Discoverer of the DNA Helix: Blacks Less Intelligent Than Whites

You seem to know the story behind it better than me. The Chemistry Prof that I TA'ed for said that Watson and Crick were the worst scientific thieves in his lifetime. That they literally stole someone else's research and presented it as their own. Watson guest-lectured at my college one time and I went to see him, and was really underwhelmed. I really got the idea that his understanding of chemistry was at best a sophomore level. If he didn't steal the research, he had to just luck into the discovery.

Even so, aren't all Democrats racist and sexist?

 

Crick or Watson?

Also, I think it's interesting to point out that Watson and Crick's paper specifically mentions Rosalind Franklin (and her work) as one of their inspirations. That would seem to pose a problem for his "women have inferior minds" hypothesis.

 

Got this from a different message board

 

While his statements are reckless, there's something interesting about what he is saying.

It's strange to assume that all races will be completely equal in their mental make-up.

There are difference, and it's likely that different people will have different mental advantages and weaknesses based on both evolutionary and cultural differences.

But it's PC to reject this idea and say we are all exactly the same and calling out differences is wrong.

The is the big issue i have with PC, because this makes PC fundamentally against diversity. It's because of PC that you are eliminating diversity.

In reality, the advantage of diversity is that you are bringing people together who are in fact DIFFERENT. But if you deny those difference (i.e. PC), than the argument for diversity is gone.

I favor a diverse environment, differences create strength. You need a mix of people to present different perspectives and ideas, and people from different races and cultures can make contributes in a new way. It leads to creativity and innovation.

Accept that people are different. it doesn't always have to lead to racism or some group being offended.

 

newyorker makes me appreciate TJ.

 

If he provided sound evidence for his claims, we would have to accept that. But he didn't. He's not being accused of racism because what he said was politically incorrect. He's being accused of racism because he is claiming, without evidence, that blacks are genetically inferior to whites.

 

Where did he claim that blacks were GENETICALLY inferior? I think you are misreading his quotes.

 

NewYorker, how does someone become black?

 

And, actually, you could remove the word "genetically" from my post and it would still mean the same thing, so I'm not sure what your point is.

 

saying blacks are less intelligent isn't saying they are genetically inferior. it could be culturally based.

Anyway, I'm really not trying to defend him, I'm saying that there are differences between races in mental talents because there are differences in the enviroments we evolved in for a bit of time. It makes sense that perhaps some races have a tendency to be stronger or weaker in some areas compared to others.

That's not a reason for discrimination. It's an argument for diversity.

 

File this under "well, duh". Why do you think black people are so rare on Star Trek.

Actually, it wouldn't be too surprising if some groups were on average more or less intelligent. Just like there are groups that are taller, shorter, more and less athletic, etc. Why would bodies evolve differently but brains all evolve the same?

 

Of course this guy's lost it, but has it been proven that races or ethnicities cannot be said to have differing propensities for different strengths and weaknesses?

 

Bull****, and I suspect you know it.

 

I look at it in this way. Regardless of whether there is, in fact, differences between the intelligence of different groups, what good does it do to explore that or acknowledge it? Sometimes, its best not to know some things.

 

I'm not in biology circles, in fact I destroy every one that I perchance encounter by interrupting its krebs cycle, but even I knew Watson was kind of nuts back when I watched a documentary about him over 10 years ago back in HS.

 

Either way, it's completely innappropriate to say so without evidence. Also, not all black people grow up in similar cultural environments.

Of course, reading what you originally posted:

it's easy to see how one could get the impression you were using Watson's racist remarks as a jumping-off point for your own thoughts.

 

She did most of the insightful work. They were rewarded for connecting the dots. If they spoke up, she should have been awarded the prize as well.

 

No kidding. At least Charles Lindbergh heroically flew across the Atlantic alone, when it meant something.




D&D. Impeach Bush for Promoting Torture and Being a Fool.

 

I totally agree with you with regard to the value of diversity. Diversity isn't the issue, though. We're talking about grouping all humans on earth into four or five distinct subgroups.

The problem with trying to figure out which race is smarter/faster/better looking is that you're playing a rigged game. By designating artificial biological categories (i.e. races) as the subject of your study, you are making certain determinations about which individuals/smaller groups belong to the larger ones. So what you get in the results of any study on race is basically nothing but noise from the selection process.

Think about it... how would you go about ranking the races by intelligence? It seems to me that you couldn't do it without introducing a bias (yours or somebode else's) that completely invalidates the results.

The concept of 'race' is a social construct, probably generated out of the human tendancy to label everything in its subjective reality. If you pay enough attention to recent history, you find all these times in various cultures where there is a great deal of racial ambiguity.

I'm reading Ghandi's autobiography right now, and he talks about the problems he had as an Indian in turn-of-the-century South Africa. When Ghandi refuses to remove the turban he is wearing in the courthouse, he was told, "those wearing the Musalman costume might...keep their turbans on, but the other Indians on entering a court had to take theirs off as a rule." He goes on to make the observation that Indians were divided into three groups: Arabs, Hindus, and "Parsi clerks". But then, interestingly, he points out a fourth group of indentured laborors, whom were called 'coolies' in England (where he had previously traveled). In South Africa, however, he finds that ALL Indians are called 'coolies'!

The point of that anecdote is to show that one's notion of racial bounderies are highly (if not entirely) dependant on cultural context. In India, and to a lesser extant England, Indians were a diverse people, while in South Africa, they were ubiquitously 'coolies' or 'samis' (which, interestingly, is derived from the Samskrit word for 'master').