DNA double Helix Nobel laureate stripped of honours for opinions on race

Junkyard Tom

DS86DS wrote: »

Probably as much a fantasy as your girlfriend who doesn't want to kiss you but who gets you as some engineering nerd to do her homework for her while she is actually sleeping with and dating the GAA captain of the college team.

Do you not get emotionally exhausted by all this reactionary bullshit?

Skylinehead

sk8erboii wrote: »

Imagine thinking having friends is a fantasy...

DS86DS wrote: »

Probably as much a fantasy as your girlfriend who doesn't want to kiss you but who gets you as some engineering nerd to do her homework for her while she is actually sleeping with and dating the GAA captain of the college team.

Mod: Banned.

Both of you, don't post in this thread again.

State of this argument, belongs in a playground.

suicide_circus

why do people of Jewish origin dominate the Nobel prize lists?

why do people people of West African origin dominate track and field and the NBA?

Why do people of East Asian origin dominate American university exams?

professore

[Deleted User] wrote: »

You may have a decent point; I'm not sure. However, the Irish dominated boxing in late 19th century America because they were the latest bunch of immigrants/at the bottom. The Italians, who arrived in the US after them, replaced their dominance in that sport by the 1920s (although 'More than one thousand Italian professional boxers went by Irish pseudonyms.') .


On the other hand, there was a protocol of recent enough vintage - John L Sullivan in the 1880s, I think - where title holders refused to allow blacks to challenge for the championship so essentially the Irish dominated the sport with the help of such barriers. What we can be certain of is that if the Irish/Italians/African-Americans had not been at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder none of them would have dominated that sport. Similarly, Jews have had a disproportionate influence in finance, tailoring, jewellery, entertainment and so forth for well-known historical reasons, not because they were particularly gifted in maths, tailoring etc. Overall, I'd tend to give these historic socio-economic factors rather than some innate genetically based 'group' ability more of a role in such differences.

Both Irish at the time and Italians had an honour culture that involved beating the crap out of people on a regular basis . Also many Irish or Italian are stocky with a thick head and lots of muscle. Ideal for boxing. Not like the leaner skinnier Northern European people.

professore

suicide_circus wrote: »

why do people of Jewish origin dominate the Nobel prize lists?

why do people people of West African origin dominate track and field and the NBA?

Why do people of East Asian origin dominate American university exams?

The hasidic Jews prized learning over everything else, as most other avenues of advancement were closed to them due to anti semitism. Therefore the smarter Jews had more children so there would be a heritable effect. Meanwhile in medieval European society physical strength and brutality coupled with dogmatic belief in religion were prized.

seamus

suicide_circus wrote: »

why do people of Jewish origin dominate the Nobel prize lists?

why do people people of West African origin dominate track and field and the NBA?

Why do people of East Asian origin dominate American university exams?

Culture, for the most part. Jewish culture values research, argument and data. Which are very well suited to science. It also values certain professions more highly than others; finance, law, medicine and science.
Also not forgetting that in western society, Jews would be in the top 10% wealthwise, so Jewish children are privileged from birth in terms of access to education and study opportunities.

Similar for black Americans, though culturally the focus is on sports more than academics.

Oriental Asian culture places the highest value on study and practice. Time not spent studying or practicing, is time wasted. Asian children often have their own daily timetables broken out into one-hour slots. None of which are used for watching TV or playing on the road with friends.

Any evidence that there are ethnic/genetic predispositions in the above cases is pretty flimsy, and often discovers a tiny variation which is insufficient to explain the large cultural variance.

Wibbs

suicide_circus wrote: »

why do people of Jewish origin dominate the Nobel prize lists?

why do people people of West African origin dominate track and field and the NBA?

Why do people of East Asian origin dominate American university exams?

I'm not against a genetic influence, but culture would be a huge part of all those. Some Jewish subcultures selected heavily for education and intelligence, so over time more individuals were exposed from an early age to more knowledge and education than background. If nothing else someone intellectually gifted would be noticed and fostered. In another subculture the same person could well be ridiculed and would hide that talent. The "oh you think you're sooo clever" angle. I've certainly known a few clever lads from "rough areas" who were held back by peers and their environment.

West African origin has a few influences going on. The slave trade had a selection bias going on. For a start any man or woman who was anyway sickly was unlikely to survive the trip from Africa. And then they had to survive the privations of slavery itself. That's bound to have influenced genetics(the same folks have much higher rates of diabetes when compared to populations in Africa for example). Secondly culture would be in play too. Why have their been so few West African origin folks in professional cycling? Or swimming?Tennis was almost all White too. Motor racing another. Precious few in International yachting either. All expensive pursuits. Running is cheap and in the US basketball courts are everywhere and free. A mate of mines young lad is into racing go karts and he's bloody good at it. If he was born and raised in Detroit chances are high he'd have never even seen one and if he had his family couldn't have afforded to buy and run one. He might have been a good runner though.

