Russian billionaire buys James Watson's DNA Nobel Prize for $3 Million, only to return it to him - Polidicks

[QUOTE]Russia’s richest man and a major stakeholder in Arsenal football club has bought James Watson’s Nobel Prize award for £2.6m with the intention of giving it back to him.Alisher Usmanov, who owns the country’s biggest ore producer, bought the medal at an auction at Christie’s in New York city as he wanted to make sure the double helical DNA structure stayed in the scientist’s possession. Mr Usamanov was upset to hear he would be selling it as he "deserved" the medal, and wanted to thank him for his discovery which has helped further research into cancer, the disease which killed his own father. Mr Watson, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for uncovering the double helix structure of DNA, sparked an outcry in 2007 and stunned the scientific community when he suggested that people of African descent were inherently less intelligent than white people. Mr Watson, 86, apologised but saw his income had plummeted and he was forced him to retire from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York. He still holds the position of chancellor emeritus there. The billionaire, who was named Britain's wealthiest man in the Sunday Times rich list for 2013 with an estimated worth of £10.7 billion, said: “James Watson is one of the greatest biologists in the history of mankind and his award for the discovery of DNA structure must belong to him. [/QUOTE] [url]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11284192/Russian-billionaire-buys-James-Watsons-DNA-Nobel-Prize-to-return-it-to-him.html[/url]

What a cool guy

Damn that's nice

Interesting one of histories greatest genius' is a racist. It's amazing that people truly despise Africans. There must be a reason for this outside of xenophobia.

[QUOTE=Hollosoulja;46685319]Interesting one of histories greatest genius' is a racist. It's amazing that people truly despise Africans. There must be a reason for this outside of xenophobia.[/QUOTE] And you just had to derail a good story...

James Watson is a pretty big cunt, not going to lie. Read a bit about Rosalind Franklin for a great example as to why. [url]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/photo51/[/url] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_51[/url] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin[/url]

[QUOTE=Deathtrooper2;46685355]And you just had to derail a good story...[/QUOTE] Well in his defense the article is the one who brought it up

[QUOTE=Hollosoulja;46685319]Interesting one of histories greatest genius' is a racist. It's amazing that people truly despise Africans. There must be a reason for this outside of xenophobia.[/QUOTE] he probably looked at a bunch of raw (very possibly loaded) statistics and thought he was being clever for not taking any outside stuff into account, like DainBramage did with all that bell curve insanity. but of course you need a fairly strong undercurrent of racism or at least ignorance to see that and not immediately toss it in the bin. it still very much remains eugenics-style pseudoscience

"[I am] 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." The exact quote, if anyone's wondering.

[QUOTE=Hollosoulja;46685319]Interesting one of histories greatest genius' is a racist. It's amazing that people truly despise Africans. There must be a reason for this outside of xenophobia.[/QUOTE] dude basically went bankrupt cause he was racist, he brought on himself tbh. he is also very obviously an eugenicist considering some shit he said, still i guess he deserves to keep the medal, nice on the russian dude.

[QUOTE=elfbarf;46685361]James Watson is a pretty big cunt, not going to lie. Read a bit about Rosalind Franklin for a great example as to why. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin[/url][/QUOTE] Oh wow, this makes me think of him as that one guy who kept stealing peoples work and fucking their wives. Although, he was the existential thinker that put 2 and 2 together to make this discovery, although the Rosalind Franklin could have easily arrived at such a conclusion as well.

[QUOTE=Hollosoulja;46685319]Interesting one of histories greatest genius' is a racist. It's amazing that people truly despise Africans. There must be a reason for this outside of xenophobia.[/QUOTE] Why are you so sure that his studies at the subject were biased/not right?

He said this when he was almost 80. Old people tend to say messed up stuff, make connections where there are none. I often get surprised what my dad says these days, I just try to ignore it.

As offensive as it is, he is somewhat right. Hell, an average FP member probably has more knowledge than some communities in rural Africa do. An example could be how everyone pretends not to see elephant in a room when extremely religious people from poor African countries emigrate to Europe. Imagine what clusterfuck would there be in Africa which still has tribal wars and death sentences for sorcery if they had some of the western world policies applied in some of their countries today. It's a messed up situation and I don't know solution to it, because the problem is people will rather stick to their culture than educate themselves.

[QUOTE=elfbarf;46685361]James Watson is a pretty big cunt, not going to lie. Read a bit about Rosalind Franklin for a great example as to why. [url]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/photo51/[/url] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_51[/url] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin[/url][/QUOTE] you can't get a nobel prize post-humaniously, the nobel committee acknowledged that she would have been on the podium with them [editline]10th December 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=AntonioR;46685482]He said this when he was almost 80. Old people tend to say messed up stuff, make connections where there are none. I often get surprised what my dad says these days, I just try to ignore it.[/QUOTE] his biography came out back in the 60s and still held these views

I have not personally read any research directly on the subject but I did have a professor talk about how when the first Homo erectus started migrating out of Africa they were the ones who were more willing to take risks and leave their natural habitat for the unknown, and that the harsh conditions of unknown extreme climates caused the ones who were not smart enough to die off, leaving the survivors to be slightly above average when compared to the ones who were satisfied to stay in their comfortable habitat. I just thought it was an interesting concept.

