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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: 4, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 14 2019, @12:50AM (8 children)
East Asians have higher IQs than Caucasians overall, and the highest IQ of all belongs to...*drumroll* Ashkenazi Jews! *movie scream*
Why are all you "scientific" racists not bowing down to your Chinese and/or Jewish overlords? Odd how you always stop the discussion at the part where it shows black people with lower IQs than white ones, but never continue on the rest of the way. I wonder why? :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @01:26AM (4 children)
>Why are all you "scientific" racists not bowing down to your Chinese and/or Jewish overlords?
We are. China owns half the planet now. Jews control a LOT of corporate America and 90% of Hollywood. Were you too stupid to notice, tranny? Notice these two particular groups aren't blaming racism for their failures, because they don't fail. They're not retarded like your average black person. Or nuts, like your typical tranny. Case in point.
(Score: 1) by NPC-131072 on Monday January 14 2019, @01:58AM (3 children)
I must interject here; Azuma is not a "tranny", she is a transphobe like you.
(Score: 0) by NPC-131073 on Monday January 14 2019, @03:34AM (2 children)
We know what to do with queers like you. The army will straighten you out, son.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @03:45AM (1 child)
She's a TERF, like most dykes.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 15 2019, @05:46AM
Well, the bankrupt wing of the third wave think I'm a TERF for having a genital preference, and the TERFs think I'm a "traitor to the lesbian race" (yes this is an exact quote) for reasons of their own, so I've managed to piss off the nutbars on both ends. Must be doing something right :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @01:51AM (1 child)
But jews are a disease of the civilian part of the white race...
If culture and politics changes, they will be eliminated within a month =)
Asia is irrelevant.
All the big steps in recent history has happened in Europe + USA...
OFC, in the end we are all the same people, changed by fate and hardness of life...
But then, even you are a cancer of white people... There will be a time when u "libareated" retards will go back to the kitchen or a dungoen to be beaten...
Just wait, cancer woman =)
/zug
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 15 2019, @06:13AM
Ehhh...0.5/10 maybe? You get half a point for the cancer bit, which actually made me go "Uh, WTF?" The rest did nothing for me though. ...which I'm sure you're used to hearing from women :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @06:19AM
Incorrect, somehow Presbyterians are the group with the highest average IQ. Hindus are way up there too.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Snotnose on Monday January 14 2019, @01:04AM
No comment.
Trump's Grave will be the world's most popular open air toilet.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @01:20AM (1 child)
...they DONT CHANGE AT ALL.... OVER 10s of THAUSANDS of years...
NOT AT ALL...
perheaps only the faces, a little bit.
but nothing else.
nope.
not at all.
and, this is SCIENCE.
a FACT!!1!1!!
/zug
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @01:25AM
Zero gene transfer between blacks and whites for tens of thousands of years!!1!1!!
/science
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @01:23AM
Dr. Watson made a scientific breakthrough. His place in the history books is secure. Acknowledging his achievement and honoring him for having made it are two separate things. Lots of scientists make noteworthy achievements and never receive honors. If we choose to put someone on a pedestal, as a prime example of human achievement, they have to be squeaky clean. Because there are only so many pedestals available. We don't want to waste one on a person spouting racist nonsense.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday January 14 2019, @02:02AM (2 children)
Great, so who are they going to unperson next for this sort of stuff? Orwell would be so proud.
So he is still on Twitter? :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @04:35AM (1 child)
This isn't some new phenomenon, famous people are often dismissed if they turn out to have some nasty predilections. It isn't changing history to acknowledge reality. If it turned out that Martin Luther King had said "kill all white people" would you be upset if we removed his holiday?
Unpersoning someone is called murder. Shunning people is what you mean and is part of human society. Sucks to be on the wrong side of society's development but I don't see shunning going away any time soon. The current hysteria will go down, it is just part of the process. So much baggage hanging around from when people in power were more secure in their bad deeds, and society is finding out how to process it all.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday January 14 2019, @09:25PM
As it turns out, besides being a deeply superstitious person, MLK was also a sexist. The combination makes him a poor role model, IMHO. Or at least, one destined to disappoint any rational person initially infatuated by his (considerable) contributions to leveling out a decidedly tilted playing field.
