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posted by chromas on Sunday January 13 2019, @10:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the race-to-disgrace dept.

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


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 13 2019, @10:20PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 13 2019, @10:20PM (#786057)

    What's pathetic is the same clowns who fear a return of (pseudo-)scientific racism support affirmative action for college admissions.

    When scientists are silenced by colleagues, administrators, editors and funders who think that simply asking certain questions is inappropriate, the process begins to resemble religion rather than science. - Stephen Ceci & Wendy M. Williams 2009 [nature.com]

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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday January 13 2019, @11:28PM (6 children)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 13 2019, @11:28PM (#786110) Journal

    That's, unfortunately, a valid comment. Reverse discrimination is still discrimination, and doesn't make things better. A different way needs to be found, but the current approach alienates many of the people who would otherwise support finding it.

    --
    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 5, Informative) by RandomFactor on Monday January 14 2019, @01:38AM (5 children)

      by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 14 2019, @01:38AM (#786198) Journal

      Reverse discrimination is still discrimination, and doesn't make things better.

      I hard an argument once that it actually made things worse from a purely practical perspective.
      The argument went approximately like this.
       
      If 10 non minorities and 1 minority apply for something and the minority gets it due to quota/set-aside/affirmative action, one (1) non minority was impacted (or 0 if gained fully on merit)
       
      However TEN non minorities now each believe they were deprived due to affirmative action and are angry at minorities.
       
      Affirmative Action breeds the very prejudice whose effects it is designed to offset.

      --
      В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @09:04AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @09:04AM (#786369)

        I have seen exactly that happen here. MLM positions don't come up very often but when they do Oh boy do you know who applied. The usual list of those waiting in the wings, those who had done the hard yards acting at the higher level, the pets, the ambitious, the mediocre and the others.

        Then a minority gets the position.

        Even worse when they give it to a female (to balance! the genders) who is just useless.

        Worse is when those overlooked just don't step up anymore. Why bother. Another substandard applicant will beat you out next time.

        I watched a guy flog himself silly for months doing his job and that of a person above him who should by all rights not even be allowed to lead a team. He damn near cried with relief when she left for her promotion. Yes. Promotion. The next person in the chair was hit full force the minute they started with next to no support. For that. Poor Bastard, he was a decent guy who happened to step into the pile of crap left behind. Eventually he managed to rally the managers under him but geez it was painful.

        If affirmative action leads to hiring the wrong people then it can backfire very badly.

        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @12:03AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @12:03AM (#786718)

          I worked at a company where things got so bad that HR sent out a letter and apologized to the whole company. I'd quit before then. They were staffing jobs with people who had no (job) qualifications at all.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @05:26PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @05:26PM (#786502)

        If 10 non minorities and 1 minority apply for something and the minority gets it due to quota/set-aside/affirmative action, one (1) non minority was impacted (or 0 if gained fully on merit)

        However TEN non minorities now each believe they were deprived due to affirmative action and are angry at minorities.

        The obvious solution would appear to be to kill the minority and give the position to one of the other ten non-minorities. </sarcasm>

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @09:37AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @09:37AM (#787311)

          I applaud your solution while taking brevity with a contention that numbers of oppressed illegal immigrants in positions would hence fall giving us victim to not meeting arbitrary human quotas

          unless this conundrum can be resolved your proposal shall die in infancy like a white tweens virginity in rotherham

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @09:57PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @09:57PM (#787072)

        https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-trial-to-improve-gender-equality-failing-study/8664888?pfmredir=sm [abc.net.au]

        Some bright spark came up with the idea that the reason less females and less minorities were getting into positions was due to bias.
        So, they came up with a plan. Strip race and gender from applications.
        The result was that less minorities and less females got in.

        The article talks about gender. The experiment was also a multiculturalism test to prove that the white workforce were discriminating against non-whites. They were wrong.

        They put this policy into place to make recruitment more fair. It worked.
        When they found that it didn't work like they wanted it to they removed it.

        That's the take away here. Political correctness is more important.