'black people are less intelligent than white people'.....

[kerrynorth]

....according to Noble Prize winning scientist Dr. James Watson. Thanks be to Jesus I have a link for this or I will banned for ever more http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/mhmhcweymhgb/.

It certainly breathes life into this debate considering that he is a person who discovered part of the DNA. His comment about being inherently pessimistic about the future of Africa is also interesting! But I thought this one takes the biscuit: he said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”.

Wheres Angelcountry when you want him?

[Akrasia]

that guy deserves a ************************************ slap in the mouth the amount of damage he has done to civil rights with that one statement, I don't care how old he is.

An absolutely ridiculous statement. He admits that they haven't even found genes responsible for intelligence yet, but he claims that 'from what he has seen' blacks aren't as clever as whites... It seems to me that he is basing this entirely on this

“people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”.

[Munion]

A fairly standard comment for Watson. The guy's been trying to use his gravitas in the scientific world to push his pretty crazy far-right political views for years.

[kerrynorth]

A fairly standard comment for Watson. The guy's been trying to use his gravitas in the scientific world to push his pretty crazy far-right political views for years.

They are talking about it on Newstalk. The guy they have on is saying this par for the course with Watson, that he has a record of shooting his mouth off. He also referred to previous comments he made about women scientists!

[Barbarian]

women scientists

shurely shome mishtake!?

[Timoleague]

This is all a load of auld b*****x. The facts are that average population IQ testing shows that all races are roughly equal, but that blacks do slightly worse than whites who in turn do slightly worse than Asians and particularly of Jews of Eastern Europe(Ashkenazim) descent.

However what this doesn't take account of is
1 - IQ is not of itself an infallible guide to intelligence, amongst other things it ignores common sense. I suspect Watson has plenty of IQ and feck all common sense.

2 - Whilst the population wide stats are there - this of itself (even if true), does not mean that all blacks are stupid or for that all Ashkenazim Jews are geniuses.

[farnaby]

he said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”.

Scientist advocating layman use of adecdotal evidence to prove racial differences regarding an elusive, partially-constructed human property... Alert Richard Dawkins - adherence to objective scientific method obviously isn't as widespread as he suggests.

Why 'black employees'? Obviously didn't occur to him that white folks could have black bosses. I've had 3 black bosses in my working career - 2 highly intelligent, academically-distinguished hard-working leaders, one lazy, thick, excuse-filled eejit. I guess that completely disproves Watson's statements by his criteria for verification.

[Rahood]

The article quoted out of context is from the [Sunday Times]

[snip]
He says that he is “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”, and I know that this “hot potato” is going to be difficult to address. His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”. He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because “there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level”. 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. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so”.

When asked how long it might take for the key genes in affecting differences in human intelligence to be found, his “back-of-the-envelope answer” is 15 years. However, he wonders if even 10 years will pass. In his mission to make children more DNA-literate, the geneticist explains that he has opened a DNA learning centre on the borders of Harlem in New York. He is also recruiting minorities at the lab and, he tells me, has just accepted a black girl “but,” he comments, “there’s no one to recruit.”
[/snip]

It should be noted that Dr.Watson is on a book tour this week..........

[seanad voter]

Did he not say anything about Green people being more intelligent than Orange ones ?

[905]

This debate raises the whole issue of science and society. Is science only accepted when it suits society's values? I'm not for a minute saying he's right, but in a more racist future he would be seen as preaching truth in the wilderness. Much as peole who claimed racism was a meaningless term were ignored through much of the glory days of scientific racism. Which, lets not forget, was only a few decades ago.
Genetic studies have always been dancing along the edge of political correctness, with designer babies and quests for the gay gene.