East Asian exam proficiency is very cultural. Take China. For over a thousand years, outside of the military(and even there) upward mobility was through imperial exams. Exams that if you did well in could move you all the way to the imperial court. That's a helluva lot of selection pressure going on.

Like I say, I would have no issue with believing that said selection pressures haven't changed genetics over time. EG a Chinese guy who passed all the exams might have had more kids than one who didn't and the "being good at exams" genes were favoured in the population. However I still suspect that the cultural pressures were the greater influence.

up for anything

Arghus wrote: »

Another new account.

As if by magic.

Working class heroes wrote: »

A nice scattering of fresh posters in this thread I see.

Candie wrote: »

It seems that every thread winds up being a cesspit lately.

I'm relieved to see that I'm not the only one who has noticed the proliferation of new and months' old posters who have no hesitation in turning any kind of thread into medium to far right shit. There's a new batch every couple of months. It's tiresome and I don't bother with AH as much anymore because they lead every thread down the same old dead end. It used to be single mothers/career dole drawers/students/motor tax dodgers etc. Now it's defending white western civilisation from the hordes.

woddensanta wrote: »

There are differences between the races in many ways, muscle mass, muscle composition, bone density, organ functionality, skull shape etc etc etc etc but some are scared to talk about brain performance. There are obviously differences but it's not overly important as it's a small difference in averages, I'd be fairly confident to say on average Asians would be slightly better in some intelligence metrics, no biggy, different evolution paths for a slight period in our shared evolution that would balance out in a relatively tiny amount of time in a shared environment, no doubt people with a African decent have been gifted by evolution with certain athletic advantages, I believe West Africans, especially Jamaicans have stronger hearts and more muscle twitch fibers etc and that's why they dominate certain sporting events.

I don't know why the pc brigade think the racists will hijack this conversation, the white European race don't win the gold in any event, intelligence or athleticism. Still the differences are small but I genuinely find it a very interesting topic and I wish we could have more research and debate on it.

Irexit wrote: »

The good Professor was just talking common sense which happens to be backed up by mountains of Science.

Before academy was taking over by Political Correctness in the 1960s his views would of not being controversial in the slightest.

But now because of Political Correctness academics can not even discuss this issue without fear of losing their jobs.

DS86DS wrote: »

Welcome to the Liberal world of 2019. Dare to go against the Liberal One World ideology, regardless of the science of proof including IQ tests and get censored and demonised.

Western society is dying thanks to Left Wing fanaticas. By 2100 there won't even be a Western society and with the Orwelian iron grip the Left has in the media and it'a thousands of brain dead foot soldiers you cannot even point this out anymore.

Modern Left Liberalism is the most evil ideology that one could conjure. It's leading to an all out war on our ways of life. But dare to criticise and it's full on censorship

Sonic Youth wrote: »

Why do libs flip out so much when it's pointed out that human beings are not equal? Some races are smarter than others, some are stronger.

Aren't we supposed to celebrate difference and diversity?

Sonics2k

suicide_circus wrote: »

why do people of Jewish origin dominate the Nobel prize lists?

why do people people of West African origin dominate track and field and the NBA?

Why do people of East Asian origin dominate American university exams?

In Jewish culture it largely comes down to culture, historical lack of rights led to a greater emphasis on education and science.

People of West African descent in the US were effectively 'bred' by slave owners. For example, the average height in Nigeria is about 5'4", while in African Americans it's 5'10".

Again, in countries like China and Japan, the greater emphasis is on education and repeated practice/learning until it's well known.

So, it's largely cultural, with the exception of the one case of genetic breeding of slaves.

suicide_circus

Sonics2k wrote: »

In Jewish culture it largely comes down to culture, historical lack of rights led to a greater emphasis on education and science.

People of West African descent in the US were effectively 'bred' by slave owners. For example, the average height in Nigeria is about 5'4", while in African Americans it's 5'10".

Again, in countries like China and Japan, the greater emphasis is on education and repeated practice/learning until it's well known.

So, it's largely cultural, with the exception of the one case of genetic breeding of slaves.

so selective breeding would be a factor in all three cases then

Wibbs

Yes and no. It will likely increase the number of individuals with certain selected for traits, but overall that number would be small in the time periods involved. Again cultural influences are going to be the bigger factor. So while certain track and field events are dominated by those of West African origin, every single winner of the Tour De France was of European origin.

