You wait ’til they get through with Dr. James Watson, one of the two scientists who won the Nobel Prize for their unraveling of the structure of the DNA molecule…
Fury at DNA pioneer’s theory: Africans are less intelligent than Westerners – Independent Online Edition > Science & Tech 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.
Now, just because this is a conservative blog, I hope people don’t assume that I’m trying to protect or agree with Dr. Watson here, because I’m not. I think such a claim is one of such high social impact that it should not be made without conclusive proof, and I believe that there is no such proof.
But, I also believe that this will reveal just exactly how “diverse” the intellectual debate in this world really is. Dr. Watson has crossed a very broad, highly visible line with this statement. There are certain similarities in this statement and Larry Summer’s statement that the differences in performance between men and women in science and math could be related to gender differences. One of those similarities will be the viciousness of the attack on Dr. Watson.
What is interesting to me is that many of the very same people who will be so viciously attacking Dr. Watson for this statement are the very same bloggers or leftist moonbats who have routinely published claims that conservatives have been scientifically proven to be less intelligent than liberals. Hypocrisy is sort of their stock in trade you know…
Anyway, I’ll go on record as saying that I find this to be a very unfortunate assertion because it has no scientific basis and it will simply inflame the tension that already exists between races.
I will say this, I’ve dealt with white people and people of color my entire life. And I cannot say from personal experience that I have ever found any one race to be stupider than any other. All of them are stupid far more than they are intelligent. I’d say that Watson is probably falling prey to his own cultural background here, not science.
3 users commented in " You think Larry Summers was pilloried? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackIt never fails to amaze me that people can accept, without hesitation, that certain races are “superior” physically than others (jump higher, run faster, run longer, etc….) but refuse to accept that the brain is but another “physical” aspect of our beings which, of course, could have some racial differences.
“Differences” of course could include greater or lesser intelligence.
Until we’re able to discuss race from an OBJECTIVE perspective in the SCIENTIFIC community, we really don’t have much hope of being able to discuss race from an objective perspective in the rest of society.
It’s just sad.
The ONLY question should be: “Is he right?”
The best way to challenge Dr. Watson’s assertion is to treat it like a scientific hypothesis, develop a set of experiments that would conform to our understanding of the scientific method, execute the experiments, tally the results and post the conclusions. That’s how science works.
But this can never happen because nobody will accept any single step in the process as being accurate. They will first challenge the assertion (It’s RACIST!), then they will claim the experiments are unfair, then they will say the results were skewed, finally they will say the conclusions were altered by hidden biases.
There’s really no hope of examining this rationally. The very SUGGESTION of examining this rationally will be used as proof of racist intent.
I see that the British Museum has canceled Dr. Watson’s upcoming lecture series. The feeding frenzy has begun.
“White Men Can’t (fill in the blank….dance, jump, play basketball, run fast, run far….)” are all accepted truisms which, of course, clearly implies that blacks CAN do all of these things in a superior fashion to whites.
But, the notion that whites (in general) have a marginally greater intellect (and presumably less than that of Asians according to “The Bell Curve”) as a norm, which, of course does nothing to detract from all those blacks who exceed the “norm” or the whites who fall below the “norm,” is a thought which is simply too distressing to bear.
It’s just sad. And, you’re right. No matter how much investigation is made into this issue, if the results are that blacks are somehow inferior to whites in some aspect, whomever proposes it will be villified unmercifully.
But, whenever a white attempts to play basketball, it will be ASSUMED that his play will be inferior to that of the blacks, and he’ll have to overcome the racial bias in order to make the team. (Whites are “shooters” not “athletes,” don’t you know….)
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