[QUOTE=Spirit_Breaker;46685519]As offensive as it is, he is somewhat right. Hell, an average FP member probably has more knowledge than some communities in rural Africa do. An example could be how everyone pretends not to see elephant in a room when extremely religious people from poor African countries emigrate to Europe. Imagine what clusterfuck would there be in Africa which still has tribal wars and death sentences for sorcery if they had some of the western world policies applied in some of their countries today. It's a messed up situation and I don't know solution to it, because the problem is people will rather stick to their culture than educate themselves.[/QUOTE] yeah but his quote wasn't about having the development and money for an education system it was about being inherently genetically less intelligent which is bullshit

[QUOTE=Venezuelan;46685800]yeah but his quote wasn't about having the development and money for an education system it was about being inherently genetically less intelligent which is bullshit[/QUOTE] He's a geneticist and biologist, of course he's going to use genetics and biology to explain something, especially something where one group of people consistently do worse at certain things than another group of people. If all you have is a hammer, everything's going to look like a nail.

[QUOTE=Hollosoulja;46685319]Interesting one of histories greatest genius' is a racist. It's amazing that people truly despise Africans. There must be a reason for this outside of xenophobia.[/QUOTE] Please go away [editline]10th December 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Venezuelan;46685800]yeah but his quote wasn't about having the development and money for an education system it was about being inherently genetically less intelligent which is bullshit[/QUOTE] Except it isn't bullshit. How can you explain the developmental differences between Saharan African Culture, Asia Minor Culture, Sub-Saharan African Culture, East/West Asian Cultures, European Culture, and Native North/South/Central American Cultures? European, Asian, and Middle Eastern cultures developed at a faster rate than African and Native American cultures. I'm not saying it's because Africans are "inherently dumber", but you've got to examine the empirical evidence and at least concede that there must be something causing such a stark developmental gap.

[QUOTE=Snoberry Tea;46685901]Except it isn't bullshit. How can you explain the developmental differences between Saharan African Culture, Asia Minor Culture, Sub-Saharan African Culture, East/West Asian Cultures, European Culture, and Native North/South/Central American Cultures? European, Asian, and Middle Eastern cultures developed at a faster rate than African and Native American cultures. I'm not saying it's because Africans are "inherently dumber", but you've got to examine the empirical evidence and at least concede that there must be something causing such a stark developmental gap.[/QUOTE] *starting gun fires*

[QUOTE=Venezuelan;46686011]*starting gun fires*[/QUOTE] What

[QUOTE=Snoberry Tea;46686075]What[/QUOTE]You'll see soon enough :v:

[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;46686127]You'll see soon enough :v:[/QUOTE] Do you mean the hordes of people who don't understand developmental psychology on a cultural level rating me dumb because they think what I said is 'racist' even though I never said that "race x is better than race y"? :v: Yeah no I expected that and don't really care about ratings.

[QUOTE=Snoberry Tea;46685901] European, Asian, and Middle Eastern cultures developed at a faster rate than African and Native American cultures. I'm not saying it's because Africans are "inherently dumber", but you've got to examine the empirical evidence and at least concede that there must be something causing such a stark developmental gap.[/QUOTE] Developed faster? No, native american cultures predate european cultures by centuries Developed in different, more efficient directions? Yes You also got to take in account the geography. We can call the Incans dumb for never using the wheel for transport, but then you remember the llama is an excelent multi-purpose animal, and carts are useless without good hauling animals or roads.

