SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
James Watson: Scientist loses titles after claims over race
Nobel Prize-winning American scientist James Watson has been stripped of his honorary titles after repeating comments about race and intelligence.
In a TV programme, the pioneer in DNA studies made a reference to a view that genes cause a difference on average between blacks and whites on IQ tests. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory said the 90-year-old scientist's remarks were "unsubstantiated and reckless". Dr Watson had made similar claims in 2007 and subsequently apologised.
He shared the Nobel in 1962 with Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick for their 1953 discovery of the DNA's double helix structure.
Dr Watson sold his gold medal in 2014, saying he had been ostracised by the scientific community after his remarks about race. He is currently in a nursing home recovering from a car accident and is said to have "very minimal" awareness of his surroundings.
Previously: Disgraced Scientist is Selling his Nobel Prize
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 13 2019, @10:54PM (5 children)
Actually, East St Louis would be a great place for this snowflake to discuss his "all races are equal" theory with the local gentry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 13 2019, @11:03PM (4 children)
Indeed, that ( trip to East St. Louis ) would be a Grade A reality check.
He would ( if he survived ) come away with a whole new understanding of the world. And he would probably have a long period of convalescence in which to ponder his newly gained real-world knowledge ( lying in a hospital bed after some homies kicked his rib cage in, yo ).
Clueless people who have led sheltered lives trying to tell the rest of us how the world "is" make me want to laugh and maybe vomit too. I have a higher IQ than 99.9% of the population, and I am not about to let some SJW dipshit tell me "how things are". The sad truth is, these SJWs have no idea how things really are, and they are spewing their bullshit from behind the walls of privilege where they have always lived. The SJWs are a joke to virtually everyone but themselves.
I have black friend who have very low opinions of SJWs. Their view is most often "Yeah those white kids want to get into an in group by pretending they give
a fuck about us black folks". You see, black people know the SJWs are a joke too. Like I said, the SJWs are a joke to virtually everyone but themselves.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday January 14 2019, @12:16AM (2 children)
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt"
> I have a higher IQ than 99.9% of the population
Got some SAT or GRE scores to back up that claim? Or a Triple Nine Society membership, since a Mensa membership isn't good enough?
> SJWs have no idea how things really are, and they are spewing their bullshit from behind the walls of privilege where they have always lived.
I'm having serious doubts about your intelligence claim.
> He would ( if he survived ) come away with a whole new understanding of the world.
Surely you are not serious. But the joke is not in good taste. If you are not guilty of instigating or perpetuating the hostile tone of this debate, you certainly have allowed yourself to be swayed into adopting the tone. Not smart.
Most people, even SJWs, have sense enough not to visit a rough neighborhood and annoy the locals. And even if they did talk some shit, as long as it isn't more than talk, likely nothing would happen anyway. Would that disappoint you?
Most really smart people who care to participate in society understand that things have gotten polarized and heated, and that there are manipulators who want it like that, despite the foolishness of misleading people and making it more difficult for everyone to make good choices.
That Dr. Watson's assertions have lead to a bit of a hot debate here is a case in point. I've heard all kinds of things over the years, like that Jews' IQ average about 104, and the Japanese also have slightly higher IQs than Caucasians. There was of course the 19th century and earlier notion that women are mentally inferior to men. Sophisticates realized that was not so, but the idea was strongly entrenched. Even today, there's a big mystery over why women are underrepresented in STEM. And many wars have been chock full of propaganda about the supposed superiority of one group over others, like the whole WWII Master Race, Aryan supremacy stuff.
Of course there are differences, between both individuals and groups. And, yes slight differences in apparent intelligence could exist. But we should be very careful not to make too much of that, for many reasons, like that the differences are small, and not least trying to avoid bias and unfairness.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @12:28AM
Winner
One MEEEEEEELLLLLIOONNNN internet points!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @01:07AM
Jews are (on average) between 3 or 4 standard deviations less intelligent than me (re: IQ tests) but see how that slightly above average median score translates into Nobel prize winners. The difference between men and women is as statistically insignificant as the difference between Jews and Caucasians but again the distribution tells all. There's another, entirely different [zmescience.com] phenomena that partly accounts for the marked difference in intellectual performance between the genders. Then there's the other biological factors such as neurology factors to consider. [frontiersin.org]
Over the last decade, I've come to the conclusion that the left are insane. Just as I hated religious conservatives for not supporting the distribution of condoms to combat AIDS in Africa, I now hate the left for engaging in ideological battles that are socially harmful. Perhaps if we force gender equality in the social sciences, that will be the end of it -- why aren't the left calling for that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @05:20PM
LOL. your holier-than-thou aura almost slipped by unnoticed if not for this line