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

obby1

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

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 Americans who largely invaded most of what is now the US. I suggest Americans.

Thats racist, the white devil is all the same, no difference between the Sami and the Portuguese.

Odhinn

obby1 wrote: »

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

It's one of many reasons.


You seem to be a bit confused about asia.

in many places a year round perfect climate, without the prospect of invasion and war, because they where isolated

More simplistic tosh? At this stage it's fairly clear you aren't interested in anything other than an answer based on "race".

Wibbs

seamus wrote: »

But trade was relatively limited because until the 1500s, humans weren't great at trading over long distances.

Eh... Wut? One of the single biggest differences between modern humans and previous subspecies was from early on we had large trading networks. Thirty thousand years ago there was a well trodden trading corridor from the south through Central Europe. Amber another good example. Six thousand years ago amber from the Baltic was traded throughout Europe, North Africa and into Asia. The Roman Empire was built and survived on continental trade - it was this that promoted their road network as much as military needs - and by the time of the Byzantines were trading directly with China. The Book of Kells has pigment made from ground up Lapis Lazuli mined in Afghanistan.

Climate had a big role alright. Stable societies tend to spring up in stable climates and predictable river basins. While the climate in Europe can be variable it's more predictable over decades. In sub Saharan Africa it can vary wildly and much of it was covered in dense jungle. Then again, the same can be said for Mesoamerica, yet that didn't seem to hinder the Aztecs, Inca and so on. Ditto for further south in the Amazon, which a thousand years ago looked quite different.

Disease another factor, but against that is the fact that Europe has until the 18th century a hotbed of near annual rolling "plagues" of various types as far back as records began. The plague of Justinian in the sixth century was worse than the later Black Death, hastened the end of Byzantine power and was estimated to have killed half the population. I can't think of any other geographic region on the planet that was hit harder by infectious diseases in the way Europe and the near east was and repeatedly.

In my humble, the biggest issue sub saharan Africa faced was geography. It was cut off by jungle and desert from the rest of the world. By contrast the Middle East has been the crossroads of humanity for at least 100,000 years so not a shock civilisations would kick off there.

One odd thing about sub saharan Africa is the island of Madagascar. It's lays close to the African continent, but Africans weren't the first to colonise it. That was Asians from as far away as present day Malaysia. Sub Saharan Africans didn't get there until the 11th century IIRC. Maybe something as simple as a long standing cultural lack, or suspicion of wanderlust and novelty among African cultures made the difference? We see an example of that today in the various Andaman island cultures. One of whom were the guys who skewered that gobshite missionary last year. They have a major mistrust even outright hostility to novelty of any form. The "not invented here" meme is extremely strong in them.

obby1

Odhinn wrote: »

More simplistic tosh? At this stage it's fairly clear you aren't interested in anything other than an answer based on "race".

is that not the point made by the DNA expert?

Wibbs

obby1 wrote: »

is that not the point made by the DNA expert?

You keep banging that bloody drum. He was an expert, at the very beginnings of DNA research. That area of science outpaced him and pretty quickly and in the last twenty years the discoveries have been ever more rapid and groundbreaking. His opinion might be right or it might be wrong, but either eventuality has feck all to do with his expertise in the field.

mikhail

Watson was an expert on DNA in the sense that Hertz was an expert on radio. If you reanimated Hertz's corpse, he wouldn't have much to offer on modern telecoms.

seamus

Wibbs wrote: »

Eh... Wut? One of the single biggest differences between modern humans and previous subspecies was from early on we had large trading networks. Thirty thousand years ago there was a well trodden trading corridor from the south through Central Europe. Amber another good example. Six thousand years ago amber from the Baltic was traded throughout Europe, North Africa and into Asia. The Roman Empire was built and survived on continental trade - it was this that promoted their road network as much as military needs - and by the time of the Byzantines were trading directly with China. The Book of Kells has pigment made from ground up Lapis Lazuli mined in Afghanistan.

You're right. I phrased that badly, but you struck on what I meant to refer to; trading networks. That is, a series of connections that allows your goods to get from point A to point B.

The distances from node to node in these networks was typically not very long and routes were based along the least perilous terrain (generally following water courses and/or avoiding exceptionally steep terrain).

