Can Watson's Reputation Survive?

James D. Watson - age 79:

Africans are less intelligent than Westerners, says DNA pioneer

The wiki's already been updated - issue here on wiki and quoted below. I can hear the sound of the knives coming out already.

Dr. Watson is now the Institute advisor for the newly-formed Allen Institute for Brain Science. The Institute, located in Seattle, Washington, was founded in 2003 by Philanthropists Paul G. Allen and Jody Allen Patton as a nonprofit corporation (501(c) (3)) and medical research organization.

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

For example, in an article for the Sunday Times Magazine published on October 14, 2007, he opined that there is scientific and anecdotal evidence supporting some racial differences, such as, (among other things), the inferior intelligence of black people

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." 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."[20]

Comments

[Wahoo Willie Sez]

Hmmm and to think they were building pyimids when "europeans" were still living in caves. Let's just hope Dr Watson isn't a neocon so this one can go on the back shelf quickly.

[docweasel]

I'm not touching this one with a 10 foot pole

/whistles and walks away quickly

[Larry Sheldon]

"The Bell Curve" rides again.

[Lala]

I predict this thread will be the most commented on ever.

First, though, Dr. Watson will have to be determined to be a right-winger. Hmmm, what kind of name is Watson? Does it have Germanic origins?

[Gmax]

The guy describes himself as a secular humanist. Sound like a conservative to you? well maybe if Ron Paul is a conservative. He also advocated for allowing abortions if a fetus could be determined to be homosexual. No conservative would ever advocate abortions and no liberal would ever advocate kiling homosexuals ( as opposed to just run of the mill babies )! How in the world is the guy anything other than a man with his own opinions? He will have hate mail by the satchel full soon enough though.

[Lala]

Gmax

I was being sarcastic

[JMax]

Have you looked at the statistics? IQs in among africans and even african americans are lower than classic Western IQs. Asians and Whites have higher median and average IQs than Africans and African Americans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#IQ

The guy is being a dick, but the data backs him up.

[Cindi]

perhaps if they stop rapping about rape, incest, murder in their music things would improve.

[seekeronos]

Heh... Cindi says quite succinctly what I'll take 45 minutes to say next.

For W. Willie:

I'll dispute the item that the Egyptians who built the Pyramids being of (here comes a dirty word - but needful to differentiate between types of Africans) ... watch out... here it is: > racial stock. The earliest Egyptians (the pyramid builders) and the Hyksos who followed after them a few centuries later were primary the root stock of Noahic humans (hybrids, or more accurately, humans who had a mix of features representative of an ancestral stock that had not yet diversified into specific races yet)

Archaeological evidence suggests that the Old Kingdom inhabitants trended toward Negroid features with a curious mix of Caucasoidal features (high bridge of nose, deeper occular cavities, steeper rise of brow to forehead slope, but more Negroid skull curvature overall). The remains of peoples trending more toward Negroid features continues into what would be modern day Sudan, with a termination of Caucasoidal features more or less from that point south.

Following the Hyksos invasion, skulls begin to retain less Negroid features, which is consistent with beliefs that the Hyksos were collateral relations to the Phoenician Canaanites or possibly of some Semitic stock who invaded from the Fertile Crescent civilizations. Carvings and sculptures from this era also show more Asiatic features (such as the bust of Nefertiti by Thutmose, or the gigantic carvings of the Pharoahs in various monumental works).

Add in mixture by the Hittite Empire (sited in modern day Turkey, called the "sons of Heth" in the Bible, and thought to have been of Semitic stock) - as well as other Mesopotamian peoples moving in and out of Egypt, and the whole region becomes much more polycultural than we'd probably think. Culturally, there might have been less than 1,000 - 1,500 years of divergence from the sons of Noah, and a common folk memory of the Deluge and Antediluvian times, as well as the rapidly declining yet still relatively longer lifespans of folks "fresh off the boat (Ark)". If taken literally, folks like Shem and Arphachshad lived nearly to Abraham's time, and their lifetimes were probably overlapping that of those first Empire builders - the Babylonians first under Nimrod and his idolatrous tower (Babel) and later, the ancestral Egyptians as one of the first major migratory group away from the Plain of Shinar. They in turn built the Pyramids as a possible attempt to rival the Babel tower, only falling short in grandeur, but certainly outlasting Nimrod's ill advised endeavor.

