Black people "less intelligent" claims scientist

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2677098.ece

Ahnimus

Well, it appears evident that Watson hasn't studied Psychology.

trappedinmyradio

Ahnimus wrote:

Well, it appears evident that Watson hasn't studied Psychology.

why did you choose psychology?

Ahnimus

trappedinmyradio wrote:

why did you choose psychology?

Psychology has been concerned with this question for ages. My understanding is that there is some variability on the tests, but the mean for black people is lower than white people. Yet, another possible bias arises in the IQ tests themselves, whether or not they are culturally fair, and that has been debated for some time.

We also should concern ourselves with the effects of beliefs. It's been shown that Asian Women performing a math test will perform better if verbally cued with the stereotype "Asians are good at math", however, when verbally cued with the stereotype "Women are poor at math", they perform poorly. So, there may be some subject-expectancy or oberserver-expectancy biases inherent in intelligence testing. Not to mention Watson's own personal hypothesis doesn't appear to be based on anything but a presupposition that cognitive abilities evolved differently.

I understand Dr. Watson's interest in whether or not there are real intelligence differences. I heard from Christoph Koch, a neuroscientist, that african and european brains look slightly different, but you'd have to be a master of neuroanatomy to identify the differences. This alone isn't sufficient to support Watson's beliefs. There is no evidence currently that supports his belief and far too many possible biases and errors inherent in the study of intelligence to make such a conclusion at this time. Not to mention, there are many other things that cause far more deviation than possible genetic causes. For example, intellectually impoverished and financially impoverished environments, like the ghetto.

cornnifer

i'm pretty sure this is the same James Watson hat once argued that a woman should have the right to abort a fetus if it were found to be carrying a "gay" gene. All nobel prizes aside, it seems that his reputation as an ignorant dickhead precede him. As always, consider the source.

gue_barium

Ahnimus wrote:

Psychology has been concerned with this question for ages. My understanding is that there is some variability on the tests, but the mean for black people is lower than white people. Yet, another possible bias arises in the IQ tests themselves, whether or not they are culturally fair, and that has been debated for some time.

We also should concern ourselves with the effects of beliefs. It's been shown that Asian Women performing a math test will perform better if verbally cued with the stereotype "Asians are good at math", however, when verbally cued with the stereotype "Women are poor at math", they perform poorly. So, there may be some subject-expectancy or oberserver-expectancy biases inherent in intelligence testing. Not to mention Watson's own personal hypothesis doesn't appear to be based on anything but a presupposition that cognitive abilities evolved differently.

I understand Dr. Watson's interest in whether or not there are real intelligence differences. I heard from Christoph Koch, a neuroscientist, that african and european brains look slightly different, but you'd have to be a master of neuroanatomy to identify the differences. This alone isn't sufficient to support Watson's beliefs. There is no evidence currently that supports his belief and far too many possible biases and errors inherent in the study of intelligence to make such a conclusion at this time. Not to mention, there are many other things that cause far more deviation than possible genetic causes. For example, intellectually impoverished and financially impoverished environments, like the ghetto.

If you hadn't mentioned the environment there at the end, I'd have sworn you were agreeing.

gue_barium

cornnifer wrote:

i'm pretty sure this is the same James Watson hat once argued that a woman should have the right to abort a fetus if it were found to be carrying a "gay" gene. All nobel prizes aside, it seems that his reputation as an ignorant dickhead precede him. As always, consider the source.

The source being?
1) an ignorant dickhead?
or
2) God's creation?

surferdude

cornnifer wrote:

i'm pretty sure this is the same James Watson hat once argued that a woman should have the right to abort a fetus if it were found to be carrying a "gay" gene.

Why shouldn't a woman be allowed to abort a fetus with a "gay" gene? After all, women abort fetuses without the "gay" gene. Women abort fetuses with the Down's gene. Why should a fetus with the "gay" gene be treated any different?

macgyver06

i wonder what crick thinks of all this

know1

cornnifer wrote:

i'm pretty sure this is the same James Watson hat once argued that a woman should have the right to abort a fetus if it were found to be carrying a "gay" gene. All nobel prizes aside, it seems that his reputation as an ignorant dickhead precede him. As always, consider the source.

But...women already have the right to an abortion for no reason at all so he's not really saying anything there.

