Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than Westerners

[MarZutra]

http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3067222.ece

Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than Westerners

Celebrated scientist attacked for race comments: "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really"
By Cahal Milmo
Published: 17 October 2007
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.

James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.

The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.

The newly formed Equality and Human Rights Commission, successor to the Commission for Racial Equality, said it was studying Dr Watson's remarks " in full". Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that 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 there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".

His views are also reflected in a book published next week, in which he writes: "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."

The furore echoes the controversy created in the 1990s by The Bell Curve, a book co-authored by the American political scientist Charles Murray, which suggested differences in IQ were genetic and discussed the implications of a racial divide in intelligence. The work was heavily criticised across the world, in particular by leading scientists who described it as a work of " scientific racism".

Dr Watson arrives in Britain today for a speaking tour to publicise his latest book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. Among his first engagements is a speech to an audience at the Science Museum organised by the Dana Centre, which held a discussion last night on the history of scientific racism.

Critics of Dr Watson said there should be a robust response to his views across the spheres of politics and science. Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "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 exists at the highest professional levels."

The American scientist earned a place in the history of great scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century when he worked at the University of Cambridge in the 1950s and 1960s and formed 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.

But despite serving for 50 years as a director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, considered a world leader in research into cancer and genetics, Dr Watson has frequently courted controversy with some of his views on politics, sexuality and race. The respected journal Science wrote in 1990: "To many in the scientific community, Watson has long been something of a wild man, and his colleagues tend to hold their collective breath whenever he veers from the script."

In 1997, he told a British newspaper that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual. He later insisted he was talking about a "hypothetical" choice which could never be applied. He has also suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, positing the theory that black people have higher libidos, and argued in favour of genetic screening and engineering on the basis that " stupidity" could one day be cured. He has claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying: "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would great."

The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory said yesterday that Dr Watson could not be contacted to comment on his remarks.

Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University and a founder member of the Society for Social Responsibility in Science, said: " This is Watson at his most scandalous. He has said similar things about women before but I have never heard him get into this racist terrain. If he knew the literature in the subject he would know he was out of his depth scientifically, quite apart from socially and politically."

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."

[Barnes]

Pretty notable figure.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,302836,00.html

[fjack]

I am not surprised at all at this. All you have to do is talk to a black and you will see how dumb they are. It is no secret. Here is an article for 'blacks in higher education' and it tells how dumb blacks are.

JBHE Statistical Shocker of the Year:

Here is a shocking statistic showing that despite major gains, blacks have a huge distance to go to achieve racial parity with whites in higher education.

In 2004, 2,100 doctorates were awarded by universities in the United States in the fields of mathematical statistics, botany, optics physics, human and animal pathology, zoology, astrophysics, geometry, geophysics and seismology, general mathematics, nuclear physics, astronomy, marine sciences, nuclear engineering, polymer and plastics engineering, veterinary medicine, topology, hydrology and water resources, animal nutrition, wildlife/range management, number theory, fisheries science and management, atmospheric dynamics, engineering physics, paleontology, plant physiology, general atmospheric science, mathematical operations research, endocrinology, metallurgical engineering, meteorology, ocean engineering, poultry science, stratigraphy and sedimentation, wood science, polymer physics, acoustics, mineralogy and petrology, bacteriology, logic, ceramics science engineering, animal breeding and genetics, computing theory and practice, and mining and mineral engineering. Not one of these 2,100 doctoral degrees went to an African American.

[fjack]

They do earn Ph.ds but look what the degrees are in. By the way I didn't notice how many recieve a doctorate in black mytholgy, I mean black history. I think they lump them under 'social science' or 'education'. What a useless race.

Doctoral Degree Awards to African Americans Reach Another All-Time High

In 2004 African Americans earned 1,869 doctoral degrees. This number has increased more than 9 percent from a year ago. Black doctorates now stand at the highest level in history.


Since 1993, when we began to publish JBHE, a host of events have caused us to publish a steady flow of disappointing news. Yet recent years have seen some indicators showing steady and impressive progress for African Americans in higher education. Overall black enrollments in college and in graduate school have shown solid improvement. But probably the most impressive gain achieved by blacks since the early years of JBHE is the large increase in doctoral degrees awarded to African Americans. 