So my point: the Pyramids were more likely to have been a collaborative effort, or may have been built at a time where races were not yet distinct as they are now.

Sub-item: Ethiopians WERE of primarily Negroid stock, and the empire that they had built is easily as old as that of the oldest Egyptian dynasties, going back some 4,500 years to ca. 2500 BCE. This would also make it contemporary with the Sumerian and ancient Ur of the Chaldees, from which the stock of Abraham (whose faith in the True God found favour in His sight, and result in the blessing of becoming the father of many nations). The Ethiopian empire of that time was the same empire that saw its Queen, the Queen of Sheba who met with Israel's King Solomon. For this Sheba (Ethiopia) to be mentioned on a nearly equal par to Israel - then by the grace of God, and Solomon's God-given wisdom, the wealthiest kingdom on earth - is noteworthy.

Simply put, I believe that Negroes and Caucasian and Asians, and the branch of humanity which spread through Oceania and the Americas (which for lack of a correct term, I shall refer to as Pacific Aboriginals and American Indians, from Apache to Zapotec and Alaska to Patagonia) are all sons of Adam through Noah, and for those who care not for this distinction as creations of the True God, the Lord Jesus Christ... then suffice it to say that they indeed share the same DNA.

On equal terms, these five branches of humanity have risen empires to rival any of another in terms of glory and splendor, and it is only through the divine favour of the True God that the light of God's word was revealed and revered (if not obeyed) by the Jews, one of the sons of Abraham, and the heirs of the covenant: through this people, came the Christ, and through Christ came Christianity, and eventually Christendom, which found deep soil to place its roots through the mostly Indo-European peoples (Caucasians) who dwelt therein.

However, Christian doctrine holds that man is a fallen creature because of his conscious will to choose sin. As such, the Perfect Man that was Adam, became corrupt in his generations, and down through the ages, we find ourselves becoming ever more degenerate, our DNA code more and more mutated and ruined, and the divergence of races isolating certain peculiar maladies in particular races (such as Negroid predisposition to sickle-cell anemias, whites to certain kinds of skin cancers, Asians to intestinal and colon cancers) as well as a degeneration of our mental faculties as well.

Even though knowledge is increased, and our Adamic potentials are still present in certain individuals, no one person (except for the incarnate person of Jesus Christ, who was in all ways perfect) has "all the pieces of the puzzle", as it were.

Coming back to atrocious deception that "all blacks are better sportsmen, but have poor SAT scores ... that Asians are innately good at maths and playing musical instruments, but are sub-par athletes... and whites fall somewhere in the middle"...

In a word: Hogwash.

This is more a matter of social engineering, in my opinion. Somehow, this myth of disparate abilities was hardened in our collective conscience by both black and white and Asian Americans; blacks particularly have been victimized by a culture largely engineered by the overgrown mutated nightmare of Big Government Democrat policy, a legacy of which was large the racist policies of that part up to and including the 1950-60s.

This negative culture is prevalent even today: black men in particular are EXPECTED to fail, and they expect to be failed by the system; in my high school days, I recall distinctly that black students who tried to excel - they were castigated by their peers for not "keeping it real", and not entirely fully welcomed by the (surprise!) mostly left-leaning white student body. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

The typical young urban black male expects to fail and to be failed by "the system" because it offers very little "bootstrap incentive" of its own (that is, the American Black culture itself) to succeed, except in the realm of sports and perhaps performing arts (particularly those unique to the urban black reality).

Change must come from within; quotas and affirmative action are resolute failures. Positive role models must be encouraged to succeed; not race-baiters or opportunists or hucksters in shiny suits and "ghetto fab" style, but men who have the go-get it attitude.