[QUOTE=T553412;46686274]Developed faster? No, native american cultures predate european cultures by centuries Developed in different, more efficient directions? Yes You also got to take in account the geography. We can call the Incans dumb for never using the wheel for transport, but then you remember the llama is an excelent multi-purpose animal, and carts are useless without good hauling animals or roads.[/QUOTE] They did develop faster and you can't really claim otherwise. By the time we encountered the Native Americans we had ships-of-the-line, black powder, cannons, rifles, rudimentary steam driven machines, we had discovered how to make metallurgical alloys such as bronze, brass, and steel The Chinese invented gunpowder before any other culture. The Arabian cultures developed advanced mathematics, physics, chemistry, and other sciences, the Europeans refined and expanded on those theories. Meanwhile the Mayans and Incans, who are accepted as the most advanced civilization of the "new world", carved boats out of tree trunks, practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, and still used stone and basic metals to make spears and obsidian bladed swords. I'm not saying they're dumb. I'm saying there's an obvious gap in development. They didn't develop in a "different direction", they just developed slower. They were effectively in a different era compared to Eurasian cultures. Probably the biggest reason is lack of such a dense population base. Europe and Asia have historically been very densely populated compared to Africa and the Americas. This contributed to more wars and more inter-communication between different ideological and ethnic groups, which would push innovation. Civilization X invents the iron sword, Civilization Y invents the shield to counter it. Civilization X invents the halberd to counter that, Civilization Y invents a arquebus, etc etc That being said, there are more likely than not ADDITIONAL factors that contributed to these gaps in development. Population density is probably the biggest contributing factor. I would say 'war' or 'threat of war' would be one as well, but records show that sub-saharan african civilizations and new world civilizations tended to be just as active on that front as Europeans and Asians were. But perhaps the style of warfare being different reduced the dependency on developing new technologies to counter effective standards. Whereas in Europe a war would have been, for lack of a better term, "more civilized" (women and children GENERALLY left unharmed, prisoners of war GENERALLY not slaughtered/sacrified, etc) it would have left more infrastructure intact in the 'conquered' civilization to induce a need for technological superiority to counter what the invaders had used; In the new world or african tribes, history has GENERALLY shown that these standards did not exist. Whole villages were wiped out, women and children were enslaved and raped (the women, not the children) and forced into servitude or outright slaughtered, prisoners weren't taken, etc etc. With no 'conquered populace' to revolt or gain the upper hand, there would be less reason to develop a counter-balancing technology, thus encouraging a more stagnant intellectual development.

[QUOTE=Snoberry Tea;46685901]European, Asian, and Middle Eastern cultures developed at a faster rate than African and Native American cultures. I'm not saying it's because Africans are "inherently dumber", but you've got to examine the empirical evidence and at least concede that there must be something causing such a stark developmental gap.[/QUOTE] I think being on different continents and in different biomes might have more to do with it than race the way you're considering differences in the use of technology is incredibly simple, as well. Real life isn't a game of civ, and you're just plain wrong on a lot of points.

[QUOTE=Snoberry Tea;46686394][b]Whereas in Europe a war would have been, for lack of a better term, "more civilized" (women and children GENERALLY left unharmed, prisoners of war GENERALLY not slaughtered/sacrified, etc) it would have left more infrastructure intact in the 'conquered' civilization to induce a need for technological superiority to counter what the invaders had used; In the new world or african tribes, history has GENERALLY shown that these standards did not exist. Whole villages were wiped out, women and children were enslaved and raped (the women, not the children) and forced into servitude or outright slaughtered, prisoners weren't taken, etc etc. With no 'conquered populace' to revolt or gain the upper hand, there would be less reason to develop a counter-balancing technology, thus encouraging a more stagnant intellectual development.[/b][/QUOTE] Highlighted the bullshit for you. Europeans were just as "savage" and from an Anthropological perspective it's innopropriate to judge certain cultural practices as "barbaric" or "uncivilized. It's called Ethnocentrism The reason for slower development is mostly geography. Europeans had access to a varity of domesticated animals, crops such as corn and wheat, and an overall better starting climate. To say Africa didn't develop is asinine. Look at the Carthaginans, or the Egyptians or the Numedians or Sumarians. Colonization sent Africa back centuries in development as well. As for the native americans, well they arrived at the americas much later than the Europeans reaches their homelands. This meant they were further behind in development. They also lacked domesticated animals to help with crops. Can you imagine Europe developing without the bull or oxen? Surplus food storage leads to more specialized workforces which in turn leads to new develowmts and innovation. TL;DR Geography Geography Geography

[QUOTE=Venezuelan;46685800]yeah but his quote wasn't about having the development and money for an education system it was about being [B]inherently genetically less intelligent which is bullshit[/B][/QUOTE] [citation needed] How is it so unfathomable that he might be right? I have no idea if he is, I'm no biologist, but just because racist assholes say something doesn't mean it's now not okay to do actual research on that subject. It's a fact that black people have different genes than white people (if you look very closely you can see that the skin actually has a slightly different color).

[QUOTE=Robber;46686636][citation needed] How is it so unfathomable that he might be right? I have no idea if he is, I'm no biologist, but just because racist assholes say something doesn't mean it's now not okay to do actual research on that subject. It's a fact that black people have different genes than white people (if you look very closely you can see that the skin actually has a slightly different color).[/QUOTE] "Different genes" is a very broad term. Everyone has different genes. You realize there is more genetic differences between siblings then between white or black people right?

[QUOTE=SlyManx;46686664]"Different genes" is a very broad term. Everyone has different genes. You realize there is more genetic differences between siblings then between white or black people right?[/QUOTE] Exactly, thanks