Nobel laureate who claimed blacks are genetically inferior stripped of titles - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-news-james-watson-stripped-honorary-titles-20190113-story.html James Watson, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who came under fire in 2007 for claiming that black people were intellectually inferior to white people, was stripped of his honorary titles at a New York research institution after he claimed to still stand by his decade-old comments. Watson, 90, is a pioneer in DNA research who won a Nobel Prize in 1962 for helping discover the structure of DNA. He was recently featured in the PBS documentary “American Masters: Decoding Watson,” which aired Jan. 2, and claimed that genes caused different results on the IQ tests of black and white people. Days after the show aired, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research institution on Long Island, issued a statement slamming Watson’s “reprehensible” remarks and distancing itself from the scientist. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory “rejects the unsubstantiated and reckless personal opinions Dr. James D. Watson expressed on the subject of ethnicity and genetics,” the statement read. “Dr. Watson’s statements are reprehensible, unsupported by science, and in no way represent the views of (the laboratory), its trustees, faculty, staff or students. The laboratory condemns the misuse of science to justify prejudice.” Meanwhile, son Rufus told the AP this month that his father suffered a car crash in October and is only minimally aware of his surroundings.

Good. You shouldn't be honored with science awards for standing against science.

It's ludicrous to think that a geneticist can believe in ideas that were disproven by genetics.

Didn't Watson and Crick steal a bunch of research from a female peer as well?

If he's 90 years old and survived a recent car crash, I doubt he's still all right in the head anymore.

I've always been curious about this and figure this is a good place to ask: Can we prove with 100% certainty that there is no link between the genes that control outward physical appearance and genes that control intelligence/ability to retain information? Or prove a lack of association between these genes? Obviously treating people differently because of how they look is an awful thing to do either way, but I thought that humans didnt know enough about the brain to make conclusive determinations about things like that yet.

Sexism in science https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/james-watson-francis-crick-maurice-wilkins-and-rosalind-franklin

Genetic variation is a complicated thing that occurs within and across race, the problem is the idea of race categorizes genetic variation entirely on melanin content and facial structure, which makes sense in the context that it was invented in the 18th century when skin pigmentation and faces were the most readily visible distinction between different people, but results in it having basically no ability to categorize anything else. "Race" is able to identify to a statistically significant degree about 6% of human genetic variation, all of it readily visible characteristics, the other 94% is completely disconnected.AAA Statement on Race Also let's not forget that a large amount of human intelligence, at least the quantifiable sort, is based on education and environment, not just genetics.

while he wasn't young by any stretch of the imagination, he's doubling down on comments he already made on 2007, 12 years ago

haven't heard of this guy since middle school biology class, didn't know he was still around tbh

Clearly the interview happened before the car crash? Minimally aware doesn't sound like someone who should be moving around at all.

why are you replying to me and not mr. someguy who actually said it

because mr. someguy is right, he said watson is probably not in good shape, and that's true but you responded to someone who was like, "i think i heard this guy was shady" with a quote about his recent state, as if that was the cause of his shadyness

There is a lot wrong with measuring IQ by race and population it's not funny. For starters, it all hinges on the legitimacy of what determines IQ, which has been up for debate for decades. Second, similar to what you said, environment plays a MASSIVE role, but not in the way you stated. It's not a secret that due to the west's past and present history with institutional racism a great majority of poverty stricken areas are populated largely by black people. Being poor reduces your IQ by up to 13 points Study finds poverty reduces brain power | Reuters. As well as talking about the fact that certain poor areas literally still use lead pipes, which affect IQ, and we haven't even brought up education.

it seems I quoted the wrong person in my post by mistake

As I already cited: race, genetically speaking, is at best aesthetic and at most blunt is effectively nonexistent. On the other hand the social, IE nurture, component of race is very much real. Japan, China, and South Korea all have very demanding education systems, America's education system is not even fully desegregated, and as part of the legacy of colonialism many African nations completely lack a functional education system. Those are all real, identifiable, and potentially correctable reasons for a disparity in measured IQ. Adopting pseudoscientific racialism on the other hand assumes there is something in genetics that no geneticist has identified that determines intelligence, and that unknown something just happens to perfectly match up with what a German guy in the 18th century thought was a good system of dividing up the human race, despite said system not lining up with any modern genetics.

it ain't had you ever taken anthropology 101 you'd know that there is only so much genetic variation within a single species and a complex feature like "intelligence" (which is already pretty hard to quantify might I add) relies on ORDERS of magnitude more different genes than something like facial structure or skin color. this means that in order for the "intelligence" of a certain demographic to be notably different from another purely due to genetics and not socioeconomical factors both demographics would require to be isolated from one another for over hundreds of thousands of years because as soon as those two demographics meet eachother the genetics mix back up again and a new "baseline" is set across the entire species. If this actually occurs and the genetic gap actually is able to get that large, both demographics would literally stop being compatible for copulation and no be able to spawn decendents (which is what happened roughly 500,000 years ago when modern humans and Neanderthals started diverging as two species, though the cutoff point is pretty generous and they were able to play hookie with us for a long while). this is the very dumb tl;dr version and reality us much more nuanced but the fact of the matter is the genes that makes us look most different from one another are simply more "malleable" to the environment that the specific demographic lives which makes sense: if a gene doesn't need to differ much to increase our chances of survival that kind of gene will be transmitted throughout the species. It would make no sense for intelligence to be easily altered in such a way because it would result in VASTLY difference chances of survival. If there is pretty much one trait that every single demographic share across our species it's how smart we are because it's been the biggest driver of our success. so no, you're wrong, stop spreading misinformation and go take a fucking anthropology class because otherwise you make yourself look like an uneducated fool

Also, your source is a man who has been called "a concrete example of scientific fraud" whose methodology was once described as being so bad it could be mistaken for a satire of itself. OT: a concrete example of scientific fraud I thought I'd seen the name "griffe du lion" before, turns out he was a source for infamous racialist hackjob Charles Murray.

