Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science...ace/index.html

This raises two questions in my mind,
1) Is this true?

2) Should I believe it is true because this guy obviously knows more about genetics than %99.99999 of the population?
(Similar to some of the arguements thrown around about Global Warming (this isnt a hit on global warming just making a comparision))

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

This isn't really something that being a geneticist qualifies you to answer. That being said, there's no particular reason to expect Africans and Europeans to test/perform the same. It's also one hell of a bitch to measure fairly because of the implicit cultural biases in testing (and who's doing the testing? Euros). If there's evidence that stands up to close scrutiny, sure, believe it, but don't believe it just because Watson said so. And expect a lot of fair and rational reporting on the subject.

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

I'd imagine part of it is due to malnutrition. If as a child you don't have enough proteins etc., this can stunt brain development. Africa has a far higher number of people who grow up essentially starving than Europe. I wouldn't base it on genetics, but on how one grows up. If one's mind is constantly stimulated (good education) and one's stomach fed, then the person has the ability to meet up to their potential. If either of these things is not true, then brain growth can be stunted

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

I read about this today, thought it would make it here.

An interesting thing is that Asian-Americans outperformed both white and black counterparts in IQ tests.

Personally I don't see why there is any reason to believe that one group of a spicies seperated for any serious length of time (evolutionary speaking) with different diets, needs and survival mechanisms to develope cognitive ability's at the same rates or in the same areas.

Truth be told, this just shows that there is a difference in the way we measure intelligence between sample groups, but there is nothing to say that if we had a different method of testing intelligence (Maybe leaving 1000 people each genetic ancestory on 1000 identical islands for 2 months with no tools/food and measure weight loss) then the results would be different, and who knows in what way they would be different.

But it is not a surprise me to learn that different types of people perform differently to any specific test. Be that an IQ test, or a 100m sprint.

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

There is a professor / researcher at the University of Western Ontario who also made these claims. I remember when his studies were published people freaked out and wanted him removed from the university.

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

Regardless of whether it's true or not, I found this part of the article most interesting:

[ QUOTE ]
Watson is not the first scientist to show sympathy for the theory of a racial basis for intellectual difference. In March of last year Dr. Frank Ellis from Leeds University provoked anger in Britain after he admitted he found evidence that racial groups perform differently "extremely convincing."

[/ QUOTE ]

Apparently, the subject is so completely taboo that it's no longer PC for scientists to come to their own independent conclusions about how convincing the evidence actually is.

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

I have previously posted in this forum that I believe that there is an genetically-based IQ difference between races. To my mind, it would be more remarkable if there were not. There are clearly genetic advantages in other areas - for instance, blacks make better runners and whites better swimmers (just watch the next Olympics if you doubt this). However I think this:

[ QUOTE ]
He said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true"

[/ QUOTE ]

is retarded. You would have to work with a ton of people to be sure of this, and even then, utility at work is not a good measure of IQ (it mostly measures laziness, etc).

If you want to read a concise and fairly light argument for IQ differences between races, try The Inequality Taboo, by Charles Murray, one of the authors of the notorious "The Bell Curve". (The annotated and referenced version is here).

An expert's opinion on whether something is true should definitely influence your own beliefs. However, racial IQ difference is in the domain of psychology (or "psychometrics", if you like) and statistics, not genetics.

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

When the outcome of such findings will be that people ask if 'black are dumber' then yes, they should bloody well keep their mouths shut - because that is hardly what they are saying.

And I very much doubt the findings are solid enough to warrant giving them in simplified form in a newspaper interview - so if you ask me he killed his own academic career and reputation, and justly so.

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'd imagine part of it is due to malnutrition. If as a child you don't have enough proteins etc., this can stunt brain development. Africa has a far higher number of people who grow up essentially starving than Europe. I wouldn't base it on genetics, but on how one grows up. If one's mind is constantly stimulated (good education) and one's stomach fed, then the person has the ability to meet up to their potential. If either of these things is not true, then brain growth can be stunted

[/ QUOTE ]

These factors are always controlled for. Pretty much the sole thing that can't be completely controlled for is that being a part of, for instance, "black culture" is a disincentive to mental development. But this argument seems dubious in light of the fact that the biggest differences are found in tests which are the most abstract (more technically, the most g-loaded tests - g being the General Mental Factor) and not tests which involve things like knowledge or memory, which one would expect to be more affected by cultural environment.

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

[ QUOTE ]
Regardless of whether it's true or not, I found this part of the article most interesting:

[ QUOTE ]
Watson is not the first scientist to show sympathy for the theory of a racial basis for intellectual difference. In March of last year Dr. Frank Ellis from Leeds University provoked anger in Britain after he admitted he found evidence that racial groups perform differently "extremely convincing."

[/ QUOTE ]

Apparently, the subject is so completely taboo that it's no longer PC for scientists to come to their own independent conclusions about how convincing the evidence actually is.

[/ QUOTE ]

He teaches Russian, it's not like he's expressing a professional opinion.