Funny thing now, but I've noticed that Black Americans who come from a strong Christian background (again: not pointing to the likes of Sharpton or Farrakhan [not a Christian] or Jackson) but rather, God-fearing black men who have put devotion to Him first, they tend to be the ones who can rise above the self-imposed cultural/racial limits of the African-American.

Likewise, a taste of Christian brotherly love is also called for: for the Son of God who bled and died for me also died for my black brother in Christ, and my yellow brother, and my red brother... it is a bond that brings the human family back together.

As for non-Christians - likewise, the love of Christ compels us (Christians) to reach out to the lost (regardless of race) as the first and foremost thing.

[seekeronos]

Hmm. Looks like the parser ate my attempts to set apart the special word "Negroid" with angle brackets like these (the greater than/less than signs) got eaten by wordpress.

Man, and I had to make a trip all the way to the Special Words Vault® for that.

[docweasel]

Its cultural bias!

I remember one time I was watching a show with a Black Afro-Centrist pontificating about how SAT tests and the like were culturally biased, and as his example, he pointed out some test questions. One of them dealt with the word "regatta"- "No black child raised in the inner city would know what a regatta was!" he fumed.

I was a kid living in a small (15k pop.) N.E. Ohio town at the time, and I'd never seen an regatta myself, but I knew what one was because I had READ BOOKS.

My guess is the lack of black success and the high rate of black failure (prison, drop-out, unemployment) has more to do with a cultural disinclination to read and get educated than genes or IQ differential. I'm not stereo-typing ALL blacks by any means. There is no general rule to any race vs. individual. But I also believe that's why Asians are so successful in academics, their culture supports it in a big way. There is an under-class of whites who also do not culturally value nor support and encourage reading and education among their kids. It may be more a financial and educational class thing rather than a race thing.

I was going to stay out of this because some lefty blogger is going to link all this and call us typical right wing bigots for even discussing it. You can't have a rational debate about this, any more than you can debate whether being gay is nature or nurture, its all too politically loaded.

[chris]

I wonder what they would find if they studied rednecks v. decent whites?

[jj]

It is a proven fact that you can dumb down white people, and you can keep black people from reaching their potential. The Democrats have been in the business of doing just this for I don't know how many years now. Case in point-the public education system currently in place in the US.

As far as black people being less intelligent than whites or Asians, I don't buy it. I do, however, blame blacks here in the US, as they allow themselves to be taken advantage of by the Democrats, and they allow idiots like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to speak for them.

It is the culture of black people here in the US that is dragging their scores down, just as it is the culture of Asians that has driven their scores up. If black people would fix their culture, I have no doubt they would score right alongside whites and Asians. As for the continent of Africa, it would be unfair to draw any conclusions, as most people there have never had a chance to learn anything, other than how to survive.

[jj]

Another great example of the dumbing down of white people--chris.

[seekeronos]

"--- I was going to stay out of this because some lefty blogger is going to link all this and call us typical right wing bigots for even discussing it. You can't have a rational debate about this, any more than you can debate whether being gay is nature or nurture, its all too politically loaded. ---"

Indeed, because the Boob... erm, "chris" had to follow up with this bit of witlessness:

"--- I wonder what they would find if they studied rednecks v. decent whites? ---"

Nope. Unless of course, "chris", you mean "decent whites" as in "politically dhimmified self-loathing whites who have been trained to hate their own race and reject their own identity", i.e. "fools".

Such as "BobInStamford".

Unfortunately, this sort of racist dhimmification has long been the standard, and the stock in trade of race-baiters like Jackson, Sharpton, and Farrakhan.

[Lala]

The Telegraph is reporting this -

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."

[Wahoo Willie Sez]

Seeker; Thanks for the ancient history lesson. I've seen the Tut exhibit, the caucasoid features are obvious as is the long history of mating with europeans. However, the doctor said "africans" and I borrowed a comment from my hero Al Sharpton to make a sarcastic comment. Sorry to make you look up words ;-) Aw and, the doc implies all Africans have a lower IQ, not just Americans.