Indeed take that sport; the vast majority were from European nations that were cycling mad. French, Italians, Dutch etc. Bugger all Germans, Greeks, Swedes, etc and Americans only got into it in the 1980's. In the US cycling was a minority sport. In many ways because young lads and lasses could buy cheap cars in their teens, whereas in poorer Italy they couldn't so stuck with bikes for longer. But look what happened when American cyclists like Greg LeMond started winning and getting noticed. It became a very popular sport and pastime, for mostly middle class White kids and then the next generation of American pro cyclists came along. In the same vein pro mountain biking featured way more Americans as the bikes and sport kicked off their.

Wibbs

Sonics2k wrote: »

People of West African descent in the US were effectively 'bred' by slave owners. For example, the average height in Nigeria is about 5'4", while in African Americans it's 5'10".

Even there diet is likely the biggest reason for that. You see a similar height difference in Japanese Americans compared to native Japanese and that difference can be observed within one generation in the US.

woddensanta

But West Africans especially Jamaicans have physical differences, bigger hearts, fast twitch muscle fibers to name a few.

Wibbs

woddensanta wrote: »

But West Africans especially Jamaicans have physical differences, bigger hearts, fast twitch muscle fibers to name a few.

More among the population have fast twitch muscle fibres alright. Almost certainly down to the selection pressures of the slave trade. Like I said I have no particular issue with different populations having an increase or decrease of traits in more individuals compared to others.

woddensanta

Wibbs wrote: »

More among the population have fast twitch muscle fibres alright. Almost certainly down to the selection pressures of the slave trade. Like I said I have no particular issue with different populations having an increase or decrease of traits in more individuals compared to others.

Would selection pressure from the slave trade not present it's self more in countries the slaves were taken to? Were Jamaicans slaved more than other African groups that don't have the same advantage?

obby1

So actual acknowledged genius in a certain field make a statement on a subject that he is a 100% a expert in, is dismissed by lefty folk because it hurts their feelings and does not fit into their world view.
I think that sum it up

ohnonotgmail

obby1 wrote: »

So actual acknowledged genius in a certain field make a statement on a subject that he is a 100% a expert in, is dismissed by lefty folk because it hurts their feelings and does not fit into their world view.
I think that sum it up

actually he was dismissed by other scientists because his opinions have no scientific basis. But you going on living in your paranoid world.

batgoat

obby1 wrote: »

So actual acknowledged genius in a certain field make a statement on a subject that he is a 100% a expert in, is dismissed by lefty folk because it hurts their feelings and does not fit into their world view.
I think that sum it up

He's not an expert on race... In fact, his statements are pretty unscientific. He got removed as Chancellor of a lab back in 2007 over his racist views.

obby1

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

actually he was dismissed by other scientists because his opinions have no scientific basis. But you going on living in your paranoid world.

Scientists that have being indoctrinated in lefty institutes in the last few years, disagreed with acknowledged genius in his field, because he hurt their feelings.
If i state DNA means Asians will be smaller than Europeans/Africans, no big deal we would have no problem with that, so why the outrage on his statement, after all he is a expert?

obby1

batgoat wrote: »

He's not an expert on race... In fact, his statements are pretty unscientific. He got removed as Chancellor of a lab back in 2007 over his racist views.

He is a expert on DNA, and as we all know your DNA will determine exactly who you will be, so why is it controversial to state some people are less intelligent that others?
Im sure we all went to school with someone who was the dullard of the class, nothing they could do about that, thats the way they where made, sure i know a few families of dullards, did not mean i wished any harm on them, but everyone in the town knew they where not the brightest, maybe their the ones posting here outraged

marieholmfan

Very dishonest (word used deliberately) discussion title. Strongly implies that the Nobel prize has been stripped rather than a single honour from a single Lab.

Chris_Heilong

There are very few actual racists(people that have an unfounded hatred for races other than themselves is my definition) in the world, I am sure his thoughts on race are based on papers that were published(the ones that say Blacks have lowest IQ and Asians are the highest), he is entitled to his opinion and it dose not make him any more or less of a scientist. I totally disagree with the papers findings and like others here I would imagine it is to do with environment and culture. All these striping away if awards is very extreme in my view akin to agree with us or we will drag you trough the mud.

ohnonotgmail

obby1 wrote: »

He is a expert on DNA, and as we all know your DNA will determine exactly who you will be, so why is it controversial to state some people are less intelligent that others?
Im sure we all went to school with someone who was the dullard of the class, nothing they could do about that, thats the way they where made, sure i know a few families of dullards, did not mean i wished any harm on them, but everyone in the town knew they where not the brightest, maybe their the ones posting here outraged

because there is no scientific basis for it when applied to races.

ohnonotgmail

obby1 wrote: »

Scientists that have being indoctrinated in lefty institutes in the last few years, disagreed with acknowledged genius in his field, because he hurt their feelings.
If i state DNA means Asians will be smaller than Europeans/Africans, no big deal we would have no problem with that, so why the outrage on his statement, after all he is a expert?

