October 18, 2007
FIRST RULE OF DARWINISM--THINK IT, DON'T SAY IT:
James Watson: Master of the scientific gaffe (Michael Marshall, 10/18/07, New Scientist)
London's Science Museum has cancelled a sell-out talk by James Watson this Friday. It follows his remarks in an interview with the Sunday Times, in which he suggested that black people are less intelligent than white people. He was quoted as saying 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 went on to say that his hope is that everyone is equal, but that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true". [...]He has previously argued that stupidity is a disease that should be cured, and that "it would be great" if women were genetically engineered to be pretty.
Just as population controllers never think they're one of the one's who are excess, so do eugenicists never think they're one of the ones who are defective. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 18, 2007 7:31 PM
Wilson's arguing (as far as I can tell from the Sunday Times interview) that African intelligence is lower and that needs to be taken into account with developmental programs. And it is indisputable that it is lower whatever the underlying causes.
Which why I want maximum effort paid to fortifying iron and flour with micro-nutrients as was done in the West decades ago. That would quite easily raise IQ by a few points.
He's also saying that there's no reason to suggest that separately evolving human groups would have similar intellectual capacities. Again, scientifically that's not an unreasonable hypothesis.
Posted by: Ali Choudhury at October 19, 2007 7:19 AMYou're not talking about intelligence but IQ scores.
Yes, by any normal Darwinian terms they are a different species than he is, which is why he wants to do something about them. Competition and survival, dontcha know.
I thought eugenics was an example of an attempt to intelligently design the next generation.
Posted by: Joseph Hertzlinger at October 19, 2007 4:27 PMBingo! Applied Darwinism is Intelligent Design.
Posted by: oj at October 19, 2007 8:21 PM