With those points in mind, no, I would not be upset. Then again, I would not be upset that the holiday remains, so there's that.
None of us are perfect. Few of us make great contributions.
Food for thought. Hopefully.
--
The three Functional Retardations:
traditional, jingoistic, and religious.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @02:58AM (3 children)
Copernicus was equally ostracized in his day for suggesting similar blasphemy.. (Earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around).
Eventually time proved him right..
I am a (non Jewish) white male.
Based on evidence I see around me, I agree that East Asians (Chinese/Japanese/Koreans) as well as Ashkenazi Jews as ethnic groups are likely to have on avergage higher IQ's than white. Plenty of studies have shown this.
And yes, that means on average (even though there may be plenty of dumb Asians and Jews as well as smarter whites) my ethnic group is still third down the list.. on average.
But guess what..that is science.. denying it doesn't change the facts, which though very non-PC at this point, are fairly incontrovertible at point once you get past all the PC and SJW diatribe.. life goes on.. Blacks are generally better at some things (like basketball and track&field running), East Asians are better at other things (technology and manufacturing).
Different races of humans are like different breeds of dogs.. each with their own characters, strengths and weaknesses.. even though each dog (or human) may be a bit different.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Monday January 14 2019, @03:30AM
"Different races of humans are like different breeds of dogs.. each with their own characters, strengths and weaknesses.. even though each dog (or human) may be a bit different."
This is a REALLY bad analogy, and dramatically overestimates the differences between human populations. The difference between the pygmies and the swedes is nowhere near the difference between e.g. an chihuahua and a st bernard. That's overestimating the difference by orders of magnitude!
A better analogy, if you really must make one, would be between canine landraces. These are types of dogs that are or were typical in an area but developed without selective breeding. For instance the Collie is the landrace base for several types of purebred dogs that share the name, but it's not a pure breed it's just the common highland dog. There's a lot more variation inside of a landrace than could be tolerated in purebreds, and there's plenty of overlap between them.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @05:37AM (1 child)
Are you white (non-hispanic) or white?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @06:25AM
The only reason that white is one category is so you can shit on other people who are the exact same as you for not being white enough. Like the Irish, f them. And those damn civilization crushing Germans. And the damn brits. Don't get me started on the Italians. Don't forget about those dirty poles
And the Dutch
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @09:59AM
Back in the day when Jews first came to the US their average IQ tests were abysmal. They were all mostly shtetl hicks with only a few middle-lower class urbanites that didn't know anything except the bible and how to plant crops. There were eugenics movements pushing for immigration, public sector and university caps for Jews over this too. Then all the German Jews scientists started pouring in as the Nazis came to power... All of a sudden everyone knows the Jews are all smart lawyers, doctors and scientists and no one is mentioning those IQ tests anymore.
Point is, IQ tests are useless. The whole premise was to eliminate nurture from the equation and only measure nature. But they don't do that. The environment is just impossible to ignore. And any test short of taking the whole black population and raising them in rich white families won't be enough to prove much let along some half assed trend lines by some fossil that hasn't talked to a stat major in 50 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @05:17PM
almost everyone on the planet is racist, if you mean the actual goddamn definition of the word. this guy is 90 yrs old so of course he's fucking racist. wtf does that have to do with his goddamn award except that these stupid whores who give the award out want to show how un-racist (full of shit) they are?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday January 14 2019, @08:45PM (2 children)
I disagree with their decision. They should only rescind a prize if the science behind it was fraudulent. Rescinding it because they flat don't like the scientist is absurd.
If the person who finally cures cancer is the rankest bigot on the planet, it will bother me not one bit because the important thing will be that a horrible disease that kills millions of people will have been conquered.
I reject racism, and want everyone to have equal opportunities, but jesus the social justice nonsense has got to stop.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday January 14 2019, @09:30PM
Well said.
Applauds... because out of mod points
--
Give me ambiguity, or give me something else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @12:48AM
Normally I would agree but Watson's words give massive validation to racists who will say "even the discoverer of DNA agrees." Save the outrage for something a little less on the nose.
For those around here who value freedom it should be perfectly acceptable for a private institution to withdraw awards if they feel the recipient is undeserving. If Watson had gotten a prize in just about any other field I would probably agree with you that the response is overboard.