I have moren once pointed out that our demonrat friends, going back 50 years, have done all they could to dumb down whites rather than to elevate blacks. Keeping people ignorant makes them more apt to follow the dim party line. Karl Marx even wrote about teaching them (people in general) just enough to keep them dependant on government. Seems to be working.

"rednecks v. decent whites?" I would hate to be such ann ignorant bigot who is most likely a closet racist/homophobe. You might want to look up the word redneck where you will find it a derogtory term for farmers. I wonder lazyboyboob hates the people who made him so fat and lazy.

[chris]

"I have moren"

Clearly not one of the decent whites.

[Wahoo Willie Sez]

"Clearly not one of the decent whites."
I would try to be more like you except that if I were as full of hateful bigotry, racism and homophobia as you... I would be forced to kill myself.

[jj]

Hate to break this to you, chris/boob, but spelling doesn't have anything to do with being decent. You spell pretty good, but decent in no way describes your vile behavior. Bigot, yes, hateful, yes, but decent, hell no.

Why don't you go comfort Ellen, or perhaps you are one of those decent, tolerant liberals sending death threats and hate mail to the shelter that reclaimed their dogs after Ellen violated her contract with them.

[Wahoo Willie Sez]

jj: It isn't or "is not" a matter of being able to spell "more than" and using the slang "moren". Poor chrissy is one of those sad little people who is full of rage and excuses. The most frequent excuse being that someone else caused him/her/it to fail, etc. They have such low self esteem that they must create boogie men of those to whom they really feel inferior. I really pity our little chrissy, so in need of a hug and a kind word, a would be bully without the guts to even carry that off except from a key board.

[chris]

You 24%ers have no sense of humor. But then, with 2 failed wars and a stammering disaster as a leader, I guess there isn't much to laugh about.

[Fred Beloit]

"..."there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level."

If this claim of unequal intelligence is true, and I don't believe it, I guess I've been fortunate to a degree stretching probability theory. People of color I've worked with seemed as able as any other group. And anyway this theory turns on the fact that there is actually one characteristic, called intelligence, that can be measured like height.

In fact there is. My old Psychology Prof said intelligence can only be defined as "something an intelligence test measures". But beyond that there are so many other characteristics of humans that mean much more to success as a person, a parent, a business person, etc, etc. As far as promoting untalented people who haven't shown success at work or their profession, that advice is good for everyone of every group. Duh.

[Wahoo Willie Sez]

"intelligence can only be defined as "something an intelligence test measures"."

I doubt that "intelligence" can be measured. Knowledge can be measured but intelligence is like "common sense". The only thing on an IQ test that measures intelligence is the question of which gear turns which way to lift a load. Everything else is questions you either "know" the answer to or not. If you've never heard of a regatta it has no bearing on whether you can figure out how to get a square peg into a round hole.

[Wahoo Willie Sez]

"You 24%ers have no sense of humor." Oh yeah? How come we are emailing each other about you and laughing our asses off? How come we think it's funny that 46% of voters say they would not vote for Hillary "under any circumstances"?

[chris]

"How come we are emailing each other about you and laughing our asses off?"

Good question. You shiftless 'necks have a lot of free time on your hands, huh? No wonder the Mexicans are making you obsolete.

[Fred Beloit]

It is Saturday afternoon. The Boob leaves his basement abode for the excitement of Manhattan, the pseudo-chic population of which he believes himself to be a member because Stamford is a short train ride from NYC. But, alas, as he strides down Park Avenue, clad in his 1970s bell-bottomed, plaid trousers and humming "Staying Alive" to himself, the local inhabitants are turning their heads behind him and having a good laugh at his expense. A sad spectacle, Bob the Pagliaccio of Stamford, merely another unfashionable bumpkin, clodhopper, and ridiculous rustic in the big city.

[Wahoo Willie Sez]

"You shiftless 'necks have a lot of free time on your hands, huh? No wonder the Mexicans are making you obsolete."

