In a profile of James Watson, renowned 1962 Nobel Laureate for co-discovering the double-helical structure of DNA and chancellor of the renowned Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, the Sunday Times Magazine of London quoted him as saying that he’s “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.”
Furthermore, while he hopes everyone is equal, “people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true,” Watson said. He also said people should not be discriminated against on the basis of color, because “there are many people of color who are very talented.”
In addition, Watson in his new book “Avoid Boring People” says, “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.”
Watson obviously needs Sherlock Holmes to explain it all for him, because he doesn’t understand anything about standardized testing or how it relates to genetic inheritance of intelligence.
Granted, in many standardized testing situations, taken as a cohort, people of African heritage have had a lower median on their bell curve than people of other races. However, when you control for socioeconomic background, the race factor drops out entirely.
Entirely.
Yep. Poor, disadvantaged black people score equally with poor, disadvantaged white folks and poor, disadvantaged Asian folks. Middle-class black folks score equally well as middle-class white or Asian folks. Ditto for upper-class sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers. When you control for socioeconomic status, race is unimportant in standardized testing scores.
Let’s say it again to be perfectly clear: When you control for socioeconomic status, race is unimportant in standardized testing scores. Due to historical inequality of opportunity, a higher percentage of poor, disadvantaged black folks drag down the curve.Due to historical inequality of opportunity, a higher percentage of poor, disadvantaged black folks drag down the curve.Two generations ago, people of African descent received worse scores than today.Due to historical inequality of opportunity, a higher percentage of poor, disadvantaged black folks drag down the curve.Two generations ago, people of African descent received worse scores than today.Two generations from now, with rigor, more black people will be lifted out of poverty, and their kids have more tutoring and prep opportunities and better schools, and their scores will improve.
Due to historical inequality of opportunity, a higher percentage of poor, disadvantaged black folks drag down the curve.Two generations ago, people of African descent received worse scores than today.Two generations from now, with rigor, more black people will be lifted out of poverty, and their kids have more tutoring and prep opportunities and better schools, and their scores will improve.Note that: the genetic composition of the cohorts has not and will not perceptibly change, but scores have and will improve. That’s not genetics. That’s environment.
Such blatantly racist comments smack of eugenics and denigrate all of science by suggesting that we suppose such idiocy. Watson has since apologized for his comments, but I hope that people realize that these comments were not scientifically valid, were not supported by data, and are the worst misapplication of science.
TK Kenyon is the author of RABID: A Novel, about which Booklist said in a Starred Review, “What begins as a riff on Peyton Place smoothly metamorphoses into a philosophical battle between science and religion. Kenyon is definitely an author to watch, she juggles all of her story’s elements without dropping any of them–and, let’s not forget, creates four very subtle and intriguing central characters.”
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12 users commented in " James Watson: DNA Pioneer, Nobel Laureate, Bigot. "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackIt’s a sad day when stats and science have to take a back seat to political correctness. The man made observations based on a career and lifetime of experience. Just because the facts don’t jive with what is “acceptable” in society doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
Kenyon is a liar. African blacks have a mean IQ of 70. Google it.
“Two generations from now, with rigor, more black people will be lifted out of poverty, and their kids have more tutoring and prep opportunities and better schools, and their scores will improve.”
Actually, no, since blacks (and whites) of lower IQ outbreed those of higher IQ the population is being dragged DOWN by 2 iq points per generation for Whites and DOWN 3 points for blacks. A three IQ point differnce accounts for a whopping 25% difference in poverty rates.
The science is irrefutable. There are pure, hard numbers that cannot be denied. There are substantial IQ differences between races.
I don’t see any reason to be calling the author a liar. However, I would like to see references cited for the studies that prove these statements instead of seeing them repeated in bold type as if doing so adds to their validity.
“Granted, in many standardized testing situations, taken as a cohort, people of African heritage have had a lower median on their bell curve than people of other races. However, when you control for socioeconomic background, the race factor drops out entirely.
Entirely.
Yep. Poor, disadvantaged black people score equally with poor, disadvantaged white folks and poor, disadvantaged Asian folks. Middle-class black folks score equally well as middle-class white or Asian folks. Ditto for upper-class sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers. When you control for socioeconomic status, race is unimportant in standardized testing scores.”
Um, every single one of these assertions is absolutely false. Whites raised in the lowest socioeconomic bracket, in fact, score better on IQ tests than blacks raised in the highest socioeconomic bracket:
“One of the most disturbing, I think perhaps the most disturbing fact in our whole book is that black students coming from families earning over 70,000 are doing worse on their SATS, on average–it’s always on average–than white students from families in the lowest income group. You want to cry hearing that figure. I mean, it’s so terrible.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/thernstrom.html
The largest modern study of American classrooms found that ethnicity was the best single predictor of academic performance. Better than income or any other variable:
“Chin quotes with approval a book, “Beyond the Classroom,” by Laurence Steinberg, B. Bradford Brown and Sanford M. Dornbusch, which says “of all the demographic factors we studied in relation to school performance, ethnicity was the most important. . . . In terms of school achievement, it is more advantageous to be Asian than to be wealthy, to have non-divorced parents, or to have a mother who is able to stay at home full time.”“
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26499-2004Oct12.html
I posted some thoughts about Watson and North American racism. Check it out
Mr. Kenton, where is your source for the alegation about socioeconomic status? Got none, right? Were this analysis and your facts valid it would be taught in every classroom in America, every year. I, and virtually everyone fairminded person in America wish it were so; we really do. But sadly it is not. In fact, the problem is not that blacks are inferior as measured by standardized tests, no, the problem is they are not even close. Optimistically, they have a mean IQ of 85, one full standard deviation below the mean. I pray that the person reporting above a mean IQ of 70 is wrong, but alas, the facts are surpressed and the discourse censored in the press and especially academia, so it is difficult to know.
