Is It Racism, Or Is It Science?
"[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."
"No. [prepared to recant on his views on the relationship between race and intelligence.] Not at all. I would like for them [his views] to have changed, that there be new knowledge that says that your nurture is much more important than nature. But I haven't seen any knowledge [that would support that hypothisis]."
"And there's a difference on the average between blacks and whites on I.Q. tests. I would say the difference is, it's genetic."
"If the difference exists, we have to ask ourselves, how can we try and make it better?"
James D. Watson, founder, modern genetics
 |
| James Watson has been stripped of several honorary titles over ‘reprehensible’ comments in which he said race and intelligence are connected. Photograph: Jose Mendez/EPA |
Society has, in fact, been attempting to 'make it better' for quite a long time. In Dr. Watson's own country where slavery was endemic and the horrendous belief that blacks were sub-human led to a nonchalant acceptance that they were born to be subordinate to the wishes of the 'white race', and that their place in society was clearly as slaves whose labour benefited their 'owners', enriching white slave-owning society by the degradation visited upon natives of far-off Africa who were 'captured' to be shipped overseas to fulfill their destiny, efforts were more latterly made toward equalization through affirmative action.
That was an effort meant as much to assuage a universal guilty conscience as it was to favour the future trajectory of black advantage. Individual blacks have distinguished themselves on occasion throughout history to the present in demonstrating intelligence equal to and surpassing many whites who have themselves been recognized for their rare intellectual genius. On the other end of the scale a vast aggregation of blacks have been noted for their rejection of education in favour of a vulgarized street life, gang membership, violence and criminal activity.
As for Africa, with its multitude of malfunctioning, warring, tribal, backward and criminal governance, where is the progress, where is the civilizing aspect so long delayed? Is it all the affect of nurture, not nature? There are scientists who believe, on the strength of reproducible science and logistics that the world's 'races' can be identified for their level of generalized population intelligence. Where Chinese, Japanese and Indians, as example are rated with higher gifts of natural intelligence. Admittedly, this is racism at play. But it is also verifiable science.
Dr. Watson, who with his colleague Francis Crick, co-discoverers of the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, received the 1972 Nobel Prize in science, became persona non-grata in polite society and the global scientific arena despite his impeccable credentials as a scientist and a genius at deciphering the most basic and complex of nature's genetic endowments. His comments on race and intelligence reverberated internationally. Forced to retire as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York.
His public apology failed to silence his critics. His apology could not have been for his conclusion but rather his indiscretion in voicing an opinion that science demonstrated as reality but which was an absolute unmentionable. Now, 90, it is four years since he sold his Nobel medal, necessitated by poverty that resulted from having been designated a "nonperson", in his words. The unfortunate fallout of his explication on race and intelligence has been joyfully coopted by ragingly triumphant white supremacists.
 |
| Dr. James D. Watson |
He takes no pleasure in any measure, in pointing out "the difference between blacks and whites" and wishes that this did not in fact, reflect reality. "It's awful", he says, with genuine regret. He was asked for the production of a new documentary, "American Masters: Decoding Watson", if his views had changed, and they haven't. Some scientists feel that Dr. Watson's statements represent an ingrained racial bias in collision with genetics advances enabling researchers to increase understanding of behaviour and cognition in genetics.
Most experts on intelligence "Consider any black-white differences in I.Q. testing to arise primarily from environmental, not genetic, differences", according to Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. He was personally not aware of any credible research which would validate Dr. Watson's statements. A geneticist at Harvard University, David Reich points out new techniques to study DNA show some human populations were separated geographically for prolonged periods so they plausibly might have evolved average genetic differences in cognition and behaviour.
In Dr. Reich's recently published "Who We Are and How We Got Here", however, he denounces the presumption that such differences would "correspond to longstanding popular stereotypes", as "essentially guaranteed to be wrong". Since the Watson-Crick collaboration that resulted in deciphering the structure of DNA, molecular biology has been useful in tracing humanity's prehistory, to devise lifesaving therapies and to develop CRISPR, the gene-editing technology that holds out so much hope for the future of medicine.
Labels: Bioscience, DNA, Dr. James D. WatsonDr. James, Nobel Prize, Research
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, January 19, 2019
<< Home