So you could move goods pretty freely from Afghanistan to London through a network of a hundred (?) towns and cities along the way, separated by relatively short distances.

Within Africa, and especially from North Africa to the rest of the continent, the same networks tended not to establish because there could be hundreds of kilometres from one town/village to the next, or you had substantial barriers in the way such as insanely dense forest, ridiculously wide rivers, desert, or heavily mountainous terrain (in the south & east).

It wasn't until it became possible to bypass the terrain or carry goods thousands of kilometres in a single trip (i.e. by boat) that Africa really became accessible to the rest of the world.

One thing I've always wondered is how many African explorers took a boat down the Nile, landed in Egypt and then realised that there was no way they could ever get home? You can't take the boat upriver, and you can't ride a horse across the desert.

Franz Von Peppercorn

mikhail wrote: »

Watson was an expert on DNA in the sense that Hertz was an expert on radio. If you reanimated Hertz's corpse, he wouldn't have much to offer on modern telecoms.

?

If he was still alive I’m pretty sure he’d have kept up.

Wibbs

seamus wrote: »

You're right. I phrased that badly, but you struck on what I meant to refer to; trading networks. That is, a series of connections that allows your goods to get from point A to point B.

The distances from node to node in these networks was typically not very long and routes were based along the least perilous terrain (generally following water courses and/or avoiding exceptionally steep terrain).

So you could move goods pretty freely from Afghanistan to London through a network of a hundred (?) towns and cities along the way, separated by relatively short distances.

Within Africa, and especially from North Africa to the rest of the continent, the same networks tended not to establish because there could be hundreds of kilometres from one town/village to the next, or you had substantial barriers in the way such as insanely dense forest, ridiculously wide rivers, desert, or heavily mountainous terrain (in the south & east).

It wasn't until it became possible to bypass the terrain or carry goods thousands of kilometres in a single trip (i.e. by boat) that Africa really became accessible to the rest of the world.

Africa is criss crossed by large navigable rivers and large areas aren't covered in thick jungle. Hell the Congo jungle was much much smaller even a thousand years ago. There is also the coastline for those along it. Like I said Madagascar is a couple of hundred k off the coast of Africa yet it took peoples from Asia to find it from a couple of thousand k away.

One thing I've always wondered is how many African explorers took a boat down the Nile, landed in Egypt and then realised that there was no way they could ever get home? You can't take the boat upriver, and you can't ride a horse across the desert.

Funny enough S they did do that and often. EG the kingdom of Kush in and around the Sudan today had extensive trade with Egypt as did the even more southerly Ethiopians. They traveled the lands either side of the Nile and other rivers handily enough.

obby1

Wibbs wrote: »

You keep banging that bloody drum. He was an expert, at the very beginnings of DNA research. That area of science outpaced him and pretty quickly and in the last twenty years the discoveries have been ever more rapid and groundbreaking. His opinion might be right or it might be wrong, but either eventuality has feck all to do with his expertise in the field.

And who are you?
Binman?
Road sweeper?
Do you honestly believe you know more about the subject than he does?

Odhinn

obby1 wrote: »

And who are you?
Binman?
Road sweeper?
Do you honestly believe you know more about the subject than he does?

And your own qualifications are?

obby1

Odhinn wrote: »

And your own qualifications are?

im smart enough to defer to the expert on DNA who made the statement and you?

ohnonotgmail

obby1 wrote: »

im smart enough to defer to the expert on DNA who made the statement and you?

You mean the expert who made a statement about the link between DNA and intelligence and then provided no evidence? Not very scientific is it?

Wibbs

obby1 wrote: »

And who are you?
Binman?
Road sweeper?
Do you honestly believe you know more about the subject than he does?

A first year student in the subject knows more than he does. It's how science works. He was part of a team who discovered the chemical structure of DNA in 1953. The next year Roger Bannister ran the mile in just under four minutes, he wouldn't get on a junior running team today. Things change. A shit ton of discoveries have come along since then. None of which he had a part in BTW. His musings on "race" are his opinion and fair enough, but one that he has never backed up with any science, peer reviewed or otherwise.

Never mind that you yourself seem to have an extremely light grasp of the science behind it and merely parrot stuff you've read on reddit or wherever.

obby1 wrote: »

im smart enough to defer to the expert on DNA who made the statement and you?

