Uh oh. Nobel Prize winner James Watson [wiki] - yes, the Watson from the Watson and Crick DNA double helix structure discovery fame - has just stirred a controversy for claiming that black people are less intelligent than white people in an interview with The Times Online:
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 says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because “there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level”. 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”. (From Times Online Oct 17th 2007, Oct 14th 2007)
Seems like Watson has a penchant for saying controversial things, like when he suggested that stupidity is a disease and that we should genetically engineer girls to be pretty!
But in a documentary series to be screened in the UK on Channel 4, Watson says that low intelligence is an inherited disorder and that molecular biologists have a duty to devise gene therapies or screening tests to tackle stupidity.
"If you are really stupid, I would call that a disease," says Watson, now president of the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory, New York. "The lower 10 per cent who really have difficulty, even in elementary school, what's the cause of it? A lot of people would like to say, 'Well, poverty, things like that.' It probably isn't. So I'd like to get rid of that, to help the lower 10 per cent."
Watson, no stranger to controversy, also suggests that genes influencing beauty could also be engineered. "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great." (From: New Scientist Feb 2003)
In other observation, I think he kind of looks like Montgomery Burns of The Simpsons:
Update 10/19/07: Watson has apologized, saying:"I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said," Watson said during an appearance at the Royal Society in London.
"I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways that they have."
"To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief," he said.
Psychiatrists used the genetics excuse to kill millions of people in WW II and their ignorance remains felt around the world.
Black people on the whole aren't as intelligent as other races. (There are many very intelligent African-Americans but there are also a lot of unintelligent ones, more than other races.)
He didn't advocate discrimination against Black people.
Eugenics is a good idea until you start discriminating against people based on superficial things like social class, sexual preferences, exterminating entire races, etc.
Why would anyone want the mentally retarded to live?
Eugenics is something that many people think is easy to get "carried away" with.
I really do think the world would be much better off without the idiots.
I'm all for genetically engineering girls to be more attractive as long as men get engineered for various things as well.
Also, the KKK was around long before Eugenics became popular.
Just because you are a scientist does not put you above having dumb ideas. People should be judged only on their individual traits. I would have missed out on many great intelligent friends of all races if I judged them like Watson.
For the record, I think we should be "watching out for Asia". Science leaves no room for coincidence. Observed over a long enough time frame, all coincidences resolve to a set of governing facts.
The set of facts (in this case) is that, all tendancies left unchanged, Asians will continue to test higher than us (caucasians). There must be an underlying set of facts that govern this tendancy/property.
But seriously: what a dumb statement from a supposedly intelligent man.
"Watching out for Asia" implies that we're under some kind of threat. If indeed science leaves no room for coincidence then we have to employ caution in making outlandish statements. We cannot jump to the conclusion that we should fear the Asian population's testing abilities, naturally. Perhaps the tests are not properly operationalizing, and therefore measuring, intelligence. Or perhaps the intelligence that we are measuring is not the kind that makes us better doctors or scientists.
Taking things for face value is unwise and until we have a better understanding of that underline governing rule or rules, we cannot conclusively argue that a particular race is, so to speak, better than another.
The phrase "...watching out for Asia" implies nothing about fear. It was obviously a paraphrase of John's earlier statement. If you read both his statement and my rebuttal, it should have been quite clear what the phrase was supposed to mean.
I have in no way endorsed the idea of fearing anyone. I stated that if the Asian race continues to excell where we (caucausians) do not, there should be a discearnable set of facts that govern these actions.
It's not about racism or prejudice for me. (Obviously, I can't speak for Mr. Watson) It's about the scientific process. What are the observed facts? What do they seem to mean? What are all possible meanings to be concluded from the observed facts?
Although I may not agree with your assertion that psychiatry is to blame, I do applaud you for looking to other explanations and at least trying counter the biological assertion Watson is making.
Racism has a long and hideous history that stems from class distinctions and the privileged desire to oppress for personal gain.
