In an age where Asia after centuries of being looted by 'intelligent'
folks is making a comeback, this guy wants to kick off a eugenics
movement.
Someone should ask this genius how Indians who arrived as poor
laborers in the UK now have offspring that are academically
outperforming the locals. Either the locals are getting stupider and
senile like this guy or the brown and yellow man is getting smarter.
----------------
Africans are less intelligent than Westerners, says DNA pioneer
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3067222.ece
Fury at James Watson's theory: "All our social policies are based on
the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the
testing says not really"
By Cahal Milmo
Published: 17 October 2007
One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an
extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were
less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of
reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.
James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of
DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research
institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead
of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues
including the Science Museum in London.
The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race
and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies
towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that
black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing"
suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating
differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.
The newly formed Equality and Human Rights Commission, successor to
the Commission for Racial Equality, saidit was studying Dr Watson's
remarks "in full". Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that 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 there
was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people
who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
His views are also reflected in a book published next week, in which
he writes: "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."
The furore echoes the controversy created in the 1990s by The Bell
Curve, a book co-authored by the American political scientist Charles
Murray, which suggested differences in IQ were genetic and discussed
the implications of a racial divide in intelligence. The work was
heavily criticised across the world, in particular by leading
scientists who described it as a work of "scientific racism".
Dr Watson arrives in Britain today for a speaking tour to publicise
his latest book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science.
Among his first engagements is a speech to an audience at the Science
Museum organised by the Dana Centre, which held a discussion last
night on the history of scientific racism.
Critics of Dr Watson said there should be a robust response to his
views across the spheres of politics and science. Keith Vaz, the
Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "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
exists at the highestprofessional levels."
The American scientist earned a place in the history of great
scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century when he worked at the
University of Cambridge in the 1950s and 1960s and formed 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.
But despite serving 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, Dr Watson has frequently courted
controversy with some of his views on politics, sexuality and race.
The respected journal Science wrote in 1990: "To many in the
scientific community, Watson has long been something of a wild man,
and his colleagues tend to hold their collective breath whenever he
veers from the script."
In 1997, he told a British newspaper that a woman should have the
right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be
homosexual. He later insisted he was talking about a "hypothetical"
choice which could never be applied. He has also suggested a link
between skin colour and sex drive, positing the theory that black
people have higher libidos, and argued in favour of genetic screening
and engineering on the basis that "stupidity" could one day be cured.
He has claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying:
"People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think
it would great."
The Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory said yesterday that Dr Watson could
not be contacted to comment on his remarks.
Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University
and a founder member of the Society for Social Responsibility in
Science, said: "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."
Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson's remarks to be looked at
in the context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust,
a black human rights group, said: "It is astonishing that a man of
such distinction should make comments that seem to perpetuate racism
in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be
looked at for grounds of legal complaint."
nappy headed hoester - 17 Oct 2007 10:00 GMT
> In an age where Asia after centuries of being looted by 'intelligent'
> folks is making a comeback, this guy wants to kick off a eugenics
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> outperforming the locals. Either the locals are getting stupider and
> senile like this guy or the brown and yellow man is getting smarter.
He refers to niggers, not Indians...
> ----------------
>
[quoted text clipped - 110 lines]
> in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be
> looked at for grounds of legal complaint."
Straydog - 17 Oct 2007 13:32 GMT
(see quoted material at end)
There were "eugenics" movements back in 1920s-30s, in the west, and they
slowly went away. One of the trasistor inventors, Shockley, tried to
promote the idea of race-based intelligence and generally did not get much
attention except from neo-Nazis. Then some ten years ago a guy wrote a
book on IQ being related to race (title "The Bell Shaped Curve"), and
there were a lot of arguments. Another guy, Gould, wrote a book "The
Mismeasure of Man" which, in later editions, presented counter-arguments
against The Bell Shaped Curve.
Folks, I think the world has much bigger and more important problems than
whether "breeding" for intelligence might do everyone some good. Any focus
on anything that will _divide_ human society from one another is NOT going
to help us improve civilization and reduce poverty/ignorance and live in
peace, and even reduce all the exploitation that is also going on.