The expert that agrees with you? What about the legion of those that don't and have the science to back up their position far more than your guy? I think they call that selective bias.


And before you go off on secondhand memes about me being some "beta loony leftie cuck" or whatever ballsology remains in your quiver, "left wing" I am not. I consider the multiculturalism politic a bloody disaster for Europe, think some cultures are simply better than others, think little of cultural note has emerged from Subsaharan Africa(actually... Benin metalwork is quality stuff) and consider "feminism" to be mostly the preserve of White middle class girls spoiled by daddy and educated beyond their mental capacities, who will never be happy.

Odhinn

obby1 wrote: »

im smart enough to defer to the expert on DNA who made the statement and you?

No, you're just appealling to authority to sell a race based world view. His opinions are just that.

professore

obby1 wrote: »

Sure none of the countries in Asia every suffered with malaria

Most technologically advanced cultures developed outside those zones

Zorya

seamus wrote: »

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

Agreed. I listened to Joe Rogan's interview with Sir Roger Penrose a little while ago. Penrose is 87, 3 years younger than Watson, and he would set your hair on fire with his intellectual capacity, memory and modernity. Whether one chooses to agree with his opinions or otherwise. An absolute gentleman.

joe40

obby1 wrote: »

is that not the point made by the DNA expert?

The science has moved on considerably since his time. Also he worked on determining the chemical structure of the DNA molecule. That is totally different from the field of genetics and how the genes are expressed.

An analogy might be an electronics engineer developing new hardware would not necessarily be an expert on writing computer software.

Then again you know that, you just want to argue your racist waffle

Wibbs

professore wrote: »

Most technologically advanced cultures developed outside those zones

Not really. Take the Americas. The most technologically advanced cultures developed within those zones, not outside them. India had a succession of extremely advanced cultures throughout history, as did south east Asia, as did the Middle East. Never mind that malaria was once indigenous to large chunks of Europe(and China), killed many thousands in Rome and was here in Ireland too. And Europe also had those rolling plagues of various kinds that killed millions for millennia. So it doesn't really square up P.

obby1

professore wrote: »

Most technologically advanced cultures developed outside those zones

Mayans
aztecs
indians
chinese
would not say they where backwards

obby1

If what James Watson is asserting is scientifically wrong, it should be a case of those with similar scientific credentials demonstrating why he is wrong.
Instead, we have certain sections of the media and even members of the scientific community shunning him because he's strayed from the left narrative.
What scientific credentials and research do you have supporting your opinion that Watson is wrong?
We know people have genetic differences. We know entire races have genetic differences. You can see some of them. Some people have curly hair. Some have blue eyes. Some have dark skin and some have a single eyelid fold. We also know that humans have the most complicated organ that we've ever seen in the universe.

Is it really so hard to believe that there might be differences in brains from race to race?

I'm not advocating treating anyone differently based on that - but isn't it pretty realistic to think our brains might have some genetic differences too? 
What seems normal now may be considered heresy in 50 years if the looney left have there way.

Zorya

Also, technological advancement is but one possibility in terms of development. Systems of complex thought and philosophy developed and flowered to extraordinary degrees in cultures that did not particularly advance technologically speaking.
I would say that in our technologically advanced civilisation it is the relative dearth of profound, complex philosophies that threatens us greatly.
Some of our technology is advancing way ahead of our general capacity to rationally encompass it, and this leaves us open to ..well, frankly... potential disaster. We have weapons that could obliterate the earth, we are trying to edit the genes of the species, we can suck the ores and minerals out of the ground till all the wells run dry and yet we are not sufficiently capable of mutually beneficial, complex reasoning. It seems.

Zorya

obby1 wrote: »

If what James Watson is asserting is scientifically wrong, it should be a case of those with similar scientific credentials demonstrating why he is wrong.
Instead, we have certain sections of the media and even members of the scientific community shunning him because he's strayed from the left narrative.
What scientific credentials and research do you have supporting your opinion that Watson is wrong?
We know people have genetic differences. We know entire races have genetic differences. You can see some of them. Some people have curly hair. Some have blue eyes. Some have dark skin and some have a single eyelid fold. We also know that humans have the most complicated organ that we've ever seen in the universe.

Is it really so hard to believe that there might be differences in brains from race to race?