Whether it demeans or not, it's full of holes. It's not science

There is no clear correlation between the genes responsible for skin color and facial structure and the genes responsible for intelligence because first the scientific community can't even agree on an objective metric for what constitute intelligence, second the scientific community can't even pick appart which entire sets of genes would be specifically be responsible for human intelligence (it's actually entirely possible that this actually doesn't exist and that a vast percentage of our genes are intrinsically connected with our intelligence, even those not directly connected to brain development) and THIRD there is too many different genes involved and too many interactions between for it to be even STATISTICALLY possible that a specific demographic would share a set of genes that the rest of the human species doesn't.

We can isolate dog populations from another and force inbreeding on dogs with qualities we like. It is then no longer natural selection as their only criterion for survival is humans allowing it. This basically destroyed their genetic diversity compared to wolves (which dogs come from) and in all practical terms certain dogs are basically now a different species from their brethren because they're too big or too small to copulate (as they'll literally die at birth due to sheer anatomic difference). Breeds don't actually exist in nature, it's a thing humans came up with to name all their inbred animals to explain the difference between them. There aren't any dogs smarter than wolves, overall all dogs have less chance to survive in the wild and most of them are much stupider due to genetic defects cause by inbreeding (the accumulation of genetic flaws due to a lack of genetic diversity). Also, intelligence doesn't "evolve", it's an abstact concept trying to explain the complex behavior emergent from the interactions between all the systems in our body, between us and our environment and between us and other members of our species. This doesn't really mean anything. Wolves weren't specifically meant to be able to be tamed so by definition artificial selection can't be natural. We know this is not true because human societies have migrated in and out of cold environments and there is no evidence that this caused any alteration in genetics that would have impacted intelligence. Humans 50,000 years ago were basically as smart as us, why would such an important too for survival (basically the most important) ever decrease in quality? It's basically embedded in all of us. All humans require intelligence to survive. Don't you get it? Again, since you can't define intelligence in an actual objective manner and even determine how exactly that change could have occured (when it had no reason to at all from a survival perspective) yes you are wrong. The only observations you can actually make are socioeconomic unless you point out to me which exact genes are responsible for the difference in perceived intellectual prowess. Anything is literally wild conjecture. You'll have to explain because that sentence doesn't mean anything.

This is the crux here, intelligence is something we specifically vary in breeding animals because different levels of intelligence are critical for doing different jobs. A hunting dog is not doing the same things as a companion dog bred to be . The sheer act of domestication tends to result in reduced intelligence because extremely intelligent animals can be more difficult to control. The difference in selective factors that affect a hominid and those acting upon a domesticated dog are so vastly different that the example is utterly irrelevant. All humans benefit from high intelligence, but dogs are not bred to maximize intelligence across the board. I mean shit just think about the cosmetic difference between domestic dogs. Humans get different colored skin and slight changes to face shape, dog breeds range in weight from 7 lbs to 250 lbs. Dogs are so completely controlled in their artificial selection that using them as an example for how natural selection might act on humans is utterly fucking ludicrous.

Ho boy. So, beginning with ethnicity that place huge amount of focus in education and rather successful economies (China, Japan, Korea, etc), then following surroundings of each ethnicity on economical average, all based around test of quick recall of highly specific facts that are easier to claim for people in more prosperous locations than the others. An attempts was made, but not successful.

You're starting from a false premise. In genetics evolution simply means the change in the genes of a species over subsequent generations. Literally nothing else. Intelligence is an abstract concept, it's not a gene therefore you can't define it as being able to evolve. Inteligence might change over the evolution of a species but it is simply an expression of the genes of said species. Overall, the intelligence of individuals with a certain species is going to be the same across the entire species.

I don't know man, but it's awfully close to being straight up racist

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/224422/81c39bf4-0d6d-4305-a387-2dbbf947a127/Source just trust me.png https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/224422/a81e5af3-5138-4a55-8262-2b4f843bee90/Hot Fuzz Shame.gif

The man is literally suffering from mental issues and you are not even making a point - you're jerking off to your own martyrdom by "shocking the snowflakes". By default, your goal is simply to cause conflict and not actually bring out a valid point.

The first two are good sources. Good sources in argument of what exactly? I don't know but they could be used in a scientific paper amongt many other sources if you were to try to write a scientific article that had a modicum of chance to pass peer review. First one says "the total number of neurons matter more than the size of the brain, humans have more neurons therefore we are smarter than other animals". Nothing about the difference between human demographics, though. Second one says they checked between the different volumes of certain areas between blacks and whites." The conclusion is I quote: "The biological implications of our findings are unclear as we do not know what factors may be contributing to these observed differences. However, this study raises several questions that have important implications for the future of neuropsychiatric research." Basically, "there's variations but we don't know why and we don't know how they affect anything. We need to do more research." Third one is... a book review on the research a scientist made in 1995 who turned out to be a white supremacist, whose work is criticized by the vast majority of the scientific community? It's kinda funny because your first source basically says "brain size doesn't matter" and all your other sources relates to ethnicity and brain size. ok...

Ten years on this site and the hill he decided to die on was racialism.