Cue: an enraged Hap prepares rant through gritted teeth 
Celebrated scientist attacked for race comments: “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 MilmoPublished: 17 October 2007One 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, said it 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.”
I have no opinion on the veracity of the suggestion that there is a difference in the “intelligence” of different “races” of people But I am rather sadly bemused that some one who is so well versed in the science of genetics and the nature of DNA as James Watson should be so demonised by the PC crowd for suggesting that this is possible.
Anyway I think that if Africa is doomed to decline and disarray it is because it faces the twin scourges of the HIV pandemic and it’s long history of inept and corrupt governance, neither of which are predicated upon the “intelligence” of the people.
Oh and finally a nod to John Ray from AWH for noticing the piece from the Independant in the first place.
Cheers Comrades 
Filed under: Africa, England, Leftism, Men and Women, Multiculturalism, international politics | Tagged: Hap, IQ testing, PC police
“Anyway I think that if Africa is doomed to decline and disarray it is because it faces the twin scourges of the HIV pandemic and it’s long history of inept and corrupt governance, neither of which are predicated upon the “intelligence” of the people.”
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Good Lord! What a stunning case of amnesia! How else to explain the omission of mentioning slavery and imperialism?
SM
I am talking about the current situation and neither the bad governance nor the HIV Pandemic can be attributed to either slavery or “imperialism” especially if you take a global perspective.
“He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.”
That is, what this guy reckons is that blacks aren’t as ‘clever’ (just how you define cleverness is not at all clear; intelligence is a very troublesome thing for science), and he’s hangin’ out for the science to come and vindicate his position.
That’s scientific objectivity and healthy scepticism taken to it’s logical extreme and flouts the methodology of sophisticated falsificationism (c.f. Popper), that a theory is valid if it is falsifiable but remains unfalsified. This guy can posit anything he likes, especially in genetics, and even more especially with respect to the genetics of unmeasurable qualities like ‘intelligence’, and since it hasn’t been falsified yet, it remains as true as it is untrue.
Basically, it’s bollocks.
Iain, that is a truly bizarre thing to say, especially in respect to imperialism. Is it just another case of the empirical methodology of conservatism, where events just ‘occur’ one after the other, with no causality between them?
Jangari
I tend towards the predominance of nurture when it comes to matters of intelligence, but to entirely deny that the intelligence of human beings is influenced buy the genetic code that we all carry flies in the face of the fact that every other ability or attribute clearly has a genetic competent. It also beggars belief to claim that there can be no difference between groups of people who have had many thousands of years of discrete evolution when it comes to the way that their minds work.
SM
My point about the immanent crash of the African population may well be the result of causes that can be traced to events of the past but really, attributing blame does not make one bit of difference to the result now does it?
There’s no evidence to suggest anything of the sort. In fact the evidence shows that whatever genetic variation between two ethnic groups, in any trait whatsoever, is vastly outweighed by the genetic variation within a single ethnic group. That is, the average for an ethnicity of any given trait, height for instance, may differ between two ethnic groups: the Sudanese are taller on average than the Japanese, but the difference between the averages is much less than the first standard deviation of a sample of heights within either the Sudanese or the Japanese population.
If you plotted this on a bell-curve, it’d look like this (rough sketch, just a demonstration). Each curve represents the sample of heights within one or another ethnic group. The average for each is where the peak is. The difference in position of the peaks represents the difference in average genetically determined traits. There is much more variation within either ethnic group, all the area to the left and right of each peak, than there is between the two curves.
And this doesn’t even begin to address whether or not intelligence is genetic.
“…attributing blame does not make one bit of difference to the result now does it?”
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I do believe that its common practice to attempt to discern the cause of a problem in order to find the correct remedy.
Jangari
I don’t dispute what you say about variations within and between different groups of people.
However as intelligence is so notoriously difficult to quantify it can only be assumed that this particular attribute will in fact follow the same trend. There is some evidence that there is a measurable difference (from IQ testing) and frankly I think that any difference is not the big deal that some people want make it. I would never argue that doing better or worse on such testing enhances or diminishes one’s humanity, and in the end isn’t this the reason that some people get so upset at the notion that there might in fact be some differences between discrete groups of people?
Damn! Another excuse to be racist and shift the blame away from colonialism and imperialism for the plight of Africa gone!
