results are produced by Westerners. As a PhD holder from Cambridge university (of African descent) I was infact helping my Western friends in their work...the so called little Einsteins from planet coocooland! It is people like 'Mr' Watson who manipulates the systems even at the university so as not to give any credit to inventions and creativity of those not from his race. You can liken it to a team playing an away match....no matter how good you play you can never be good/please the home team. UNFORTUNATELY FOR MR WATSON' the chain of SATAN WASN'T MADE THAT STRONG. Am pretty sure he will die a very disappointed man as Africa will as always survive and outlive it enemies as it has always done - history has proven that!
Bloody hell Mathew is boring isn`t he. Watson has no special knowledge of human evolution or indeed adaptive evolution at all. We are all recently related to one small African group but in Africa there are other out groups more unlike each other than the rest of the word are to the primordial population. So one question is ," Which black people ?"
There is much less to this than meets the eye . Characteristics spread quickly in populations. Height , weight , hair colour and so on can move in afew generations . is this a racial difference ?Not proveably but then race is a porous concpet to start with.
This is all old stuff reheated for the purposes of book sales as we know . What interests me more is that the Independent would feature it on the front page. You must remember that black people are themselves sometimes uncertain and insecure although its hard to admit
There wil have been some children who saw that page and felt they were worthless.
Good job boys ...really high class stuff
Newmania
By 'boys', I sincerely hope you are not referring to the commentators here?
Dr. Watson did primary research among his own ethnic group as the controversy over Rosalind Franklin shows. Franklin failed to "succeed at the lower levels" by failing to beat Watson and Crick to the punch. Now as an old man looking back upon the empire that once was, he looks down upon the world's disadvantaged and judges their presumed shortcomings. Such is the winner's fate. As for those of us in the darker races, we'll continue our own struggles to succeed on the lower levels for our bosses which hold us in such low esteem. Though you'll NEVER get me to apologize for doing a shitty job with an X-ray crystallograph in THIS lifetime. Let whitey photograph his OWN crystals... if he can still GET 'em at that age!!! BASTARDS!!!
http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/franklin.html
Rosalind Franklin:
It was in Randall's lab that she crossed paths with Maurice Wilkins. She and Wilkins led separate research groups and had separate projects, although both were concerned with DNA. When Randall gave Franklin responsibility for her DNA project, no one had worked on it for months. Wilkins was away at the time, and when he returned he misunderstood her role, behaving as though she were a technical assistant. Both scientists were actually peers. His mistake, acknowledged but never overcome, was not surprising given the climate for women at the university then. Only males were allowed in the university dining rooms, and after hours Franklin's colleagues went to men-only pubs.
But Franklin persisted on the DNA project. J. D. Bernal called her X-ray photographs of DNA, "the most beautiful X-ray photographs of any substance ever taken." Between 1951 and 1953 Rosalind Franklin came very close to solving the DNA structure. She was beaten to publication by Crick and Watson in part because of the friction between Wilkins and herself. At one point, Wilkins showed Watson one of Franklin's crystallographic portraits of DNA. When he saw the picture, the solution became apparent to him, and the results went into an article in Nature almost immediately. Franklin's work did appear as a supporting article in the same issue of the journal.
A debate about the amount of credit due to Franklin continues. What is clear is that she did have a meaningful role in learning the structure of DNA and that she was a scientist of the first rank. Franklin moved to J. D. Bernal's lab at Birkbeck College, where she did very fruitful work on the tobacco mosaic virus. She also began work on the polio virus. In the summer of 1956, Rosalind Franklin became ill with cancer. She died less than two years later.
BNP member with IQ of 137,well I am black,African,lived and schooled in Africa and my IQ is 150.sucker
I am in a black south african political student, studying in london. First i would like to start by saying that, I have heard the comment that watson made, it was the founding philosophical belief on which south africa's apartheid was founded on, the belief that africans are mentally inferior, emotionally inferior, and spiritually inferior, then whites, therefore this gave then religious justification to murder and to subject them to unjust laws, that were below human level. The same thing happened with american indians, there were striped of their humanity, first, that removed the guilt from the average white man for treating them unjustly.
