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I was on the internet this morning when this article showed up when i was browsing. What you think about this?
"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. "
Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2677098.ece?token=null&offset=0
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+ Show Spoiler + 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. Background
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.
He has served for 50 years as a director of the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory on Long Island, considered a world leader in research into cancer and genetics.
Dr Watson is no stranger to controversy. He has been reported in the past saying that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual.
In addition, he has suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, proposing a theory that black people have higher libidos.
He also claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying: “People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great.” Background
Commenting on Dr Watson’s current views about race, Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University, 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.
He added: “If he knew the literature in the subject he would know he was out of his depth scientifically, quite apart from socially and politically.”
A spokeswoman for the Science Museum said it was looking into “things” concerning the security of the event on Friday.
She said: “This kind of thing always generates debate.”
James Watson speaking engagements in UK
You can see and hear James Watson talking about his new book Avoid Boring People at the following venues:
Friday, October 19
12.30-2pm Blackwell, Wellcome Collection – book signing only 6.30-7.30pm Imax Cinema at the Science Museum – talk chaired by Professor Richard Morris
Sunday, October 21
12-1.30pm Barter Books, Alnwick – book signing
6pm Centre for Life, Newcastle – talk chaired by Robin McKie Background
Monday, October 22
PUBLICATION DAY
6pm Assembly Hall, 1 Mound Place, Edinburgh – event part of the Edinburgh University Enlightenment Series of Lectures with Ian Wilmut, chaired by David Porteous
Tuesday, October 23
7.30pm The Union Society Debating Chamber, Cambridge – in conversation with Simon Baron-Cohen, chaired by Matthew Jarvis
Wednesday, October 24
12.45-2.15pm Bristol 'Festival of Ideas' at St. George's – talk chaired by Professor Eric Thomas
7pm The Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford – talk chaired by Richard Dawkins
Doesn't surprise me.
Not because I'm racist or anything. But look at every race, every has different features and stereotypes for a reason. They are not 100%, but for the majority it can be some what true.
As much as people want to believe in equality and 'every man was created equal' its not true, or else everyone would be playing pro football and doing rocket science.
Why is it that Blacks outnumber any other race in pro sports? Why are there like no mexican/asian basketball players? Why are the most famous scientists and shit usually white or asian? Why are mexicans such hard workers?
I mean there has to be a reason why blacks were chosen to be slaves over other whites or middle eastern people. Also why is it that way back then most of africa was still uncivilized compared to the rest of the world?
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thedeadhaji
39471 Posts
keep this thread civil or else it's getting closed.
i'm talking to future posters in this thread.
fyi here is his direct quote, which makes him sound much more reasonable tbh.
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.
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Doesn't exactly surprise me either, I do agree every race has its own traits and attributes.. nice find though
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What a racist fuck I wonder if he was always that way or has just gone senile in his old age. He must be at least partially senile in order to say it so publicly. The fact is there is no evidence to suggest that black people are less intelligent. Specially considering we dont even have a truly accurate way of measuring intelligence int he first place. I can't beleive a man of science with a sound mind would make such a completely un-scientifically grounded claim. Dr. Watson has clearly gone insane from old age. Especially if you consider that genetically speaking, african people and whites are basically identical. By this I mean that there is more genetic diversity within the same race than outside of it. Also, charlie, it pains me to see you so ignorant. Go buy a copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. It answers all of those questions, scientically and is beautiful written.
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Belgium8305 Posts
None of the articles I've seen about this actually mention any scientific studies that could support or disprove his claim...
The opinion of the general scientific community seems a lot more interesting and important to me than what this one professor is saying. He certainly is a distinguished scholar, but seems to have a talent for generating controversy.
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this is like the oldest 'news' in the world.... in other news the chinese are pretty short, did you know?
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On October 19 2007 08:16 TheFoReveRwaR wrote: What a racist fuck Nah
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This could be said only because most black people are poor and poor people tend to have much less education and therefore are less intelligent.
I would also like that say that I believe culture to have a far larger impact on intelligence than race (if race has any at all).
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Belgium8305 Posts
Also, to those for whom it seems to be a foregone conclusion: if you're drawing on your own experiences, don't forget to factor in socioeconomic factors and the perhaps biased nature of your observations.