He isn't an expert on this subject.

Wibbs

obby1 wrote: »

If i state DNA means Asians will be smaller than Europeans/Africans, no big deal we would have no problem with that, so why the outrage on his statement, after all he is a expert?

For a start DNA isn't that much of an influence on those population's heights. It's not like the various populations of pygmy groups where it is. EG Japanese and Chinese origin people born and bred in western nations are taller than their peers back home. A century ago the Dutch were of average height for Europeans, now they're much taller on average. This stuff is complex.

obby1 wrote: »

He is a expert on DNA, and as we all know your DNA will determine exactly who you will be

He was an expert on DNA research decades ago. Things have moved on a lot. Secondly your DNA does not determine exactly who you will be. It's not close to being that simplistic. Even identical twins who are essentially genetic clones can have wildly different outcomes. Epigenetic, cultural and environmental differences come into play. Take your most valued and held onto beliefs Ob. If you had been adopted by a different family in a different culture, ro a different time those deeply held beliefs would be almost certainly different and quite likely very different. The same you, the same genes, different outcome.

marieholmfan

obby1 wrote: »

If i state DNA means Asians will be smaller than Europeans/Africans, no big deal we would have no problem with that, so why the outrage on his statement, after all he is a expert?

Turns out to be false. Look at young Japanese and Koreans compared with their grandparents.

Sonic Youth

marieholmfan wrote: »

Turns out to be false. Look at young Japanese and Koreans compared with their grandparents.

They're still way smaller than whites.

seamus

obby1 wrote: »

He is a expert on DNA, and as we all know your DNA will determine exactly who you will be

Yeah, that's not it at all.
Someone who is an expert in metallurgy isn't by default a qualified JCB driver because it's made of metal.

Molecular biology, genetics, psychology and anthropology are all separate disciplines. Being an expert in one does not make you an expert in the others. Plenty of overlap, sure. That metallurgist could help you fix your JCB when it breaks. That doesn't mean he's an expert on it though.

Anyway, Watson has been getting ostracised in academic circles for many years now. Many scientists have described him as a very unpleasant person in general, but it's also become clear that he has developed dementia but for some reason is still being given space to embarrass himself.

As well as his declarations that whites and blacks diverge widely in intelligence, he has also said that some anti-Irish feelings are justified, as is some anti-Semite bias. He has also claimed that women are poorer scientists, but nice to have around. Which is ironic given that he would never have gotten his Nobel without Rosalind Franklin.

We make this general mistake to assume that someone who is an expert in one area, is generally smart and more qualified to talk about anything than the man on the street.
Hence why you get people pumping out quotes on philosophy and humanity from Albert Einstein, even though he was a physicist.

The fact that someone won a Nobel prize says nothing about their authority to speak on anything not related to that topic.

Wibbs

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

because there is no scientific basis for it when applied to races.

Actually we don't know that. We would like to believe that, but the science is slim on the matter and naturally not exactly an area of research that would get much attention.

Where it has been looked at in the past, it threw up some interesting results. Take the Australian Aborigine population. They scored much lower than the White population in various intelligence tests conducted in the early 20th century. What did emerge though, was the more an individual was exposed to Europeans and modern European culture the more that gap closed, to the point to where they were equal. Indeed this finding was one of the reasons the Australian government took so many young Aborigine kids and forced them into adoptive White homes in an effort to "civilise" them.

Would I believe some populations/cultures are "dumber" than others? Yep, I would. However, these differences are much more down to the environment influencing the outcome in that metric. Just like the average hunter gatherer of 30 is far fitter physically then the average cubicle jockey working in an office in the west, but if the same cubicle jockey had been brought up in the hunter gatherer society he'd be just as fit.

One of the major killer apps of humans is their plasticity in physical and mental abilities and ranges. We're the Swiss army knife of animals. In some environments we never use the saw attachment so it seizes up, but it's still there.

ohnonotgmail

Wibbs wrote: »

Actually we don't know that. We would like to believe that, but the science is slim on the matter and naturally not exactly an area of research that would get much attention.