I'm not advocating treating anyone differently based on that - but isn't it pretty realistic to think our brains might have some genetic differences too? 
What seems normal now may be considered heresy in 50 years if the looney left have there way.

Though I don't agree with your overall approach or attitude, I do agree that ideas should be countered correctly and transparently, and that science should not be held in check by political correctness. There should be no ''no-go zones''. It is up to scientists to refute each others ideas with empirical evidence. As far as I know some are doing so re IQ etc. Maybe they are just not loud enough?

Wibbs

obby1 wrote: »

Is it really so hard to believe that there might be differences in brains from race to race?

Not for me. It's entirely possible there are, just as there are between individuals. Different environments and cultures will select for different things over time and intelligence of different sorts will be selected for in different ways. The brightest human living in a craphole slum is unlikely to be noticed, when a decidedly average human can come across quite well if born into a more charmed environment. That can be applied to cultures too. That's fine and history does tend to show this.

However, I can read any number of well researched science that proves the difference between individuals, of the difference along population lines? Nope. And what research there is strongly correlates environment with measured intelligence.

Wibbs

Zorya wrote: »

As far as I know some are doing so re IQ etc. Maybe they are just not loud enough?

It would be a brave or foolhardy researcher to attempt to be anything other than quiet on a subject like this.

ohnonotgmail

obby1 wrote: »

If what James Watson is asserting is scientifically wrong, it should be a case of those with similar scientific credentials demonstrating why he is wrong.
Instead, we have certain sections of the media and even members of the scientific community shunning him because he's strayed from the left narrative.
What scientific credentials and research do you have supporting your opinion that Watson is wrong?
We know people have genetic differences. We know entire races have genetic differences. You can see some of them. Some people have curly hair. Some have blue eyes. Some have dark skin and some have a single eyelid fold. We also know that humans have the most complicated organ that we've ever seen in the universe.

Is it really so hard to believe that there might be differences in brains from race to race?

I'm not advocating treating anyone differently based on that - but isn't it pretty realistic to think our brains might have some genetic differences too?
What seems normal now may be considered heresy in 50 years if the looney left have there way.

and again, not surprisingly, you have this backwards. He is making the claims. It is up to him to provide the evidence for his claims. It is not the duty of the scientific community to prove him wrong.

ohnonotgmail

Zorya wrote: »

Though I don't agree with your overall approach or attitude, I do agree that ideas should be countered correctly and transparently, and that science should not be held in check by political correctness. There should be no ''no-go zones''. It is up to scientists to refute each others ideas with empirical evidence. As far as I know some are doing so re IQ etc. Maybe they are just not loud enough?

with watson there is nothing to refute. He hasn't provided any evidence.

Zorya

Wibbs wrote: »

It would be a brave or foolhardy researcher to attempt to be anything other than quiet on a subject like this.

They wouldn't get funding, most probably. One of mine is a post doc science researcher and says identity/diversity politics is suddenly becoming rampant in academia here.

Personally I hate the IQ argument, makes me shudder when people pursue it as it is not established science and is usually cited for horrible reasons.

But everything needs to be open for critique. Otherwise we will soon enough be giving brain surgeons extra credits in their exams for any victimhood status and the thought of that is freaking freaky!

Zorya

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

with watson there is nothing to refute. He hasn't provided any evidence.

As far as I know this is true. To be honest I know next to nothing about him and have never heard him speak or read him. I am speaking in general terms.

steddyeddy

Zorya wrote: »

Though I don't agree with your overall approach or attitude, I do agree that ideas should be countered correctly and transparently, and that science should not be held in check by political correctness. There should be no ''no-go zones''. It is up to scientists to refute each others ideas with empirical evidence. As far as I know some are doing so re IQ etc. Maybe they are just not loud enough?

Great well no one's stopping him doing research. There is countless examples of decent research on race and IQ.

His assertion was backed up by the statement "anyone who has employed black people know they're less intelligent".

He's a scientist and should back up what he's saying without using anecdotal evidence.

steddyeddy

Zorya wrote: »

They wouldn't get funding, most probably. One of mine is a post doc science researcher and says identity/diversity politics is suddenly becoming rampant in academia here.

Personally I hate the IQ argument, makes me shudder when people pursue it as it is not established science and is usually cited for horrible reasons.