Come on, it is in this century that the west was enlightened to the fact that blacks are human beings and not apes,that they are entitled to basic human treatment, some people in the west are still doing all that they can to disprove this, Freud call this a cultural fantacy, whereby a race seeks to boost its self worth by claiming its superiority, the jews claimed spiritual purity, the white men claims mental intelligence, it is by no means a moral issue, as dr watson was acused, but it is a ancient cultural illusion, the romans claimed it, over the english , when they colinised you, the nazis claimed it.
The issue of racial differences and abilities it not an issue of genetics, as freud and aristotle put it, it is an issue of culture, what the nation values as a cultural commodity, it will be passed down though TRAINING, equipping of a generation and advancing it, the west as a cultural value, after the roman invasion, started to value intellectual intelligence, that took them from the barberic stage and made them a civilised nation, it does not mean the english were inferior intellectualy, by their cultural focuses at that time were other things.
The chinese have always valued spiritual intelligence above all, and mental intelligence as a second cultural commodity, since they believe that the greatest form of wisdom a human being can attain is humility, and intellectual wisdom is a means of training and an exercise that leads to higher discipline.
Africans as a cultural commodity do value moral intelligence as a cultural commodity, that is why most of them are religious, because they believe that moral wisdom is the highest virtue that a human being can attain, however it is different in the west, some have come to value intellectual wisdom aas well, but is a through contact with other influences outside home life, that is why dr watson's views are purely based on IQ scores, derived from SAT scores and test score, other then that he himself has not further proof to back up his presupositions, his speculations.
In South Africa, had to deal with such views by dr watson as a law, that gave them inferior educating (to supposedly match their 'inferior mental state'), bad living conditions, and bad prospects in the corporate world.
Dr hendrik Verwoed quote: "Blacks are an inferior race to the average westerner, he is not capable of learning or being educated, therefore, I have devised a system which I will call apartheid, which with ensure seperate development from the white man" history was made there.
And how do you explain the wisdom and the intelligence of the men that have come out of that system, that ensured doom
I agree with Dr Watson's apparently racist comments. I am black/African American but the good doctors' comments may not apply us all. It doesn't take a genius to see that globally, most people of African descent live in poverty and squalor and high crime. I used to blame this all on post-slavery conditions of second-class citizenship, colonialism, and racism but the problem originates and is strengthened by cultural attitudes. If you read any text on black nationalism - whether its Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Toure, etc - you will notice they all advocate racial pride, taking responsibility, working hard, getting an education, being honest, clean, and morally upright. The most successful blacks on the planet are the ones who actually put these tenets into practice. Racism may have played a major role but not nowadays. There is no excuse. There are 2 basic groups of blacks: the intelligent, progressive, genuine men and women of character and the worthless hip-hoppers who advocate drug usage, immorality, crime, and ignorance. It is this latter group Dr. Watson refers to and seeing how hopeless they are he loses his scientific perspective and lumps us all into the latter. I call them hip-hoppers because their attitudes are reflected in the trashy music so heavily invested in by the music industry. The hip-hoppers ride the coatails of the more upright blacks and are the first to claim foul when they feel their rights are threatened but you will never be able to see them exhibit the cultural cohesiveness and work ethic of other races. This is another reason for the various disparities. It may not be genetics but black cultural attitudes definitely play a predominant role. The majority of poor blacks worldwide care more for crime, sex, and drugs than they do about anything else and there is plenty of scientific data from a plethora of disciplines to verify the obvious.
Africa is in a situation that let non africans say whatever they want about us. Watson could not have said the same thing during the first pharaohs era from his cave somewhere in Europe.
It is the current crisis with poverty and poor education especially in Sub Saharan Africa that is causing all this blah blah blah and alchemic IQ research.
as half a black man i am very offended by his rude remark but as half white i can't agree more with his statement
Watson knows better than thosee comments...I even tried to think of his remarks as his own experiment on the society's response to a possible explanation of differences amongst different races.
Nothing is impossible, but his assertion can be debunked with a number of scientific facts which he is quite aware of.
Those who refer to Egypt as sub-Saharan African race should really review the history of Egypt.
Egypt was created by Mediterranean Caucasoid population similar to Greeks.
Why don't you all go back to your juju's and witch doctors if your race is so great.
Those who really believe that Blacks are "inferior" due to their environment, then let me know. I will prove you wrong in a heart bit.
Please keep in mind that I am not an Egyptian, but an Asian-American with 135 IQ in the culture fair.
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