Where it has been looked at in the past, it threw up some interesting results. Take the Australian Aborigine population. They scored much lower than the White population in various intelligence tests conducted in the early 20th century. What did emerge though, was the more an individual was exposed to Europeans and modern European culture the more that gap closed, to the point to where they were equal. Indeed this finding was one of the reasons the Australian government took so many young Aborigine kids and forced them into adoptive White homes in an effort to "civilise" them.

Would I believe some populations/cultures are "dumber" than others? Yep, I would. However, these differences are much more down to the environment influencing the outcome in that metric. Just like the average hunter gatherer of 30 is far fitter physically then the average cubicle jockey working in an office in the west, but if the same cubicle jockey had been brought up in the hunter gatherer society he'd be just as fit.

One of the major killer apps of humans is their plasticity in physical and mental abilities and ranges. We're the Swiss army knife of animals. In some environments we never use the saw attachment so it seizes up, but it's still there.

He says that there is a scientific bases for believing that non-whites are less intelligent than white. I said he has no scientific basis for saying this. You say we actually dont know that. Would that be because no scientific investigation has shown it to be true to any degree of certainty? Watson is not qualified in this area that i am aware of. he is justifying his racist views as scientific facts when he has no basis for doing that. Now it may be because this is not an area that has had much investigation but what there has been has not shown his views to be correct as you yourself said. That is bad science i think you would agree.

Grayson

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I think taking awards like this back from someone who is deemed to have earned it for their work, only diminishes the value of the award. I understand that the awarding body may not wish for itself to be associated with views it finds unpalatable, but then the award isn’t about science, it’s about politics, and espousing popular political opinions. Has anything really changed since the Victorian era then when scientists were well regarded for their views which are now found to be pure bunkum? I thought that’s how science was supposed to work. This is just politics.

People are stripped of honors all the time for things they've said or did. An extreme example would be Jimmy Saville. It may be that you could separate his charity work from the abuse he committed and say they two are separate but really the reason he had the honors stripped from him is that the charity worker and the abuser were the same person. And the honors were given to the person.

Likewise with Watson, we could say that the scientist is a separate person to the person who made the political statement, but the fact is that they're the same person.

Now you could say that what he said isn't at the level the deserves to be stripped of his honours. I think we can all agree that it was the right thing with Saville because what he did was horrific. In this case it's definitely more debatable.
However honors are bestowed on someone by an organisation and if that organisation decides that they don't believe the person is worth honoring, they are perfectly allowed to take them away.

Honestly though, watson has always displayed a sexist attitude. Even Crick has said that both he and watson have a very patronising attitude towards female scientists, especially Rosalind Franklin.

professore

I think to some extent we have to judge people by the norms of the times they lived in rather than the norms of our time.

For example many of the signatories of the US constitution were slave owners.

I know a couple of old fellows - they don't know each other - who worked in Africa back in the 50s and they are both quite open minded in general, but their attitudes to black people in particular are horrific. One of my good friends is married a long time to a Jamaican and one of them said he must be a complete idiot to marry a black woman (not such nice language).

A sexist attitude to women in science was common in those days too, even an unconscious one. Here is an example of something Richard Feynman (Nobel prize winning physicist and VERY open minded guy for his time) wrote about women and maths :

When I was at Cornell, I was rather fascinated by the student body, which seems to me was a dilute mixture of some sensible people in a big mass of dumb people studying home economics, etc., including lots of girls. I used to sit in the cafeteria with the students and eat and try to overhear their conversations and see if there was one intelligent word coming out. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered a tremendous thing, it seemed to me. I listened to a conversation between two girls, and one was explaining that if you want to make a straight line, you see, you go over a certain number to the right for each row you go up, that is, if you go over each time the same amount when you go up a row, you make a straight line. A deep principle of analytic geometry! It went on. I was rather amazed. I didn’t realize the female mind was capable of understanding analytic geometry.

She went on and said, “Suppose you have another line coming in from the other side and you want to figure out where they are going to intersect.” Suppose on one line you go over two to the right for every one you go up, and the other line goes over three to the right for every one that it goes up, and they start twenty steps apart, etc.–I was flabbergasted. She figured out where the intersection was! It turned out that one girl was explaining to the other how to knit argyle socks.

I, therefore, did learn a lesson: The female mind is capable of understanding analytic geometry. Those people who have for years been insisting (in the face of all obvious evidence to the contrary) that the male and female are equally capable of rational thought may have something. The difficulty may just be that we have never yet discovered a way to communicate with the female mind. If it is done in the right way, you may be able to get something out of it.

Even someone like him, which if you read his works, he was endlessly curious and open minded in all sorts of ways, was blind to the fact that women could think mathematically.

This was the prevailing attitude at the time. And most women would have been of the same opinion.