But everything needs to be open for critique. Otherwise we will soon enough be giving brain surgeons extra credits in their exams for any victimhood status and the thought of that is freaking freaky!

I agree completely. However there's two things that need further definition before you can make a link, intelligence and race. Both have countless definition and are the subject of intense disagreements.

Odhinn

steddyeddy wrote: »

Great well no one's stopping him doing research. There is countless examples of decent research on race and IQ.

His assertion was backed up by the statement "anyone who has employed black people know they're less intelligent".

He's a scientist and should back up what he's saying without using anecdotal evidence.

There was also the classic
"In 2000, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, he told an audience at the University of California at Berkeley that there was a link between sunlight exposure and sex drive, saying: “That’s why you have Latin Lovers. You’ve never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient.” He also suggested that thin people weren’t happy, which made them inherently more ambitious than “fat people.”
“Whenever you interview fat people,” he said, the Chronicle reported at the time, “you feel bad, because you know you’re not going to hire them.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/01/14/father-dna-says-he-still-believes-link-between-race-intelligence-his-lab-just-stripped-him-his-titles/?fbclid=IwAR1QX1rrInZKI2oYCTCGGOksDTMuIIMbklx0WSDAhIBrElXQ4BLQVy84vK4&utm_term=.09c2c9e750ed
none of which seems to be done "tongue in cheek", which in a way makes it funnier.

Zorya

steddyeddy wrote: »

I agree completely. However there's two things that need further definition before you can make a link, intelligence and race. Both have countless definition and are the subject of intense disagreements.

I agree with you. The definitions have to be established clearly.

up for anything

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.

Where did you get your figures for the average height of Nigerians?

mikhail

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

?

If he was still alive I’m pretty sure he’d have kept up.

I doubt it. He was a physicist, not an electronic engineer. A physics professor knows in principle what a telecoms system does, but they don't know **** about the details.

Wibbs

Odhinn wrote: »

he told an audience at the University of California at Berkeley that there was a link between sunlight exposure and sex drive, saying: “That’s why you have Latin Lovers. You’ve never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient.”

Funny enough on the basis a stopped clock is right twice a day he could have been accurate by mistake with that statement, to some degree at least. Vitamin D increases levels of sex hormones in men and women. Those deficient in it can have issues there. Here's a study outlining the positive effects of vitamin D therapy in D deficient middle aged men. The salient bit is the conclusion: This study demonstrated that VD treatment improves testosterone levels, metabolic syndrome and erectile function in middle-aged men. A fair number of researchers have mused that a lot of folks in more Northern western societies with lower levels of sunlight and increasing use of UV blocking creams and indoor living are deficient to different degrees. Those with darker skin are at higher risk.

givyjoe

Hablopablo wrote: »

For those who are adamant that ethnicity has no influence on innate intelligence, do you have evidence to back up such strong beliefs?

Im more interested in hearing where you get your inspiration for all these new usernames?

yoke

One point that a certain subsection of posters (or maybe it is just 1 or 2 posters with multiple accounts) on this thread seem to keep “missing” is something that has been pointed out here already many times - specifically why are they so interested in finding relatively tiny differences between geographic groups of people?

Perhaps the reason there haven’t been huge studies done on differences between “races” regarding vague things like “intelligence” is that it’s a pretty stupid topic since we can’t agree on a definition of intelligence and we can’t agree on a definition of “race” either. Any definition of race has to be based on a specific point in time, which begs the question “why that point in time?”, since people in nature mix quite freely and will naturally form “hybrids” over time, as they have always done. There is no meaningful definition of ethnicity which is not rooted in a specific point in time because we are (and always were) freely mixing.

The only reason we can differentiate between different species (eg. chimps and humans) is because there has been no intermixing there for a couple of million years, and is not likely to be any intermixing in the future. Once you have intermixing, the lines become blurred.

Most definitions of ethnicity which the current crowd of people will accept, will be based on some arbitrary time period which they have decided for no reason to be the “beginning of history”, while there is no such thing.

It’s the equivalent of a boxing coach trying to do a study on number of trophies won vs chin size in boxing, and then refusing to accept people with small chins in their gym because “they have weak chins which aren’t suited to boxing - I’ll train the Flahavans since they have big chins, but I’m not going to train the Brennans as they have tiny chins, waste of time” - it’s utterly stupid and has no bearing on the real world.