Watson states that it has nothing to do with poverty, and in his cantankerous-old-man way reduces this explanation to nothing more than a mere excuse. If Watson were a social scientist, or perhaps not a white privileged male, then perhaps he'd be capable of transcending his class consciousness and seeing his orientation to the rest of society for what it is.
A person, when granted privilege based on antiquated ideas of what it means to be man or beast will doggedly reassert those ideas at every breath in order to insure the integrity, or appearance thereof, that his or her entitlement is natural and god-given.
Then excuse my presumption as we both seem to be in agreement.
Keep the controvercial news stories comming, Neatorama. We'll be waiting...
Lesson 1:
When stating, "Excuse my presumption..." always begin the statement with the word, "Please".
Otherwise you sound like a b*tch.
If there are obvious physical differences between races, why is it offensive to even entertain the idea that there might be intelligence differences as well? Why MUST differences be entirely caused by culture/environment?
If race X consistently does better/worse in certain areas, why couldn't part of it be genetic?
Ok, so what does this mean? You have an ethnic group of white people who score lower than anybody else, black people, then "whites" then Asians until they have been in America for three generations? Doesn't that suggest that discrepancies on how "races" score on tests can be at least partially explained by socialization and culture?
Or what about when European (white) students are given tests from America and they score much higher on these exams than Americans, who are mostly of white and European ancestry?
I don't think we can really make statements suggesting that one race is dumb for genetic reasons without first completely understanding genetics. After all, Watson didn't use genetic research or information to form his opinion, he used conditions in society to form that opinion, and society is not free of racism - so how can we EVER know if black people as a whole could perform equally to white people when they were legally denied access to everything white Americans have had until 1960?
Biologically, it's already been identified that people from various parts of the world have adapted in ways that produced outward characteristics, e.g. people from northern latitudes produce less melanin so that sunlight can make more vitamin D.
The problem is the quantification of 'intelligence' and the cultural biases in current tests. In one standard IQ test, the question "Who wrote Faust" is clearly culturally biased. Replace that question with "Who wrote The Analects" or "In which season are the Ndushebe berries edible" and see how well most people from western cultures fare.
Even tests that are supposedly free of cultural bias are specific to a given training in symbol manipulation. For example, a common IQ test for children asks the child how to arrange colored blocks to form a pattern on a card, or which is the next number in a series. But these activities assume that you are familiar with these symbols, what if you write your numbers in a different way, or that your childhood toys were round and didn't have sides?
Unfortunately, we may never know in the west since science is a political activity. Agencies won't fund research, departments won't give tenure, publishers won't publish papers, conferences won't allow talks etc. if the topic is too 'controversial.'
If there is absolutely no relationship, why has science got this so wrong?
Why would largely white groups of testmakers create tests that are biased towards Asians and Jews and against Blacks?
Must be another massive conspiracy...
I’m surprised that no one has pointed out that intelligence tests are biased toward certain demographics."
That's a fallacy. Any excuse to explain poor performance.
Due to the dempgraphics of the neighborhood,my applicants were 70% African-American and 30% Hispanic. In ten years I hired 88 workers to work in the foundry industry. Here's a sample question that I asked during applicant interviews. Admittedly I did not give them paper or calculators, it was just a simple question:
Our customer ordered two dozen parts. Now he wants to add twelve more. How many parts do you put in the box?
I'm still waiting for a correct answer. Believe it or not. Try as I might, this real world experience does influence me. Just like the nobel winner was influenced.
History and Globalization shows us the differences in societies and how we differ in forms of progress, fate and outcome. Intelligence is a form of evolution in many ways. Without the tools how can we learn if we are just trying to survive?
Re the Asia debate, maybe it also has something to do with the sheer population? After all if you have trillions to pick from there's a better chance of genius....
@Otto:
"Our customer ordered two dozen parts. Now he wants to add twelve more. How many parts do you put in the box?"
I'll answer that the German way (where I was raised): "first off, how big is the box?"
and then as a American (where I now live) "will I get paid MORE to put additonal items in the box?".
What you're referring to is rationalization. You're saying that we're afraid of or we don't like the idea that another race could be dumber than white people, so we're making up excuses, we're rationalizing something that should be quite obvious.