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“Scientist ‘mortified’ over race comments
A NOBEL Prize-winning scientist from the US who reportedly said black people were less intelligent than whites said today he was “mortified” at the comments, and suggested he was misquoted.
James Watson, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962 for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, told the Sunday Times newspaper 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.” “More importantly, I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said. I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways 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 apologise unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief.”
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22612932-5005961,00.html
SM …Gold
Iain…woops!
Whoops, Suburban Marxist beat me to it!
Still, Jangari you have not adressed my point have you?
Wait, you had a point?
The same trend being that it’s genetically deterministic? Firstly, I don’t think that assumption follows from the difficulty of quantifying it. Secondly, even if intelligence is genetically determined, it’d then be classed with other phenomic-related things like height, which, as I pointed out above, doesn’t really relate too well to racial differences; the difference between average members of any two given ethnicities is negligible as compared with the range of differences between members of either ethnicity.
First of all, IQ testing is not widely recognised as being a very good measure of intelligence; it tests one kind of mental skill and depending on the questions can skew results significantly. It was even designed originally to prove that blacks were incapable of rational thought, back in the good ol’ days. Secondly, any difference would be a big thing, it would be a huge thing. It would refute the last 80 or so years of anthropological research we have that confirms the ‘psychic unity of mankind’ hypothesis (see Boas, ca. 1911), that all humans have essentially the same intellectual capacity, any notable differences between groups of people being cultural.
I trust you wouldn’t. I also trust you wouldn’t consider an entire ethnic group as less human, or less deserving of respect if they were shown to be collectively genetically less intelligent.
While we have a set of social mores preventing us from judging individuals due to lesser intelligence, there seems to be less of a restriction against judging entire natural classes of people for the same reason. So yes, this is the reason people get so upset, and I think that’s justified. In any case, to mitigate against the reason people get upset, as you did above ("I would never argue that…"), does not mean that the notion is correct, it just makes it slightly less offensive, but only for one reason. I’m certain that others would still be highly offended by the idea that the Sudanese, say, are collectively not as intelligent as white people, regardless of whether or not anyone treats them any less respectfully. I even find it monstrously offensive.
Pardon me but I beg to differ as I see such fury ant outrage as symptomatic of a sad malaise that dictates that it is forbidden to consider certain ideas not because they might be wrong but in fear that they may be right.
I am not seeking to avoid people getting upset but I am trying to consider the reasons that they do so, and as I see it those reasons are clearly more to do with the way that various rather nasty ideologies have cited the perceived differences to justify treating some people as lesser human beings. Well I likewise find such justifications of evil and abhorrent, which is why I specifically said that I don’t think that any differences that may (or may not be discovered) in any way lessen the humanity of any human being.
I have heard some suggestions that some Asian peoples do better than “whites” in some IQ tests and I don’t find that idea any more offensive than the idea that Africans do less well.
There are differences between individuals and it has been my experience that intelligent people tend to produce intelligent children and dumb people produce offspring that are rather dull and lacking in intelligence, so to suggest, as you do that this is not the case goes against all of the accepted notions of biology and genetics. Maybe you are right that in the end it all levels out in national averages and I have no trouble accepting the idea that nurture is a very big factor here buy you cant surely suggest that there is no difference in the nature of peoples minds at all.
Sorry but I don’t get it, is the offence because of your disgust in the way that the idea of difference has been used or at the idea that there may be a difference at all?
I think you’re being misguided in dismissing someone’s being offended by the suggestion that their entire ethnic group is doomed by genetics to be intellectually inferior, especially since it is not scientifically demonstrated at all. As a matter of fact, the inverse has been demonstrated scientifically, so it would be worse then, to go on asserting the ethnicity-determines-intelligence theory in the face of this. To rationalise offending someone in this way based on the defence that ‘you can’t be offended by scientific fact’ is silly. It’s not scientific fact. It’s racist ideology flouting healthy skepticism to keep it above board.
See above, my objection to IQ testing. IQ scores are by no stretch synonymous with intelligence or intellectual capacity. I don’t believe anyone thinks that one’s IQ is hereditary.
Doesn’t follow. This observation is consistent with genetically determined intellectual capacity, true, but it doesn’t necessitate it. Much more likely is that intelligent parents encourage their children in intellectual endeavours, and it is therefore unsurprising that smart parents have smart kids. Moreover, even if this were the case, which I’d be happy to concede for the sake of argument, it’s quite distinct from your point, the point of the post and of the original article (before Watson revoked his statements), that race is also a correlated variable with respect to intellectual capacity. Unless you can give me something to demonstrate this, any other arguments, including that above which claims that I have no right to be offended by such a notion, are based on a fallacy.
