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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: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday January 13 2019, @11:01PM (19 children)
Your quote does not support your claimed lack of evidence. There is absolutely evidence for the median IQ having a significant racial correlation. That has nothing whatsoever to do with the variation within a racial group because it claims nothing whatsoever about said variation. Your math and science skills are sorely lacking to even make such a claim.
Let me splain it to in words you can understand. If you say "black people aren't as smart as $anyOtherRace", you can rest easy knowing science has your back because you're speaking of averages. If you say "that specific person is stupid because he's black", science has long since slapped your bitch ass down and you're left looking like an idiot yourself.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by HiThere on Sunday January 13 2019, @11:25PM (11 children)
While there is, indeed, a correlation between IQ and race, there's a stronger correlation between IQ and pollution in the environment in which you are raised. Which do you thing would be more likely to explain the other?
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 14 2019, @12:40AM (9 children)
I wasn't trying to give a reason. I was informing him that his statement was scientifically unsound. If you really want to play the reason game though, there's an even stronger correlation between the amount of neanderthal DNA in a race and median IQ score increase above baseline, taking those with zero neanderthal DNA (most everyone in sub-saharan Africa and pretty much nobody else) as the baseline.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @01:25AM (7 children)
i can't even
i will attempt to even anyway
What about Denisovan DNA? Those Denisovans I am told will kick the asses of any Neanderthal at an IQ test!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 14 2019, @01:36AM (5 children)
Hasn't been studied that I'm aware of.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @01:42AM (4 children)
Ah, true. The denisovans haven't generated as much hype as the neanderthals have. What is the cite for correlation of IQ score to presence of neanderthal DNA?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 14 2019, @02:18AM (3 children)
Been a while since I looked at the data and I'm fighting a shiny, new cold this evening. I'll leave this tab open and hunt it up in the morning.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @03:13AM
Eat a clove of fresh garlic then and keep warm. Echinacea tea is also good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @05:42AM (1 child)
If we are looking just at averages, it seems that the less pure homo sapiens you are the higher your average goes. I thought there was an SN article a while back about the far east having more denisovan and europe more neanderthal. Maybe it was the extensive journey and continuous need to face new types of challenges that helped both of those two hominids. H. sapiens might fall behind a bit because the trail was already blazed, then benefited from being physically stronger and overcoming the two other hominids.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @04:51PM
could just be fairer climate, more sedentary lifestyle(relatively speaking) and more breeding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @02:13AM
http://www.tmi-comic.com/comic/missingspace/ [tmi-comic.com]
They are called "Orions"
Don't beat yourself up for not knowing this. Luna only just worked it out a while ago
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @05:12PM
[citation needed], ya race-baiting fuckwit!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @05:07AM
Are you saying Pollution raises IQ? Because if you wanna go the other way I give you Somalia, a country so industrialized that the pollution level forces the median IQ to hover under 70.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 13 2019, @11:43PM (2 children)
Ah, so you're attempting to be an intellectual but you're missing the required education and/or wisdom. Got it! HiThere already gave you a good piece to chew on, and that doesn't even get into the issues with IQ tests.
Your personal problem is your ego, you have way too much self-confidence for your actual abilities and knowledge. Maybe save your ego for tech related stuff where you actually have useful experience.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 14 2019, @12:41AM (1 child)
Did you have a rebuttal for anything I said or are you going strictly with ad-hom because you know you're wrong?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @03:27AM
Nope, that was the level of response warranted since you ignored the post you replied to and simply restated your opinion. You are making statements based on an incomplete model, like the guy who threw a snowball to prove global warming isn't real.
Reiteration and trolling for a reactionary insult does not validate your arguments. I only just recently found out that getting someone to mock you is regarded as a "win" in some circles. Thus why you admire Trump, he makes people angry therefore he "wins" and isn't that just amazeballs!? Poor comedy writers, reality is ruining their jokes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @03:19AM
You're absolutely WRONG buzzy.
Since you claim to have evidence, please point to it.
By my reckoning, even the concept of "race" is considered unscientific. Read this:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/307/5712/1050.summary [sciencemag.org]
Next time you try and discern differences based on melanin content of skin cells, don't forget the other factors that could be influential: family history, income, education, neighborhood, family culture, national culture (bias against), medical history, and of course your own measurement bias.
My guess is you feel superior to women, right? And they have less melanin than you (if you're male).
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Monday January 14 2019, @10:15AM (1 child)
And this is the point I wanted to make, only I was on mobile, so tried to keep it (too) brief. There is plenty of evidence of a difference in the average intelligence of various groups. Of course there is a huge variation among individuals, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the average.
Look, I've worked in Africa. I have relatives who live in Africa. With some few and notable exceptions, most of Africa is a hot mess. If we sincerely want to help, it might be important to objectively examine the underlying problems. Marking certain topics off-limits, so that we aren't even allowed to consider them? Not helpful.
Intelligence is important, if you are going to maintain a civilization above a minimal technological level. Now, maybe the difference in average intelligence in black Africa will turn to be due to environment, or disease, or nutrition, or parasitism, or any of a host of other potential causes. Or maybe it is genetic. Denying that the difference exists means that we will never figure it out. Worse, it dooms any effort to help, you are ignoring a serious and fundamental problem.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @05:20PM
Riddle me this: which is worse? Ignoring/denying a problem exists or papering it over with facile/deceptive explanations? Decisions, decisions. Hmmmmm.
(Score: 1) by Michael on Monday January 14 2019, @03:03PM
Are you speaking of averages? The first statement doesn't actually contain any sense of that. I suppose a person might assume it if feeling generous in that regard.
Far as a sensible scholarly treatment of the subject goes, what's wrong with assuming it's a bit of both (genetics and environment) just to be on the safe side and getting some numbers to point in the direction of the relative importance of the two groups of effects.
What is your assumption of the magnitude of the two groups of effects, and what implications do you think this should have on how significant a factor the idea of race is.