That is one of the most basic of human flaws that sets us apart from the ancient civilizations. To take these for face value is the greatest fallacy.
We are not bending over backwards, and science again gives us our reason, our impetus to explore this further. Two members of the same species, with the same physiological, psychological, and overall physical properties should not exhibit large discrepancies in intelligence.
We are not bending over backwards, we are befuddled and confused as to why this is showing up in the first place! Given the controlled conditions, all races are nearly genetically identical in terms of a template... the same set of chromosomes when "arranged" correctly will always make a human... there must be something else, beyond the biological that explains this difference.
Instead of giving up and saying, "Yeah, that test score proves that we should be racist," or "Yeah that test score proves that they're below us and should be sent to death camps," or "Yeah that test score proves that they were better off as slaves," we ask "In the face of all scientific evidence that shows us that they're the same species, what else can we use to explain this discrepancy?!"
When he said stupidity is genetic he was refering to people like the mentally retarded. For anyone to argue that intelligence has nothing to do with genetics I think is a little short sighted.
As for whether different ethnic races have varying intelligence levels, I don't know because I'm not a biologist. But I don't think we have been separated long enough to see this. Plus the fact that there has been so much cross-ethnic reproduction throughout history it's hard to find "pure" ethnic people. Also, I don't understand the evolutionary motives that would select dumber people. (Forrest Gump aside)
Unless he is implying certain ethnic groups became smarter, while others stayed the same...
I remember I had a black Sunday school teacher who was one of the smartest people I have ever met. The guy spoke at least 8 languages fluently!
If white people had to live in the awful conditions of some Third World countries (or even the substandard conditions that exist in some parts of the Western world), we'd probably be considered "dumb" as a race, too (although there's already plenty of evidence that we're not that bright). :P
Being a scientist doesn't eliminate bigotry.
"He just finally had the balls to make it into a public discussion..."
He's not the first person to enter this topic into public discussion. Remember The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein? And the rebuttal from the UC Berkeley Sociology Department, Inequality by Design?
Besides, there are plenty of dodgy doctors around who are being arrested for malpractise today, and who were involved in the Nazi exerimentations on Jews and the disabled. Why don't you think the medical industry is evil?
I respect your opinion. I would say that a person would not feel so "befuddled" by evidence suggesting that there may be racial differences in intelligence if one is willing to actually accept that there may indeed be differences.
Look at all the new data coming out about epigenetics (just as an example, not as any kind of specific proof in this case). We are finding that in certain circumstances, creatures with identical genetic components can differentiate very , well, differently. Not only that, but sometimes these differences can affect one's offspring. I digress, but the point is, all races can still have roughly the same sequence of A's T's C's and G's yet still have noticeable differences. We still have quite a bit to learn about genetics, and I don't feel anything is proven either way.
I guess my comments were designed as social commentary directed at something which irks me personally, namely stubborn refusal on the part of some to even consider the subject with anything except self-righteous scorn, outright refusing to examine or address any of the considerable amount of data which suggests differences could exist.
As someone else has stated, I also am not a biologist or whatever scientist studies such things for a living. But it would be nice to see some credible science suggesting that there really are no differences in racial intelligence. Most of what I have seen from that camp does indeed smack of rationalization.
Cheers
How smart could they be?
The place is a shithole.
Because they still owe money to foreign countries (200 billion dollars) and when Colonial Imperialism collapsed after WW2 the borders were all redrawn. Another good example is the Middle East. (The Ottomon Empire fell and for some reason they divided the Kurds in present day Iraq and Turkey.) Enemies were living side by side, and contiguous political groups were divided. Not to mention the cold war had some effect; when a country had a successful military coup, they felt the need to ally with either USSR or the Allies.
The same thing can be said to cultures today presently in North America and Europe. Remember the French riots recently? Invite people to the country, give them a temporary citizenship which could be taken away at anytime, and stick them in ghettos. The same thing happened to African Americans and Aboriginals. They were segregated and thrown into a separate, poor world which they had no say in and could not control, and today they're being told they're on their own. Meanwhile, no one has the education to fix this as a result of that.