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Title: Black people 'less intelligent' scientist claims (James Watson)
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URL Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2677098.ece
Published: Jul 20, 2011
Author: Helen Nugent
Post Date: 2011-07-20 19:50:13 by gengis gandhi
Keywords: None
Views: 679
Comments: 35
m Times Online October 17, 2007 Black people 'less intelligent' scientist claims Helen Nugent One of the world’s most respected scientists is embroiled in an extraordinary row after claiming that black people are less intelligent than white people. James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, has provoked outrage with his comments, made ahead of his arrival in Britain today. More fierce criticism of the eminent scientist is expected as he embarks on a number of engagements to promote a new book ‘Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science’. Among his first commitments is a speech to a London audience at the Science Museum on Friday. The event is sold out. Dr Watson, who runs one of America’s leading scientific research institutions, made the controversial remarks in an interview in The Sunday Times. The 79-year-old geneticist said 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 he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered 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”. He writes that “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”. He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade. The newly formed Equality and Human Rights Commission is studying Dr Watson’s remarks “in full”. Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said today: “It is sad to see a scientist of such achievement making such baseless, unscientific and extremely offensive comments. “I am sure the scientific community will roundly reject what appear to be Dr Watson’s personal prejudices. These comments serve as a reminder of the attitudes which can still exist at the highest professional levels.” Dr Watson was hailed as achieving one of the greatest single scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century when he worked at the University of Cambridge in the 1950s and 1960s, forming part of the team which discovered the structure of DNA. He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine with his British colleague Francis Crick and New Zealand-born Maurice Wilkins. Page 1 of 3 www.timesonline .co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2677098.ece
Poster Comment: well you can't have it pc and believe in evolution too. if our environment influences our evolution, then you have to expect differences among groups that have different environments. duh. to notice it is not pc.
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#6. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
He's making a mistake. New research points to proteins as being the arbiters of the differences in human characteristics and consciousness. It's not in the genes.
Evidence is that it is highly heritable, and that when races mix, the average IQ of the offspring is predictable by the IQs of the populations that mixed (and, e.g. largely unrelated to diet, climate, and other environmental factors). As the stereotypes suggest, Asians are on top of this listing. Here's a ranking of the IQs of whole countries. There are reams of evidence that blacks, as a group, have significantly lower IQs than whites, as a group, although individual exceptions abound, and in fact the statement about a group has no application to any individual, except statistically. The fact that population groups have different IQs is well-known to all in the (non-military) intelligence community, but of course the blind and politically-correct mass media can not and will not accept such facts, which is why the authors of The Bell Curve faced death threats and harassment. Sub-saharan blacks have very low mean IQs, although so do Australian aborigines, with mean IQs in the 50s or 60s. Not a popular statement on this forum, but the mean IQ of a certain ethnicity of Jews, the "Ashkenazi Jews" is about 125, which is nearly Mensa-level, and is the highest of any identified ethnic group. It is difficult to argue that it isn't genetic. Here's one list of mean IQs, by country: (There are many others.) http://www.raventest.net/averageiqbycountry.html
107, actually. Cochran et al. write that according to some studies from the 1970s Ashkenazi Jews score 0.75 to 1.0 standard deviations above the general European average. This corresponds to an IQ 112–115. They have high verbal and mathematical scores, while their visuospatial abilities are typically somewhat lower, by about one half a standard deviation, than the European average.[2] More recent studies have found somewhat lower values with a review in 2004 by Richard Lynn stating 0.5 standard deviation.[3] Lynn and Longley in a 2006 review write that the best reading of Jews in Britain is 110 and in the US is 109.5.[4] Brian
#34. To: Turtle (#33)
Sorry, was recalling their verbal IQ and not their overall IQ. Although your cite supports 112-115 rather than 107 as the overall value.
won't you come home bill bailey?
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestHe claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade
#13. To: angK (#6)
It's not in the genes.
#33. To: freeedom (#13)
(Edited)
the "Ashkenazi Jews" is about 125
Replies to Comment # 33.
#35. To: Turtle (#33)
End Trace Mode for Comment # 33.