[tt] Independent: (James Watson) Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than Westerners

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Too bad he was countered with fury rather than data-driven evidence.

Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than Westerners
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3067222.ece
7.10.17

Celebrated scientist attacked for race comments: "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

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, said it 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 highest professional 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."