And on the topic of the thread, I'd like to say to him that I feel scientists are less smart than the general population.

harrymanback

Truth is, against popular opinion, all men are not created equal. Not to be an asshole, but is it possible? Sure he should know that his statements would not be met with open arms, but could it be possible? Stereotype or no stereotype, blacks are more athletic than whites. Look at professional sports and that is all the proof you need. Sure there are whites who may be more athletic than blacks, but overall there is no comparison. Conversely, could it be that blacks are less intelligent than whites.

Ahnimus

macgyver06 wrote:

i wonder what crick thinks of all this

He's deadskies

Ahnimus

harrymanback wrote:

Truth is, against popular opinion, all men are not created equal. Not to be an asshole, but is it possible? Sure he should know that his statements would not be met with open arms, but could it be possible? Stereotype or no stereotype, blacks are more athletic than whites. Look at professional sports and that is all the proof you need. Sure there are whites who may be more athletic than blacks, but overall there is no comparison. Conversely, could it be that blacks are less intelligent than whites.

It could be, but you'd have to have a theory that accounts for a lot of possible biases and errors. That has an evolutionary explanation that can fit into a small time period.

There has been a lot of study of race and intelligence and there are no such theories. It's one think to speculate, it's another to claim truth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence

The best research tells us the mean is lower for blacks, but when we get blacks to write an IQ test they beat whites.

know1

harrymanback wrote:

Truth is, against popular opinion, all men are not created equal. Not to be an asshole, but is it possible? Sure he should know that his statements would not be met with open arms, but could it be possible? Stereotype or no stereotype, blacks are more athletic than whites. Look at professional sports and that is all the proof you need. Sure there are whites who may be more athletic than blacks, but overall there is no comparison. Conversely, could it be that blacks are less intelligent than whites.

Agree to an extent, but the truth is "white" never equals "white" and "black" never equals "black", so his comments are short-sighted and ignorant.

Ahnimus

White and Black

Hey, you're right, they don't really equal White and Black

Ahnimus

I'm not gonna call myself white anymore. I'll be FFCC99 from now on.

know1

Ahnimus wrote:

White and Black

Hey, you're right, they don't really equal White and Black

I just mean someone that you would call "white" is not going to have the same exact geneology, family tree, genetics - whatever the right term is - as basically any other white person so the comparison is flawed.

Ahnimus

know1 wrote:

I just mean someone that you would call "white" is not going to have the same exact geneology, family tree, genetics - whatever the right term is - as basically any other white person so the comparison is flawed.

Yea, well if the following is true

In work described on page 1151, geneticists found that characteristic DNA sequences called markers on the Y (male) chromosome in a huge sample of men in Asia and Oceania could be traced to forefathers who lived in Africa in the past 35,000 to 89,000 years. Two other groups studying Y chromosome markers have come to a similar conclusion. Together with a variety of studies showing that mitochondrial DNA is of recent African origins, anthropologists now have two strong lines of evidence in favor of the "Out of Africa" model, which says that the ancestors of living humans swept out of Africa in the past 200,000 years and replaced all indigenous people they encountered. Researchers point out, however, that it is still possible that some of our nuclear DNA came from archaic humans who were not part of the recent migration out of Africa. Thus, a competing theory called "multiregionalism," which holds that living humans are descended from several archaic Old World populations, including Neandertals, is not yet dead.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/292/5519/1051b

It leaves a window of 35,000 to 200,000 years of evolutionary time to develop the needed genetic mutations to account for an increased intelligence of those humans who left Africa. If some of those mutations occurred later, it might only affect a small portion of "whites", Jews for example, they are really smart, stereotypically. It's more than likely a cultural thing, than it is a biological thing.

puremagic

He writes that “there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically.

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This is statement true only because its limited. Its not based on genetics, its based on developmental separation. It doesn't provide a bases that a person geographically separated or isolated could not be learned or that they genetically lack intelligence. This is a proven application with American blacks, the re-education of the American Indians, whites after the Depression, the people of the Appalichian, Tennessee and Eastern Kentucky valleys.

What country is on par or subpar to even begin a comparison of African intellect. This is an entire subcontinent of people who have been maintained in a state of world separation, underdeveloped and undereducated and yet many have achieve f reedom from colonization. A population that has been keep at its purported ancestral level and yet they are heads of state and sit at the UN. Yes, IQ testing would automatically show that the majority of the workers are not on the intellectual level of western standards, that's not to say that such people are automatically "genetically" intellectually inferior.

There's no valid theory here to support his view as a genetict scientist, just a man.

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

an apology of some sort?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071018/ap_on_sc/controversial_scientist

RolandTD20Kdrummer

Yeah that's all good, but who has the bigger rims?