And, for fruitella who seems to be Indian, bragging about Indians, let me
tell you a little real history: its not just Indians in UK, but a lot if
not all immigrant groups, even in the USA, where the kids work harder in
school than the natives, end up in the next generation doing very well and
certainly better than their parents. I know tons of my (to you "white")
friends who were descendants (born in the USA of parents, grandparents,
and great grandparents) of foreigners from all walks of life, and we all
did better than the parents, grandparents, and great grandparents.
You have to think about something: 100 years ago and more, there was no
high tech. There was no middle class. There were almost no office jobs.
Everyone who came to the USA (for example) was a peasant, serf, or
underling. They all got nothing but menial, physical labor jobs,
factories and low-paying jobs, and they were exploited. The US middle
class came out of strong unions that developed mainly in 1930s and after
and forced management to pay better. Its in the history books. This middle
class is now disappearing in the US. So, it lasted maybe 60 +/- years. Now
India and China are where growth is, and they have growing middle classes
and we don't know if it will last. That high growth is not going to last
forever. All empires in the past 4,000 years came out of nothing and went
back into nothing some 300 +/- years later. Its in the books.
===== no change to below, included for reference and context =====
> In an age where Asia after centuries of being looted by 'intelligent'
> folks is making a comeback, this guy wants to kick off a eugenics
[quoted text clipped - 119 lines]
> in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be
> looked at for grounds of legal complaint."
Smartest Guy in the room - 17 Oct 2007 13:36 GMT
Straydog says...
>And, for fruitella who seems to be Indian, bragging about Indians, let me
>tell you a little real history: its not just Indians in UK, but a lot if
>not all immigrant groups, even in the USA, where the kids work harder in
>school than the natives, end up in the next generation doing very well and
>certainly better than their parents.
I think fruitella is talking about immigrant kids of brown skin
doing better than white citizen kids in schools and not compared
to their parents.
BTW it is not UK alone, it is true in US also.
Martha Adams - 19 Oct 2007 12:01 GMT
This is an interesting topic, which raises a couple of questions:
1) Would Westerners be less intelligent than Africans, in an
African cultural environment?
2) *What is* this 'intelligence,' anyhow?
Cheers -- Martha Adams [ sci.med 2007 Oct 19 ]
> Straydog says...
>
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
> BTW it is not UK alone, it is true in US also.
Straydog - 19 Oct 2007 13:47 GMT
> This is an interesting topic, which raises a couple of questions:
>
> 1) Would Westerners be less intelligent than Africans, in an
> African cultural environment?
This is all part of a very old question/debate dealing with race and
environment. Personally I don't think it can be answered, and even if it
can be answered it would be best to actually read a lot of the original
literature from the academics (and not the politicians, and certainly
not the racists).
One journal article I read (very long, very detailed) did bring up the
cultural bias that is built into every kind of test that has ever been
created. People who grow up in that culture always do better.
Jarad Diamond wrote a book recently, which is excellent (I read it
recently) entitled "Guns, Germs and Steel" with the subtitle "the fate of
human societies" and I can recommend it. A more recentl book by him
"Collapse" deals with the history of what societies were/are able to deal
with their own problems in a manner that helps them survive. It covers
about a dozen and a half societies going back some 1,000 years where quite
a few became extinct because they could not deal with their problems. A
more important problem than the race problem.
What newsgroup are you on? This thread is spread out among five
newsgroups?
===== no change to below, included for reference and context =====
> 2) *What is* this 'intelligence,' anyhow?
>
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>>
>> BTW it is not UK alone, it is true in US also.
Haebius - 17 Oct 2007 19:06 GMT
> In an age where Asia after centuries of being looted by 'intelligent'
> folks is making a comeback, this guy wants to kick off a eugenics
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> outperforming the locals. Either the locals are getting stupider and
> senile like this guy or the brown and yellow man is getting smarter.
He refers to niggers, not Indians...
> ----------------
>
[quoted text clipped - 110 lines]
> in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be
> looked at for grounds of legal complaint."