It has been pointed out time and time again that all these differences between geographic groups are generally small compared to the differences found between individuals, whether in or out of a group.
If there is a big difference between a geographic group and the rest, then perhaps that geographic group is inbred.

yoke

donald2020 wrote: »

getting this nazi banned is great progress
lets make a pile of his books and burn them

This is what we call a “shill” account

yoke

donald2020 wrote: »

any yokes mate

lend us a rubber will ya? cheers bud

pleas advice

Just watching 'The Incredible Human Journey' on BBC4, and they're claiming that modern Chinese evolved not from Homo Sapiens, but from Homo Erectus, a different species of human, that left Africa hundreds of thousands of years before modern humans.

(they're probably a hybrid of Homo Erectus that had evolved independently for a couple hundred thousand years, and modern humans that left Africa 70,000 years ago, just like Europeans have some Neanderthal DNA, from modern humans mixing with a humanoid species that was already living in Europe when they arrived)

yoke

pleas advice wrote: »

Just watching 'The Incredible Human Journey' on BBC4, and they're claiming that modern Chinese evolved not from Homo Sapiens

You’ve misunderstood what they were saying.

(they're probably a hybrid of Homo Erectus that had evolved independently for a couple hundred thousand years, and modern humans that left Africa 70,000 years ago, just like Europeans have some Neanderthal DNA, from modern humans mixing with a humanoid species that was already living in Europe when they arrived)

So you’re saying there may have been some more specific mixing in China with other human species. That’s fair enough. However the other human species will make up probably less than 1% of modern humans’ dna, so they did evolve mainly from homo sapiens.
What’s more, due to historical mixing of people, along with hun invasions, mongol invasions, etc., you actually have no idea what genes individual people may carry, regardless of their supposed ethnicity.

YFlyer

mikhail wrote: »

I doubt it. He was a physicist, not an electronic engineer. A physics professor knows in principle what a telecoms system does, but they don't know **** about the details.

Henrich Hertz would whizz through modern electronic and electrical engineering.

He would only need a matter of weeks to be up to speed with what secondary level schools taught and then be at a level playing field with a leaving cert student going to college. Would leave the others behind in no time.

yoke

YFlyer wrote: »

Henrich Hertz would whizz through modern electronic and electrical engineering.

He would only need a matter of weeks to be up to speed with what secondary level schools taught and then be at a level playing field with a leaving cert student going to college. Would leave the others behind in no time.

Leaving aside conjectures about Heinrich Hertz and how interested or disinterested he may have been in modern engineering, it appears James Watson certainly isn’t interested in, or an expert in, modern genetics

Grab All Association

women in labs to be just lipstick and make up

He might be right about this to be fair.

Borat wrote:

But is it a problem that the woman have a smaller brain than the man?

Government scientist Dr. Yamak have proved it is size of squirrel.

sbsquarepants

I think he was clearly quite an asshole but I honestly can't see why the furore about the suggestion that there might be mental differences between races or even between sexes. There are clear physical differences, to me it would be stranger if there were not mental ones?

As to what those differences are, he seems to have just plucked them from thin air to suit his own clearly racist and sexist views, but that in no way prohibits the existence of any differences at all. It just means he's a bit of a wanker.

steddyeddy

Here's photo 51, the X-ray shot of double stranded DNA taken by Rosalind Franklin which gave rise to the conclusion that DNA is a helix. Seeing this really makes me wonder about how much of a scientist Watson actually was. I suspect he was a second rater and took out his own inadequacies on other races, genders and social classes as people often do.

steddyeddy

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I think he was clearly quite an asshole but I honestly can't see why the furore about the suggestion that there might be mental differences between races or even between sexes. There are clear physical differences, to me it would be stranger if there were not mental ones?

As to what those differences are, he seems to have just plucked them from thin air to suit his own clearly racist and sexist views, but that in no way prohibits the existence of any differences at all. It just means he's a bit of a wanker.

He didn't suggest there might be. He said black people are less intelligent. His reasoning? Anecdotal evidence from people who hire black employees. If I make claims about racial superiority based on anecdotal evidence it's racism, not scientific observation.