A new report prepared by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago finds that 1,869 African Americans earned doctorates in 2004. This was a very large increase of more than 9 percent from 2003. For the second year in a row, the number of black doctorates has set an all-time high. In 2004 blacks made up 7.1 percent of all doctorates awarded to American citizens. This too is an all-time high. In 2003 blacks were 6.5 percent of all doctoral recipients, at that time the highest level ever achieved.

The overall progress in the past two decades has been rock solid. In 1987 only 787 African Americans earned doctorates. This year's total of 1,869 doctorates is nearly 2.4 times as many as were earned in 1987. In 1990 the black share of all doctoral awards was 3.6 percent. That has now grown to 7.1 percent, a showing of significant prog-ress in a relatively short period of time of 15 years.

Although African Americans have made solid progress in doctoral awards, much remains to be achieved. In 2004 African Americans were nearly 13 percent of the U.S. population. Therefore, black doctoral awards amounted to slightly more than one half the level that would occur were racial parity to prevail.

Major Shortfalls in the Natural Sciences

There continue to be wide differences among blacks and whites in terms of the academic fields in which they earn doctorates. For instance, 41.3 percent of all doctorates awarded to African Americans in 2004 were in the field of education. In contrast, only 19.1 percent of doctorates earned by whites were in this field. This large percentage of all African-American doctorates in the field of education has been the case for decades with only minor fluctuations. 

Arthur Levine, president of the Teachers College at Columbia University, has proposed that these Ed.D. degrees should be abolished and be replaced with a master's degree in educational administration. He believes that people who aspire to be school superintendents or college administrators are wasting their time doing a research dissertation on a topic that will have little or no bearing on the job that they plan to hold. Should the Levine view prevail, the black percentage of all doctoral awards would fall dramatically. If we eliminate educational doctorates from the 2004 statistics, we find that blacks earned only 5.2 percent of all doctorates in fields other than education.

Whites are far more likely than blacks to earn doctorates in the natural sciences. In 2004 nearly 12 percent of doctorates awarded to whites were in the physical sciences. This is nearly triple the percentage for African Americans, which stood at 4.1 percent in 2004. The percentage of all black doctorates that were awarded in the natural sciences has been declining in recent years.

The very large racial Ph.D. gap in the natural sciences is striking when we examine black Ph.D. awards in specific disciplines. For example, not a single African American earned a Ph.D. in astronomy or astrophysics in 2004. In all there were 165 Ph.D.s awarded in these fields. African Americans earned only 10 doctorates in mathematics. This was only 0.9 percent of all doctorates awarded in the field. 

A major weakness is that blacks earned 13, or about 1 percent, of the nearly 1,200 doctorates in physics. In computer science, blacks won 0.7 percent of all Ph.D. awards. In the atmospheric sciences, less than 1 percent of all doctorates went to blacks. In chemistry, only 2.3 percent of Ph.D.s went to blacks. In the earth sciences such as geology, oceanography, and the atmospheric sciences, blacks were 1.3 percent of all doctoral recipients, down from 2.3 percent in 2003. In the ocean and marine sciences, only one of the 190 Ph.D.s in the discipline was awarded to an African American. In 2004, 148 African Americans were awarded a Ph.D. in the biological sciences. But they were only 2.5 percent of all doctorates awarded in the discipline. Black Ph.D. awards in the biological sciences did increase by 37 percent from 2003. That year, blacks were awarded 1.9 percent of all doctorates in the biological sciences.

The field of engineering also shows serious weakness in black doctoral student participation. Blacks also trail whites by a large margin in Ph.D.s in engineering. In 2004, 7.0 percent of all white doctorates were earned in the field of engineering. For African Americans, only 4.5 percent of all their doctorates were in engineering. In 2004 blacks earned a mere 1.6 percent of all engineering Ph.D.s. This was a slight improvement over 2003. The huge shortfall in engineering is serious because engineering is a field in which hundreds of thousands of Americans achieve high-income status and middle to upper social status.