Does this excuse any of it? No. But we hold views today that our descendants will consider to be barbaric. I've heard someone say that putting criminals in prison instead of treating them for mental illness will be one of them. Circumcising children for non medical reasons (in the US) another one off the top of my head.

EDIT: I found the rest of the snippet and it actually paints him in a better light. He goes against the prevailing beliefs of his day to state that women (just maybe) COULD in fact understand mathematics.

EDIT2: None of this excuses Watson. He saw how a woman was key to him winning the Nobel prize, and lives in an era where women have contributed hugely to advancements in STEM. It's clear from the passage above if Feynman would have had similar experiences he would have changed his views despite the social norms of the time.

Wibbs

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

He says that there is a scientific bases for believing that non-whites are less intelligent than white. I said he has no scientific basis for saying this. You say we actually dont know that. Would that be because no scientific investigation has shown it to be true to any degree of certainty?

It's as much because it's a naturally controversial area. That and the difficulty of deciding on tests that are less culturally bounded. And of marking out what intelligence actually is. And marking out what populations you're dealing with.

As an example of the difficulties involved most of this area of research has been American based, which takes some of the cultural stuff away, one the surface at least and where people self declared as Black/White/Asian/Latino in a country where someone might look Black and have a load of White DNA in the mix and vice versa. When results were obtained and some slight differences were observed. IE Asians scoring higher than Europeans, who scored higher than Africans, it was also found that these differences were much less than differences within a single population sample.

If we go to a complete different culture, say New Guinean tribal folks, how would one go about testing them the same way you would test folks from Donegal?

Perceptions have a large influence on the results too. Take Ireland. If you read some studies, you'll see an IQ difference happening at the border with Ulster. Which is clearly a nonsense and one more based on the "thick paddy" stereotype. I've seen others looking at Europe and there's an east west line centred around the germanic nations with those below showing lower IQ's than those above. Yet places like Italy and Greece have contributed far more over the millennia as far as learning and civilisation goes. If Denmark or Norway were erased from world history it would be a great loss yes, if Italy or Greece were, we'd be completely fcuked. In the early medieval the thick Paddies would be intellectual giants and the Germans would have been wary arse dunces for the most part and the IQ maps would have looked very different.

seamus

professore wrote: »

Does this excuse any of it? No. But we hold views today that our descendants will consider to be barbaric.

Sure. But Watson isn't dead.

I'm sure he was saying the same things about race in the 60s and it was far less outrageous, potentially it was widely-held belief and his assertion as a DNA expert was used to support it.

But time has moved on, data has been gathered. Watson has not. People get criticised for maintaining opinions that become less and less supported by evidence. Where it's really fluffy, as in psychology/sociology/anthropology, it's become clear that holding a prejudice against someone based on race, nationality, religion, ethnicity, has little to basis in fact and is merely a projection of the individual's biases.

It's one thing if someone is dead - Einstein wrote some letters with pretty racist undertones - but if someone is alive and still clinging to beliefs that have no foundation in reality, then they should quite rightly be called out on it.

"Ah sure, he's too old to change now." Me bollix. People shouldn't get a pass because they're old and intransigent.

ohnonotgmail

Wibbs wrote: »

It's as much because it's a naturally controversial area. That and the difficulty of deciding on tests that are less culturally bounded. And of marking out what intelligence actually is. And marking out what populations you're dealing with.

As an example of the difficulties involved most of this area of research has been American based, which takes some of the cultural stuff away, one the surface at least and where people self declared as Black/White/Asian/Latino in a country where someone might look Black and have a load of White DNA in the mix and vice versa. When results were obtained and some slight differences were observed. IE Asians scoring higher than Europeans, who scored higher than Africans, it was also found that these differences were much less than differences within a single population sample.

If we go to a complete different culture, say New Guinean tribal folks, how would one go about testing them the same way you would test folks from Donegal?

Perceptions have a large influence on the results too. Take Ireland. If you read some studies, you'll see an IQ difference happening at the border with Ulster. Which is clearly a nonsense and one more based on the "thick paddy" stereotype. I've seen others looking at Europe and there's an east west line centred around the germanic nations with those below showing lower IQ's than those above. Yet places like Italy and Greece have contributed far more over the millennia as far as learning and civilisation goes. If Denmark or Norway were erased from world history it would be a great loss yes, if Italy or Greece were, we'd be completely fcuked. In the early medieval the thick Paddies would be intellectual giants and the Germans would have been wary arse dunces for the most part and the IQ maps would have looked very different.

All that is true but if you are making statements like "blacks are less intelligent that the rest of us" you need to be sure that the science backs that up. At present it doesnt and making such statements damages whatever credibility watson has left.