The biggest impact in America and apparently in the UK is that Democratic pillars, like free speach, are being stomped on in order to hide these facts, so that affirmative action and other tools of the deniers can be propogated. A good number of people in America make their living, or get great personal satisfaction, trying to create equal economic outcomes for blacks. Since they are swimming against the terrible shortcoming in intelligence they will strive for now to kingdom come. I can only hope that they do not destroy our freedom in the process, since their agenda requires a stiffling of the truth about intelligence and often results in blaming capitalism, which as a meritcracy based economic system falls against blacks.
As to blacks, again I’m sorry. All I can say is that we are talking about mean intelligence here. Blacks on the high end of the curve overlap with whites on the low end. We can expect a certain number of blacks to reach college and beyond without . We can expect blacks to achieve well in black dominated occupations like politics in black cities. And lest we forget, that blacks are clearly superior to whites in many endeavers including athletics, areas of music and in my opinion have a bias to “street smarts” that you can’t buy anywhere. This later characteristic leads them to excel in certain jobs in management, where personality is more important than SAT scores.
And also, as Watson says, where is it written that we should expect all people to have equal intelligence? The U.S. Constitution is not a scientific document, and by the way, was written and signed by many slave owners so is hardly the master document on racial equality.
Mr. Smith:
You ask about sources? Where are your sources for stating that “blacks on the high end of the curve overlap with whites on the low end.” This isn’t true and grossly exaggerates the gap between the respective test scores.
BTW - when you comment on intelligence, your thoughts (while still wrong) would be better received if you, yourself, could spell some basic SAT words:
allegation; speech; endeavor; suppressed; stifling; meritocracy.
“… In old Greece, as Aristotle says, that occurred by fact the towns that lived more to the south, like the Egyptian, were naturally more wise people and ingenious than the Barbarians which they lived in the regions you cold. Sometimes the Germanic blonde-haired people were considered Barbarian, slow and incapable of civilization. And they were treated like such by the most advanced empires of skin darkened by suns of the South which demonstrates that the stupidity is not property of any race.” Jorge Majfud.
First,
Jewish people are the most intelligent. They win almost 40% of the Nobel Prize’s and they have a small population of only 14 million. So by far they exceed the other races in intelligence. The other races having huge numbers and such small contributions.
Second,
IQ tests, test intellectual conformity, not creativity and originality. This would explain the Asian high IQ’s. They as a people are the ultimate conformists.
In IQ tests there is typically only one answer to the problem. That problem being a social conformity to reason. But everyone knows that Genius’s and all of the greatest developments in the world are not the product of conformity. Conformity never breeds creativity. We can see this in the lack of influence the Asian population has had on Science. China used to be called the “sick man” of Asia. Their population is massive and their contribution to innovation is almost nil. We can see this lack of originality in their adoptation of European philosophies, I.e. Communism.
Friedrich Nietzsche and other Philosophers have critized Asians. Nietsche used the words “Pallid osification” to describe Orientals.
Pallid: lacking sparkle or liveliness.
Osification: The process of becoming set and inflexible in behavior, attitudes, and actions. Inflexible conformity, rigid unthinking acceptance of social conventions.
The reality is Asian people have yet to understand that laws and rules are arbitrary. Europeans make the rules and Asian’s follow them.
It also doesn’t make sense that Asian’s are considered smart because of the fact that they have destroyed their own countries. This is due to over-population and their basic lack of enviromental understanding.
It is also common scientific fact that women who have many children are ignorant, and those who have less children are more intelligent. This has already been proven in studies. So it seems strange to say that Asians are smart when the obviousness of their backwards countries, and medieval lifestyle makes them contrary to that premise.
Europeans have the most advanced civilizations and every other race has yet to meet these levels other than the Japanese. The Japanese only being good at copying other people’s inventions and making them better. Other than that their original creativity is lacking as well. They took American cars and made them better. They took the German camera and made it better. And they took German steel and made it better. Otherwise the greatest advances still come from Europeans and Jews. Other than that the Orientals have yet to produce an Einstein or a Thomas Edison.
When it comes to Black people. It makes sense that they have low intellectual comformity, I.e. IQ tests. They are far too creative to be trapped in this unoriginal form of conditioning. You can tell their creative capacity in their athletics, music, dance, and the way they talk. They by far exceed the Asiatic races in these areas. Being better singers, musicians ect. Blacks far exceed Asians in emotive expression. In all of North America there is only one or two famous high-paid Asian actors.
Reality, Europeans rule the world and they have allowed others to exist only out of desire for economic bennifet. They, (Europeans) are also the physically strongest, winning the Strongest Man competitions again and again.
The greater the conformity, the weaker the race. Thus we see the races as they are today. The wild animal being bred out of man, and the physically impotent, conformist thriving.
Otherwise “Group psychology” is the most destructive thing in the world. All these stereotypes are false when it comes to the individual. Individualism is the most important thing for this time. All countries, Religions, groups need to dissolve for man to live in peace.
http://www.truenewspaper.blogspot.com
E.C.
I think that you make some very valid points. However, since we are discussing intelligence, you might want to consider not placing apostrophes on your plural nouns. This is a very fundamental rule of punctuation. Sorry if that seems condescending.
I would have to agree with you that Jews have the highest intelligence — I used to believe this to be true of Asians — however, while Asians’ intelligence is very left side of the brain, Jews (generalizing) seem to possess left and right polarities.
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