Almost No Awards to Blacks in Some Scientific Fields

A strong indicator of the fact that African Americans as a group continue to avoid most of the natural sciences appears in the statistics for specific disciplines. In 2004, 2,100 doctorates were awarded by universities in the United States in the fields of mathematical statistics, botany, optics physics, human and animal pathology, zoology, astrophysics, geometry, geophysics and seismology, general mathematics, nuclear physics, astronomy, marine sciences, nuclear engineering, polymer and plastics engineering, veterinary medicine, topology, hydrology and water resources, animal nutrition, wildlife/range management, number theory, fisheries science and management, atmospheric dynamics, engineering physics, paleontology, plant physiology, general atmospheric science, mathematical operations research, endocrinology, metallurgical engineering, meteorology, ocean engineering, poultry science, stratigraphy and sedimentation, wood science, polymer physics, acoustics, mineralogy and petrology, bacteriology, logic, ceramics science engineering, animal breeding and genetics, computing theory and practice, and mining and mineral engineering. Not one of these 2,100 doctoral degrees went to an African American.

The Gender Gap in Black Ph.D. Awards

As is the case in almost every measure of African-American higher education, black women have come to hold a large lead in doctoral awards. As recently as 1977, black women earned only 38.7 percent of all doctorates awarded to African Americans. By 2000 black women earned 65.7 percent of all doctorates awarded to African Americans. This is the highest percentage of African-American doctoral awards earned by women in U.S. history. Black men narrowed the gap in both 2001 and 2002. But in 2003 and 2004 black women upped their percentage of all doctorates earned by African Americans. In 2004, 65.5 percent of all African-American doctorates were earned by women, just short of the all-time high.

Since 1990 African-American women have increased their number of Ph.D. awards from 550 to 1,224. This is an increase of 123 percent. In contrast, the number of Ph.D. awards to African-American men increased from 351 in 1990 to 645. This is a rise of 83.8 percent. 

Doctorates Awarded by Historically Black Universities

In 2004 historically black colleges and universities awarded 350 doctorates to recipients of all races. This was a huge 19 percent increase over 2003.

Howard University awarded 88 doctorates in 2004, the most of any historically black university. The Howard total was up 10 percent from a year ago. Tennessee State University awarded 45 doctoral degrees in 2004, up 25 percent from 2003. Jackson State University, Clark Atlanta University, Morgan State University, Florida A&M University, South Carolina State University, North Carolina A&T State University, Meharry Medical College, and Texas Southern University were the only other black universities to award at least 10 doctorates in 2004.

Two universities that had large increases in doctoral degrees were Florida A&M and North Carolina A&T. In 2003 Florida A&M awarded four doctorates. In 2004 the number was 23. For North Carolina A&T State University, doctoral awards increased from three in 2003 to 21 in 2004. All 21 doctorates given out by the university were in engineering.

Nationwide, about 14 percent of all doctorates given out by U.S. universities each year are in the physical sciences. But data from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago shows that only three of the 350 doctorates awarded at historically black colleges and universities in 2004 were in these fields. All three were awarded by Alabama A&M University. The black universities gave out only one doctoral degree in mathematics. 

Most of the doctorates awarded by black universities were in the social sciences and education, with a large majority of these in the field of education. At South Carolina State University, 23 doctorates were awarded in 2004. All were in the field of education.

Other Racial Disparities in Ph.D. Awards

Here are further facts on doctoral awards to blacks contained in the most recent survey on earned doctorates:

• The average age of a black Ph.D. recipient in 2003 was 37.8 compared to 33.5 for all Americans.

• It appears that the predominantly white faculties of our major research universities prefer white teaching assistants over black teaching assistants. About 18 percent of white Americans who earned doctorates in 2004 served as college teaching assistants during their doctoral study. Only 8.7 percent of black doctoral students served as teaching assistants.

• Black Americans on average took 12.5 years to earn a doctorate after receiving their bachelor's degree and 9.7 years after they first entered graduate school. The average time for all white Americans was 10.5 years after they earned their bachelor's degree and 8.3 years after first entering graduate school. Disparate economic burdens on black and white Ph.D. candidates probably account for much of the difference. 

• Some 22 percent of all white Americans who earned doctorates in 2004 plan postdoctoral study. For blacks, 15.5 percent plan on postdoc study.

• Nearly 44 percent of all blacks awarded doctorates in 2004 plan careers in academia. White doctorate recipients were slightly more likely to aspire to teach at the university level. Nearly 10 percent of white Ph.D. recipients plan to secure a job in business or industry compared to 5.6 percent of blacks who earned doctorates.