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On October 19 2007 08:10 CharlieMurphy wrote: Doesn't surprise me.
Not because I'm racist or anything. But look at every race, every has different features and stereotypes for a reason. They are not 100%, but for the majority it can be some what true.
As much as people want to believe in equality and 'every man was created equal' its not true, or else everyone would be playing pro football and doing rocket science.
Why is it that Blacks outnumber any other race in pro sports? Why are there like no mexican/asian basketball players? Why are the most famous scientists and shit usually white or asian? Why are mexicans such hard workers?
I mean there has to be a reason why blacks were chosen to be slaves over other whites or middle eastern people. Also why is it that way back then most of africa was still uncivilized compared to the rest of the world? I think it has to do with attitude and and working hard instead of not being intelligent enough, generally black people are lazy and doesnt work hard imo, there are exeptions also i seen incredible black scientists and other type of professionals. I dont think race is the problem here
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On October 19 2007 08:20 TesisMech wrote: I think it has to do with attitude and and working hard instead of not being intelligent enough, generally black people are lazy and doesnt work hard imo Wow.
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I dont see how what he said was racist, I mean, he talked about Africa, and African Americans, but there are plenty of white African Americans (people who are from African culture and families) and its not just against black people.
In my own opinion though, I think black people in general (as in, your average black person) has difficulty understanding certains things in the world, but, so does the average white person. I work in customer service and about 40-45% of my complaints about prices of items because the person cannot comprehend what it means, are from black people. but, the other 60% is split like 30% and 30% between asians and white people, so its not really a good basis to put it on. I just think that black people may just have a harder time comprehending certain topics compared to whites, and vice versa.
Also, as one of the comments someone posted in the thoughts after the article, notice how no one comments on how asians are generally smarter than whites because they have a more intensive schooling? But when we comment on blacks it all of a sudden becomes racist =/.
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statistically black people do poorer than white people. also in terms of income they are behind also. and it depends a lot on what you define intelligence as.
hmmm... but the smartest people in my classes are eastern european. so maybe normal white people are dumber than eastern european people.
and also asians are pretty good. 99% of my TAs are asian. so Asian people > white people ez.
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i would say in general, every ethnicity (not race, only ONE RACE, human race) has its pros and cons. for example blacks r genetically superior in explosive sports such as track, basketball. mainly due to different muscle fibre and genetic make up. caucasians usually tall and big. good at power/physical sports. asians usually small and short, good at technical sports such as ping pong, gymnastics. if u examine the physical traits carefully u can deduce what each ethnicity is good at. small ppl can move around easily and quicker, but weaker not much physical strength. large ppl move around slower but more power. u have to look at everything in general, u cant just bring out exceptions. it does not represent the whole. everyone and every ethnicity is not equal, and that is reality. truth hurts, just work with what u have and be the best u can be so u wont have any regrets.
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On October 19 2007 08:19 prOxi.swAMi wrote:Nah Nah? Wow what a shitty post. Hope you get a temp ban. If you're going to disagree at least have some reason why. Back up your statements.
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On October 19 2007 08:21 omgbnetsux wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2007 08:20 TesisMech wrote: I think it has to do with attitude and and working hard instead of not being intelligent enough, generally black people are lazy and doesnt work hard imo Wow. asdf dont cherry pick my post. Im talking of personally experience, where I live i dont see many black people that study hard. I dont wanna come up as a racist. in fact i think its BULLSHIT what this study says. It has to do with attitude no matter the race.
TO Charliemurphy: No i didnt say laziness makes you less intelligent or stupid. I said attitude is important for your life. Its common sense, if you doesnt want to study it doesnt mean your not intelligent, it just means your attitude is bad
GJ deadhahhi or w e for banning me, did u just ban me for u to acquire that joke ( " you can be lazy for a week") lol i have nothing against you but the decision u made of banning me for refuting this study and thinking its bullshit doesnt make any sense stop banning people cause of u misinterpreting it.
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On October 19 2007 08:21 omgbnetsux wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2007 08:20 TesisMech wrote: I think it has to do with attitude and and working hard instead of not being intelligent enough, generally black people are lazy and doesnt work hard imo Wow. rofl I can see your expression right now
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