Wibbs

yoke wrote: »

So you’re saying there may have been some more specific mixing in China with other human species. That’s fair enough. However the other human species will make up probably less than 1% of modern humans’ dna, so they did evolve mainly from homo sapiens.

Humans are separated from chimps by only a couple of percent is a common headline. It's far more complex than basic percentages. Looking closer to home in Europe, Neandertal admixture into modern Europeans and the Near East is springing up all sorts of interesting findings. Particularly in how what looks to be a small percentage(2-5% depending on researchers) has an impact on people's makeup and health today. Genes involved in skin, blood clotting, schizophrenia, bone density, addiction, risk taking, skull shape, autism, immune response, brain function, cancer risk and a few others so far found. The more they look, the more tangible effects they find of Neandertal DNA on people today with those genes. Which is pretty much everyone who isn't African.

Even within those populations individuals have different versions of Neandertal DNA. Beyond Europe Asian folks got different versions to Europeans and they also have extra genetic legacies from at least one and likely two archaic human lines(Denisovans and Erectus and a possible third). Folks living in Nepal and Tibet have a suite of genes from Denisovans that have helped them adapt to living at altitude. The genes for pale skin in Europeans is different than those of Asians. They got the better ones, so they have about the same lower risk of UV caused skin cancers as darker skinned Africans. Their skin tends to age more slowly too. That's a lot of extra stuff and complexity going on.

That's before we look at how Modern Humans gained local adaptations to their local environments. EG the majority of Europeans can digest lactose, gluten and alcohol, whereas folks from the Indian subcontinent are far more likely to be lactose intolerant and many populations can't metabolise alcohol nearly as efficiently. Phenotype differences are more obvious. European populations have the greatest diversity of eye and hair colour of any human populations.

Diseases we encountered locally also left their mark and still do. A goodly chunk of the European population have a resistance to the bacteria that causes plague. A resistance that was once thought to have a resistance effect on HIV transmission of all things. Turns out it seems the genes involved came about from yet another viral infection that arrived in Europe around the same time as the Black Death. Look at what happened to various populations in the New World when Europeans showed up. Millions died of diseases that would have a European come down with a slight headache and runny nose. If they came down with it at all.

Things weren't static in Africa either. So malaria resistance is higher there than in say China(though can lead to sickle cell anaemia in some). African populations also show admixture from their own archaic humans in that neck of the woods.

So yes, we did come out of North East Africa as a species around 100,000 years ago, but there have been quite large changes since then and changes that were local with it. And that's what we've found so far. The vast majority of people on this planet don't have their DNA on file and we've only scratched the surface of archaic DNA. So we are not "all the same" modern humans. Thank god. Our genetic legacy and diversity is what has made us who we are today.

What’s more, due to historical mixing of people, along with hun invasions, mongol invasions, etc., you actually have no idea what genes individual people may carry, regardless of their supposed ethnicity.

Actually this is a common enough and popular fallacy, you can. In the majority of individuals in the Old World their genetic signature tracks their geographic/historical signature remarkably closely. European colonies like the Americas are a different kettle of fish for obvious reasons. Even there with more mixing going on you can take an African American dude look at his DNA and see West African DNA, but you might also find European admixture and can often narrow it down to a broad geographic point in Europe.

If there is a big difference between a geographic group and the rest, then perhaps that geographic group is inbred.

There are many such groups of humans on the planet today that have quite isolated genetic histories and they're not "inbred". Are the San, Baka, Sami, Australian Aborigines and so forth "inbred"? No, they're not.

As an aside, it has long fascinated me that those most likely to go on about "diversity" as a political ideology are also the most likely to reduce all humans to a non diverse bunch of mongrels and often rejoice in the notion that one day all humans will be the same kind of dark beige with no differences. If that day ever comes(which is highly unlikely) we're screwed as a species.

sbsquarepants

steddyeddy wrote: »

He didn't suggest there might be. He said black people are less intelligent. His reasoning? Anecdotal evidence from people who hire black employees. If I make claims about racial superiority based on anecdotal evidence it's racism, not scientific observation.

I understand that, as I said he just plucked differences from the air to suit his own narrative. That's not science it's just bigotry.

I just see no reason to presume that someone who is clearly very different physically would be identical mentally. That just seems like a very shaky assumption to me.