For most observers the statistics on black doctorates seem of marginal importance. Yet they are a good indicator of black progress in achieving the educational credentials required for teaching positions at our major colleges and universities. It is likely, too, that at such time as blacks achieve Ph.D. parity, or near parity, with whites in all academic disciplines, the day will also mark the arrival of overall racial equality.

More News & Views

[mosquewatch]

Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than Westerners
Celebrated scientist attacked for race comments: "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really"

By Cahal Milmo
Published: 17 October 2007
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.

James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.

http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3067222.ece

[MarZutra]

Of course you are right...  Thank you for making me laugh.  Even worse, I'd like to know how many of these went through on an Affirmative Action program or pushed through, like "Dr" "Rev" "Martin Luther" King Jr., to receive a fraudulently awarded and mass plagiarized phony Ph.D?

[Vito]

Didn't Roy Inis debate Watson in the early 80's ?

[MarZutra]

Didn't Roy Inis debate Watson in the early 80's ?

I don't know but it would be interesting to hear.

Here is an audio from J. Philip Rushton who wrote the book "Race Evolution and Behavior"

[ItalianZionist]

http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3067222.ece

[Ehud]

Nothing new here.  Like Watson said, within a decade we will probably be able to find the particular gene that causes differences in intelligence and we'll be able to look at the difference in intelligence between black people and every else in a completely scientific way.  We'll see if black people and liberals will accept the results when they come out, they'll probably find some way to attack its validity even though it would probably be sound.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

I do not buy it. No race has a better brain than another. Blacks choose to live like cats and dogs. There is no excuse.

[Dr. Dan]

(scratching my armpit)...hoo hoo hoo....

[Dan]

Great article, revealing the truth! I read it earlier in the day... The truth finally comes out!

[Trumpeldor]

I do not buy it. No race has a better brain than another. Blacks choose to live like cats and dogs. There is no excuse.

What if choice is a product of intelligence?

Where does culture fit in?

Is it a chicken-egg argument?

Are there any psych people here?

[Ehud]

I do not buy it. No race has a better brain than another. Blacks choose to live like cats and dogs. There is no excuse.

What if choice is a product of intelligence?

Choice is absolutely a product of intelligence.  Each person has a range of possibilities to them that they can choose from.  No two people have the exact same spectrum of choices they are able to make, and no one person has the entire spectrum of choices available to him.  Our brains in some sense predestine what we will do with our lives and how we will behave, we are hardwired in some senses and people who study the brain are starting to find this out.  Of course this isn't to say that we do not have free will, we do, but it is a constrained free will, it isn't absolutely free.  To assume that everyone is able to make the exact same choices is just unrealistic.  They have done studies on how people's brains can determine the choices they make. For instance, they took identical twins, same DNA, who were separated at birth and who were raised in two completely different families.  They studied each of them when they were around 35 and found that they were working in the same profession, liked the same food, wore the same kind of clothes, had the same kinds of girlfriends, etc etc.  Similarities that if each person had the ability to freely make his own choices unconstrained by his mind, or intelligence, reason, what have you, should not have existed.

You also find this phenomenon with parents and their children.  Much of the time, the children will follow the same course and will make many of the same decisions even though they were unaware that their parent had ever made that decision.  If parents and children can be constrained to make the same decisions, it is not hard to make that inferential leap and say that people who have related brains (i.e. whose brains have evolved similarly within their particular racial group) will exhibit similar characteristics, will have proclivities to certain things, will act similarly given similar situations etc etc.

[Wayne Jude]

Can blacks run faster than whites or Asians.Usually,WE can agree on that.Its genetic, but if Asians and whites are smarter,We forget all reality.Forget genetics, forget reality,Its time we get over it.We are all humans with different strengths.That is not wrong!I don't hate!That is the modern excuse used to hold down the brighter.

[Ehud]

Can blacks run faster than whites or Asians.Usually,WE can agree on that.Its genetic, but if Asians and whites are smarter,We forget all reality.Forget genetics, forget reality,Its time we get over it.We are all humans with different strengths.That is not wrong!I don't hate!That is the modern excuse used to hold down the brighter.

I actually think that most people don't think that blacks are genetically faster than whites, even though all the fastest runners in the world are black, fastest football players, etc.  Most people will probably tell you that it's because they work harder and that there aren't any differences genetically between people's bodies.  People are more likely to admit that there are genetic physical differences than they are to admit that there are genetic mental differences, somehow one can exist but not the other, and somehow, one is more insulting than the other to people.  I don't really get it.

