Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb

[Jamougha]

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I'm confused. Are you saying that humans can't and don't diverge through geographical separation? If Asia has the longest civilized population of humans, I would expect that their intelligence quotient may have devoloped more rapidly than the rest of us. Is that a wrong assumption to make?

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There are no barriers to gene propagation between, say, Paris, Shanghai and Cape Town. Any highly adaptive genes should spread between populations at each of those points in a few millenia at most. To illustrate this, if you were to walk from Cape Town to Paris to Shanghai there would never be any point where you could differentiate a change of race; the characteristics that we associate with race would vary smoothly along the way.

It's plausible that there could be differences in gentic intelligence between, say, the European/African/Asian block and the Native Americans, or some of the Pacific island groups, or Australian Aboriginals. Or even the Ashkenazim, who form a small and genetically isolated population, ideal for fast evolutionary change. It's not clear how significant genetic differences in man intelligence could emerge between Africans and Europeans.

Actually i suspect that the selection pressure on hunter-gatherers for intelligence would be rather higher than on farmers fwiw.

[madnak]

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Come on. He didn't say that. His statement is much weaker.
Maybe like there's a light-skinned bell curve and a dark-skinned bell curve. The mean IQ of the light-skinned bell curve is higher than the dark-skinned one. And he didn't say by how much, but maybe he implied it was statistically significant.
The politically correct radical left does not allow the topic to be open for discussion.

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I'm fine with all that, and I don't think it's unlikely that there exists some correlation between skin color and intelligence. I do think the number of conclusions that can be drawn from such a correlation limited.

[madnak]

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I normally agree with you Andy, and maybe you're more familiar with this guy than I am (first thing I ever read from him).

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He's a very famous scientist known for crazy bigotry. He's famous because he took credit for the work of other scientists.

To the rest I reiterate my point about race. "Blacks" aren't a homogeneous group. The concept of a common genetic heritage among blacks that makes them better at sports is the fallacy. The sensationalize is ludicrous, I'll grant that. I actually think it encourages racism.

[andyfox]

I'm more than old enough, unfortunately, to remember the Jimmy the Greek incident. Here's what he said:

"The black is a better athlete to begin with because he's been bred to be that way -- because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. This goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trading, the owner -- the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid."

I also remember the Al Campanis (general manager of the Dodgers) controversy. He said that blacks "may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or, perhaps, a general manager." He also said that blacks are often poor swimmers "because they don't have the buoyancy."


But maybe I'm not making my point clearly. I have no problem with somebody stating a scientifically derived conclusion, whatever that conclusion might be. Even if it upsets my liberal predilections. Conservatives give more money to charity? If it's a proven fact, it's a proven fact.

But if someone states that liberals are the scum of the earth and, by the way, they're cheap bastards, look at the fact that they don't give as much money to charity as conservatives, I say "wait a second." First of all, the guy's obviously biased against liberals because he says they're the scum of the earth. And secondly, he's taking the fact that liberals give less money to charity and concluding that they're cheap. It should at least be considered that that conclusion is based on his assessment of liberals as "scum," rather than on a direct relationship between contributions to charity and being cheap.

This is a touchy subject because it's a refuge for racists. And Watson is clearly a racist. That renders his conclusions about race suspect.

[jogsxyz]

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I also remember the Al Campanis (general manager of the Dodgers) controversy. He said that blacks "may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or, perhaps, a general manager." He also said that blacks are often poor swimmers "because they don't have the buoyancy."


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Campanis did more for the advancement of blacks in sports management than any other person in history. At least that incident helped open the doors to blacks.

[Lestat]

So the main problem I see with the Greek's comment is his use of the word, "bred" and reference to slavery. Otherwise, would you agree that what he said has at least some merit? I.e, African Americans can run faster and jump higher on average due to having different physical characteristics than white people?

I agree with you that when you make a racist comment the rest of what you say is (and should be), suspect. But people sometimes put their foot in their mouths unintentionally and that shouldn't take away from the main point of what they're getting at. Lord knows I've been guilty of this myself.

[Lestat]

<font color="blue"> The concept of a common genetic heritage among blacks that makes them better at sports is the fallacy. </font>

I don't understand. Why is it a fallacy? Aren't black people on average, bigger and stronger than white people? At the very least, African Americans have different physical characteristics than white people, no? Wouldn't this enable them to be better athletes in some sports and worse in other sports? Why is it racist to point that out?

[Lestat]

I agree that we're talking about such a short time frame, we wouldn't expect there to be much genetic change. And I think it's a fact that predators throughout the animal kingdom are more intelligent than their prey.

But there are a myriad of complexities (social, economic, etc.), which are created through civilized societies. It makes sense to me that certain areas of intelligence might develop at a slightly faster pace than those living closer to the ansestral plain so to speak.

[andyfox]

"Lord knows . . ."

Dangerous thing to say on this forum. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

My recollection is that Jimmy the Greek got in trouble for his remarks in general; I don't recall if the use of the word "bred" was his downfall; perhaps it was. I know that Campanis's use of the word "necessities" was what did him in.

Watson did not put his foot in his mouth unintentionally. He has a long history of making controversial remarks. According to a former protegee, these are not mistakes, but carefully planned statements that reflect his thinking:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article2630748.ece

[Money2Burn]

I'm not sure if there have been studies done about the "average" black man and white man comparing their physical strength. Most of the time I hear people making this argument about blck people being better atheletes on "average" they point to professional sports and things such as the Olympics ands say "See the fastest man in the world is black. 85% of pro basketball players are black(not sure if that is the actuall statistic or not). Therefore the average black man must be more athletic than the average white man." This is wrong because professional ateletes make up such a small percentage of the overall population you can't draw conclusions about the "average" person of that race from those observations. There may be higher variance amoungst one race allowing the outliers to achieve more than the outliers of another race, but that can tell you nothing about the average.