Some of us were able to retire at a young age and spend oodles of time helping da poor. So I guess it is you babies that are becoming redundant. Please do your best though. I can start milking social security in 15 years and I want as many of you working to support me as possible.

[chris]

"I can start milking social security in 15 years and I want as many of you working to support me as possible."

Do you really think that you will make it? BBQ 'competitors' tend not to live too long. You had better get back to the grill, I'm sure that your svelte missus is 'hankering' for some lunch.

[Wahoo Willie Sez]

"Do you really think that you will make it?" Well I have the same guarantee of 15 more years that you do, so who knows. Whatever happens you need to be a good socialist and take care of me. So quit messing around here and pay some taxes.

[Wahoo Willie Sez]

chrissy is the epitome of the tolerant demonrats who care about such issues as health insurance, social security and blah, blah, blah. This is how they really are friends.

[jj]

It gives me great pleasure, Willie, to know that people like chris are going to have to work that much harder to make sure I get the Social Security I am entitled to. Thank you for your service, chris.

[ZZMike]

This subject is out of my area of interest, but I'd like to ask Dr Watson how he explains G. W. Carver, Benjamin Banneker (d. 1806), and a host of others?

I think innate ability is evenly distributed, but without the cultural infrastructure (family, ethics, education, some place to exercize all these), it goes undeveloped.

[Lala]

Don't forget Thomas Sowell, who, by the way, has a good column out today.

[Hope]

Pls,

Stop this none sense!
First of all who are black & who are white? Which whites are superior to which blacks? Do you just dump all the civilization reached its climax in 7th century known Axumite/Aksumite Empire in the present day Horn Africa, Ethiopia, which is still proven as origin of human cradle? What about that of Egypt? This all were global civilisations, long before Watson’s America or Most Europe. May be you don’t call it civilization b/c it isn’t white peoples’ civilization or may be you even didn’t heard of it, because you are too young as its grand grad son!

Next thing worth to look at it would be the fact that under what kind of socio-economic environment are the black people living nor for generations, to blame them for underperformance?, if the so called 'superior whites', would live for generation after generation, under similar socio-economic environment as the blacks; believe me, they would not only perform inferior, but they would simply go mad! May be this Watson, have no idea of what Society is meant; he spent his time alone in a lab, with DNA, not with people. Please, could be there some 'Moral Philosophers'/ sociologists who could offer him some tutor? He needs revisit how the learning process works; how we develop CONSCIRNCE, where does it come from after all? The child born clean, starts learning what his/her society will offer! So it is better that Watson could reconsider the ‘Durkheim's FUNCTIONALISM theory.

Durkheim describes society as an organism-where he argues, if any of the organ of the organism for instance let’s say lung, heart etc, is malfunctioning, the whole organism will malfunction. Similarly, , established social values accepted as conventions in a given society serve as organs of the society so that the society would function properly. E.g. some thing is bad/wrong while some thing else is good/right according to that society's accepted social values. These established values are the foundations for our CONSCIENCE.

Unfortunately these days, in this post modernity era, where the likes of Watson are dominating, there seem to be nothing as such which we all accept as common principles as humanity. This is sick society then b/c there are no common values (consensus on what is right, wrong) which means we can’t understand each other; since your truth won’t be mine. Too individualized world, like Watson himself spending his 79 years in Lab, is destroying this functionalism theory which would help humanity to work, communicate, understand & live together.

So please consider the not only the biological aspects, but also the social part of the brain. What do the scientologists, sociologists, philosophers dealing with moral, ethics-norms say about your findings!

[Wahoo Willie Sez]

Hope; I think everyone here agreed with you.

[Wahoo Willie Sez]

So, CNN is reporting that Obama and Cheney are cousins. That should scare the libs away.

[Half Sigma]

Watson says that within 15 years, maybe 10 years, genes causing intelligence will be identified, and we will know if he was right or not.

If he turns out to be right, I'm sure his reputation will stay very high.

He runs a genetic research laboratory, so his 15-year prediction is based on his actual knowledge of the current technology and is not just some bogus guess.

[Lala]

His planned appearance in London has been cancelled.