[Wayne Jude]

Its pathetic.And whites are so afraid.Bunch of cowards.If blacks are faster and can jump higher so what.Thats good for them.If whites are overall smarter ,Good for them.The rest is pure racism or self hatred,Bro!

[Dexter]

Now the whites here can feel better with themselvs, don't they ?

[Ehud]

Now the whites here can feel better with themselvs, don't they ?

That's not the issue here.  The issue is honesty, and getting people to realize that their insane policies to help black people are premised on the notion that they are equally intelligent as everyone else.  These policies will just lead to more failure, scapegoating, and distress in the future if people don't wake up and realize the facts.  White people aren't trying to prove that they're the most intelligent in the world, the people who acknowledge the truth of black intelligence admit that asians in general have higher IQs than whites do.

[Jyla]

Topics like this is exactly why I feel uncomfortable posting on JTF because I feel too many people here are obsessed with all this racial crap.    

Now who is this scientist Dr. James D. Watson???
He is a "secular humanist" and an "atheist". He happens to be a prominent believer in eugenics where there is a somewhat revival of this movement which has its roots in Nazism.  

No surprise that this Dr. Watson has said that Anti-Semitism is justified.  

I would not believe any of the crap that this evil bastard spouts.  

People here falling for this stuff is dangerous.

[Ralph1]

Nothing new here.  Like Watson said, within a decade we will probably be able to find the particular gene that causes differences in intelligence and we'll be able to look at the difference in intelligence between black people and every else in a completely scientific way.  We'll see if black people and liberals will accept the results when they come out, they'll probably find some way to attack its validity even though it would probably be sound.

Zeev, I think it's great there are Jews like you. Races do have inherit differences. Believing this doesn't make someone a Nazi or racist. Absolutely not. What do you think of racial mixing? Do you think it's acceptable for White Jews to mix with Black Jews?

[Ehud]

Topics like this is exactly why I feel uncomfortable posting on JTF because I feel too many people here are obsessed with all this racial crap.    

Now who is this scientist Dr. James D. Watson???
He is a "secular humanist" and an "atheist". He happens to be a prominent believer in eugenics where there is a somewhat revival of this movement which has its roots in Nazism. 

No surprise that this Dr. Watson has said that Anti-Semitism is justified.   

I would not believe any of the crap that this evil bastard spouts. 

People here falling for this stuff is dangerous.

Actually it's not true that eugenics had its roots in Nazism.  Eugenics as a movement first started in the United States. 

Where has Dr. Watson said that anti-Semitism is justified?

There is no danger for people "falling for this stuff", no one has fallen for anything, most people who acknowledge this have known that Africans are genetically less intelligent through independent research. 

Sure the guy could be really evil, but when you're right, you're right.

[MasterWolf1]

You can train a dog to fetch, you can train a cat to go in a litterbox, you can train a seal to ballance a ball on its nose, and you can train a chimp (real chimp) to put the right colored pegs in the hole.  But you can not teach schvartzahs how to behave that they have yet to learn.

[Ehud]

Nothing new here.  Like Watson said, within a decade we will probably be able to find the particular gene that causes differences in intelligence and we'll be able to look at the difference in intelligence between black people and every else in a completely scientific way.  We'll see if black people and liberals will accept the results when they come out, they'll probably find some way to attack its validity even though it would probably be sound.

Zeev, I think it's great there are Jews like you. Races do have inherit differences. Believing this doesn't make someone a Nazi or racist. Absolutely not. What do you think of racial mixing? Do you think it's acceptable for White Jews to mix with Black Jews?

I'm against it for myself, but I cannot tell another person who they should and should not marry.  If my daughter or son were thinking about it, I would strongly advise against it, mainly for intelligence grounds.  The average Ethiopian has an IQ somewhere in the 70s to low 80s.  I accept that the Ethiopian Jews belong in Israel and I am glad they were liberated from Ethiopia, but I don't think that white Jews should interbreed with them because it will dilute their blood which is pretty much all us Jews have going for us, our brains.  I don't think that Jewish genius should be jeopardized in any way. 

If black Jews were just as intelligent as white Jews, I wouldn't have any problem with it but I still wouldn't do it myself.