I didn’t say there wasn’t any difference in the nature of people’s minds. I said there’s plenty of difference, among individuals. The difference between averages of ethnic groups are negligible.
I’m offended not by the possibility of there being a difference, but by the fact that someone will happily assert a difference when there’s absolutely no evidence to back it up. To back-pedal and say ‘well, you have to accept that it might be the case’ is not acceptable, and is, as I’ve said a few times over this thread, flouting healthy skepticism to defend indefensible racist opinions. Indeed it might be the case (I strongly doubt it, as do most), but until that “might” becomes a likelihood, a probability, one shouldn’t give it much credence at all.
It Seems to me Jangari that you want to be offended no matter how this question is considered because you want to believe that all people are equal in terms of their intellect, why do I suspect that you would object just as strongly to any suggestion that this should be researched in any way at all?
Hang on a minute here are you listening to yourself? I have specifically said that I consider any such possibilities (of difference) has no bearing on any people’s humanity and in fact I have denounced anyone who does make such claims, so my scepticism is not about defending any sort of racist position at all, but it is all about trying to consider that human beings are like all other animals subject to variations in all of the characteristics when they are separated into discreet populations.
As I said before I suspect that you would raise the same objections were any one to even try to explore this topic as, say a PhD thesis.
Yes, it’s a basic tenet of anthropology and is supported by all available scientific and sociological data, the existence of which in itself is contrary to your implicit assumption that this has not been studied. In fact it has been studied very intensely and took a great deal of weight of evidence to overturn the old-world ideas that race was categorical, discreet (which, it seems, you cling to) and that race determined not only one’s physical characteristics (absolutely uncontroversial at the time) but also mental characteristics (less so, but still uncontroversial at the time). This has been studied very profoundly and has been overturned. So, to ignore that and try to argue, sans evidence, that race is a real biological phenomenon, and one’s intelligence is determined by it, speaks volumes about either one’s inability to see reason, or one’s desire to be truly racist. I don’t want to be offended necessarily, but to keep on harking on about ethnic-based intellectual capacity is offensive.
There are many facets of racism. One is very visible on the surface and arises from your mates at A Western Heart frequently (or such is my understanding, I won’t bless them with my traffic), that certain groups are (insert pejorative). The kind of racism that stems from arguing another ethnicity’s intellectual inferiority however, is far more troubling and downright dangerous. It’s perfectly permissible, say, for a slave-owner in Southern US in the cotton-fields to like his slave and enjoy his company, but by today’s cultural and scientific understanding, he’s be a racist in that he considers his slave incapable of higher intelligent thought, of independence, etc. I’m not suggesting that this idea is even in the same ballpark, but it’s deep-seeded biological-determinist racism that points in the same direction.
(By the way, I should have said to back-pedal and say ‘well, you have to accept that it might be the case’ is not acceptable as a defence.)
Either you’re not listening, or you don’t understand. Variation is everywhere in the entire population. But measuring variation by variables that define ‘discreet’ groups, like gender, ethnicity, eye-colour, nationality… sexual orientation, political persuasion, and so on, don’t yield any statistically valid results.
As I said above, it’s been done many many times before. Pick up any Cavalli-Sforza book, for instance. The current model we have is the result of years of critically evaluating the old model.
I don’t think you have a leg to stand on here. Do you think intellectual capacity is different for different races?
Ah, Bugger!
Frankly I just don’t know Jangari My tendency is to see most societal matters such as this in rather deterministic terms and I suspect that a definitive answer may never truly be known because more than any other time on the planet we are seeing a profound mixing of people from all parts of the world.
Sorry to sound wishy washy
Finally If you don’t ever read AWH how can you condemn them? Surely not on the opinion of others rather than going to the source…. Sigh
Thanks for fixing up the formatting, you are a gentleman indeed, don’t listen to what they say.
I won’t read AWH again, which is not to say I haven’t in the past. My opinion of that site is based on my experience of it.
Jangari
No worries Mate
Thanks for the laugh. I’m sure my parent ignoring what I did was them “encouraging their children in intellectual endeavours”. My father has a PhD in physics and my mother a Masters in Mathematics. It’s quite obvious my superior capacity for logical thought comes from that.
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