Cockford Ollie

Humans started off black, then in Europe started to get fairer and fairer.

Why is it that areas with black populations, who have existed in those areas for longer than humans have existed in any other part of the world, are less developed and less successful than areas of white populations?

What's that all about?

professore

The thing is there are very well tested and reliable scientific and statistical methods to determine if something is true or false for a population. The insurance industry know this inside out. If they applied the same methodologies to car insurance as the lefty liberals they would all be bankrupt in no time.

For example it's a statistical fact that young males are involved in FAR more serious and expensive claims than young females. Does this mean every young male is a dangerous driver and every young female is a safe and careful driver? Of course not. But on average this is the case (part of the difference could be explained by male drivers driving more miles therefore being involved in more accidents but you get the point) ....

Due to ridiculous discrimination laws the reams of data on this have to be binned and a young male and young female pay the same premium.

Odhinn

Cockford Ollie wrote: »

Humans started off black, then in Europe started to get fairer and fairer.

Why is it that areas with black populations, who have existed in those areas for longer than humans have existed in any other part of the world, are less developed and less successful than areas of white populations?

What's that all about?

geography, resources, climate...

jmayo

steddyeddy wrote: »

James Watson along with Francis Crick won the Nobel prize for allegedly discovering the structure of double stranded DNA.
...
Anyway in the last few decades Watson has proven himself to be a bit of a c"nt in more ways than one. His views on race, gender and class have been unscientific and born of Victorian attitudes.

He famously inferred black people to be less intelligent, women in labs to be just lipstick and make up and people who attend private schools to be more intelligent due to their pedigree. Now these views are all demonstrably untrue and born of bigrotry but does he deserve to be punished for them?
...

I wonder did he donate his sperm, like some other famous Nobel science winner with similar views on race, to the Nobel prize sperm bank?

The weird thing is how some brilliant minds in one area can yet be so limited in others.

professore

seamus wrote: »

Sure. But Watson isn't dead.

I'm sure he was saying the same things about race in the 60s and it was far less outrageous, potentially it was widely-held belief and his assertion as a DNA expert was used to support it.

But time has moved on, data has been gathered. Watson has not. People get criticised for maintaining opinions that become less and less supported by evidence. Where it's really fluffy, as in psychology/sociology/anthropology, it's become clear that holding a prejudice against someone based on race, nationality, religion, ethnicity, has little to basis in fact and is merely a projection of the individual's biases.

It's one thing if someone is dead - Einstein wrote some letters with pretty racist undertones - but if someone is alive and still clinging to beliefs that have no foundation in reality, then they should quite rightly be called out on it.

"Ah sure, he's too old to change now." Me bollix. People shouldn't get a pass because they're old and intransigent.

I agree with you 100%. Particularly so since one of the major contributors to him winning the Nobel prize was a woman. In fact after I wrote that post I remembered I hadn't stated that and wasn't making any excuses for him. He's a sexist asshole.

obby1

Cockford Ollie wrote: »

Humans started off black, then in Europe started to get fairer and fairer.

Why is it that areas with black populations, who have existed in those areas for longer than humans have existed in any other part of the world, are less developed and less successful than areas of white populations?

What's that all about?

Some doubts have risen in the last few years about the fact humans came from africa , plenty more results to be found with google.

Europe was the birthplace of mankind, not Africa, scientists find
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/05/22/europe-birthplace-mankind-not-africa-scientists-find/
Established story about how humans came from Africa may be wrong, claims controversial new study
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/humans-came-from-africa-crete-study-australopithecus-early-fossil-a7929521.html

obby1

Odhinn wrote: »

geography, resources, climate...

Africa has a abundance of resources, so what could have held them back?
Nothing wrong with the geography or climate

Odhinn

obby1 wrote: »

Africa has a abundance of resources, so what could have held them back?

...the climate in parts of Africa is unsuitable for various types of agriculture. Geography made some parts virtually inaccessible from elsewhere.

...the other advances that would have made those resources usable, the lack of any urgent need to use said resources and so on. Africa is a continent, not a country, btw.

professore

obby1 wrote: »

Africa has a abundance of resources, so what could have held them back?
Nothing wrong with the geography or climate

Malaria is a huge one.

seamus

obby1 wrote: »

Africa has a abundance of resources, so what could have held them back?
Nothing wrong with the geography or climate

What do you mean "nothing wrong"?

Civilisation largely grew from trade. Populations in isolation tend to reach something of a plateau, and further development only comes about with trade or expansion - assimilation of cultures, ideas and products, causes growth.

Africa is big. It's bigger than you think it is. It's twice the size of Russia and ten times the size of Europe.

