Fwd: "Africans are less intelligent than Westerners" - Watson Nobel prize 1962

[Henk Vreekamp]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

>http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3067222.ece
>Africans are less intelligent than Westerners, says DNA pioneer
>Fury at James Watson's theory: "All our social policies are based on the fact
>that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not
>really"
>By Cahal Milmo
>Published: 17 October 2007
>
>One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary
>row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than
>white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across
>racial groups was a delusion.
>
>James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who
>now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew
>widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain
>today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.
>
>The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and 
>science
>in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African
>countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever
>as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary. He claimed
>genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be 
>found
>within a decade.
>
>The newly formed Equality and Human Rights Commission, successor to the
>Commission for Racial Equality, saidit was studying Dr Watson's remarks "in
>full". Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was "inherently gloomy 
>about the
>prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact 
>that
>their intelligence is the same as ours ­ whereas all the testing says not
>really". He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be
>equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
>
>His views are also reflected in a book published next week, in which he 
>writes:
>"There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of
>peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have
>evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some
>universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."
>
>The furore echoes the controversy created in the 1990s by The Bell Curve, a
>book co-authored by the American political scientist Charles Murray, which
>suggested differences in IQ were genetic and discussed the implications of a
>racial divide in intelligence. The work was heavily criticised across the
>world, in particular by leading scientists who described it as a work of
>"scientific racism".
>
>Dr Watson arrives in Britain today for a speaking tour to publicise his latest
>book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. Among his first
>engagements is a speech to an audience at the Science Museum organised by the
>Dana Centre, which held a discussion last night on the history of scientific
>racism.
>
>Critics of Dr Watson said there should be a robust response to his views 
>across
>the spheres of politics and science. Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the 
>Home
>Affairs Select Committee, said: "It is sad to see a scientist of such
>achievement making such baseless, unscientific and extremely offensive
>comments. I am sure the scientific community will roundly reject what 
>appear to
>be Dr Watson's personal prejudices.
>
>"These comments serve as a reminder of the attitudes which can still exists at
>the highestprofessional levels."
>
>The American scientist earned a place in the history of great scientific
>breakthroughs of the 20th century when he worked at the University of 
>Cambridge
>in the 1950s and 1960s and formed part of the team which discovered the
>structure of DNA. He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine with his British
>colleague Francis Crick and New Zealand-born Maurice Wilkins.
>
>But despite serving for 50 years as a director of the Cold Spring Harbour
>Laboratory on Long Island, considered a world leader in research into cancer
>and genetics, Dr Watson has frequently courted controversy with some of his
>views on politics, sexuality and race. The respected journal Science wrote in
>1990: "To many in the scientific community, Watson has long been something 
>of a
>wild man, and his colleagues tend to hold their collective breath whenever he
>veers from the script."
>
>In 1997, he told a British newspaper that a woman should have the right to
>abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual. He
>later insisted he was talking about a "hypothetical" choice which could never
>be applied. He has also suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive,
>positing the theory that black people have higher libidos, and argued in 
>favour
>of genetic screening and engineering on the basis that "stupidity" could one
>day be cured. He has claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured,
>saying: "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think
>it would great."
>
>The Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory said yesterday that Dr Watson could not be
>contacted to comment on his remarks.
>
>Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University and a
>founder member of the Society for Social Responsibility in Science, said: 
>"This
>is Watson at his most scandalous. He has said similar things about women 
>before
>but I have never heard him get into this racist terrain. If he knew the
>literature in the subject he would know he was out of his depth 
>scientifically,
>quite apart from socially and politically."
>
>Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson's remarks to be looked at in the
>context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust, a black human
>rights group, said: "It is astonishing that a man of such distinction should
>make comments that seem to perpetuate racism in this way. It amounts to
>fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be looked at for grounds of legal
>complaint."

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