There were many, many kingdoms and civilisations in Africa, spread out all over the place. But trade was relatively limited because until the 1500s, humans weren't great at trading over long distances. There's a reason why for thousands of years people farted around Europe and separately around Asia, without much in the way of intense trading.
The distances involved in Africa meant that the ability to trade was hampered, and certainly for a European explorer, if you tried to go South beyond Algeria or Egypt, the world just seemed to get hotter and hotter and more and more dangerous. The distance from Cairo in Egypt, to Khartoum (which is the capital city of Egypt's neighbour) is further than the distance from London to Rome. And over incredibly inhospitable terrain and without a load of settlements in between to take a rest and load up on supplies.

To a European explorer, North Africa was literally the edge of the world, with nothing but death beyond it.

And I'm sure people in central and southern Africa felt the same way about trying to go North,

So trade never opened up, anything below North Africa was never traded in ideas with Europe in any big way. Even trade within Africa was difficult. So African civilisations tended to plateau.

As with all technological progress, someone has to get there first, and it was really Europe who got there first in terms of being able to transport goods by sea and begin the process of moving things great distances and trading further and further afield. Because Europe as a continent was about the easiest to travel across - temperate climate, little variance in hot and cold, water, animals and plants everywhere - it had the greatest mix of ideas and innovations.

And so Europeans landed in Africa via the sea, found lush, bountiful country rich in resources, and decided it was theirs for the taking. The "natives" were little more than wildlife to be cleared along with forest and other annoyances.

Exactly the same way that it happened in the Americas.

Franz Von Peppercorn

seamus wrote: »

And so Europeans landed in Africa via the sea, found lush, bountiful country rich in resources, and decided it was theirs for the taking. The "natives" were little more than wildlife to be cleared along with forest and other annoyances.

Exactly the same way that it happened in the Americas.

We need another term for the actual countries who invaded Africa (which didn’t last that long in the grand scheme of things) rather than “Europeans”. There are 44 present day European countries.

And we need another term for the people who largely invaded most of what is now the US. I suggest Americans.

obby1

professore wrote: »

Malaria is a huge one.

Sure none of the countries in Asia every suffered with malaria

Odhinn

obby1 wrote: »

Sure none of the countries in Asia every suffered with malaria

They did. Your point being....?

obby1

seamus wrote: »

What do you mean "nothing wrong"?

Civilisation largely grew from trade. Populations in isolation tend to reach something of a plateau, and further development only comes about with trade or expansion - assimilation of cultures, ideas and products, causes growth.

Africa is big. It's bigger than you think it is. It's twice the size of Russia and ten times the size of Europe.

There were many, many kingdoms and civilisations in Africa, spread out all over the place. But trade was relatively limited because until the 1500s, humans weren't great at trading over long distances. There's a reason why for thousands of years people farted around Europe and separately around Asia, without much in the way of intense trading.
The distances involved in Africa meant that the ability to trade was hampered, and certainly for a European explorer, if you tried to go South beyond Algeria or Egypt, the world just seemed to get hotter and hotter and more and more dangerous. The distance from Cairo in Egypt, to Khartoum (which is the capital city of Egypt's neighbour) is further than the distance from London to Rome. And over incredibly inhospitable terrain and without a load of settlements in between to take a rest and load up on supplies.

To a European explorer, North Africa was literally the edge of the world, with nothing but death beyond it.

And I'm sure people in central and southern Africa felt the same way about trying to go North,

So trade never opened up, anything below North Africa was never traded in ideas with Europe in any big way. Even trade within Africa was difficult. So African civilisations tended to plateau.

As with all technological progress, someone has to get there first, and it was really Europe who got there first in terms of being able to transport goods by sea and begin the process of moving things great distances and trading further and further afield. Because Europe as a continent was about the easiest to travel across - temperate climate, little variance in hot and cold, water, animals and plants everywhere - it had the greatest mix of ideas and innovations.

And so Europeans landed in Africa via the sea, found lush, bountiful country rich in resources, and decided it was theirs for the taking. The "natives" were little more than wildlife to be cleared along with forest and other annoyances.

Exactly the same way that it happened in the Americas.

So in the style of Katy Newman , what your saying is sub sahara African countries with a abundant of resources, in many places a year round perfect climate, without the prospect of invasion and war, because they where isolated, never bothered to advance further than hunter gatherers, mean while in N.Africa,Europe,Asia,Americas natives where creating mighty civilisations and making tremendous advancements in all fields of science.
So your saying are the folk of sub Sahara Africa different in any way to the rest of the world?

obby1

Odhinn wrote: »

They did. Your point being....?

So why are you using it as a excuse for Sub Sahara Africa being backwards?