James Watson, Race & Intelligence

[August1991]

James Watson is a geneticist who won a Nobel Prize for his discovery of the double helix nature of DNA.

Recently, he gave an interview to the Sunday Times. They reported (and stand by) his following words:

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”.

Timesonline

The article of the interview is cast in a manner suggesting that Nobel Prize winners go dotty with age. (And why is this in the entertainment section?)

More recently, Watson gave another interview to apologize:

He claimed to be baffled at the words attributed to him by The Sunday Times Magazine. “I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said. I can certainly understand why people reading those words have reacted in the ways they have,” he added.

A spokesman for The Sunday Times said that the interview with Dr Watson was recorded and that the newspaper stood by the story.

Timesonline

These interviews have attracted some attention (google: watson race intelligence) because they are so unpolitically correct and because of James Watson's status.

----

Thank God for America. I recall reading an interview with a Eurasian girl who was ashamed to walk in public in Thailand where she was born. Asked about her move to Los Angeles, she said, "I'm so happy. I am free."

Growing up in North America, I was fortunate to have had one parent and most teachers who taught me to take people as they were. I studied law but I prefer mathematics as a language and I have enjoyed using it in economics. Economics is the great leveler of human affairs. I felt perfectly comfortable with economic theory because it takes people as they are.

From a young age, growing up in a polyglot neighbourhood of different religions - I felt perfectly at ease with the idea that we were all equal. Indeed, I was astonished to learn when I first travelled abroad that most people in the world are fundamentally racist. As I learned about the world, I began to understand the logic of some of the prejudices.

Chinese and Europeans are different (and racism isn't merely a question of physionomy). It's also cultural or religious. Jews and Christians are also different. It is foolish to pretend otherwise.

Confused, I resorted to a basic principle that I think is still true. Each of us is different and we may even have greater similarity to some rather than others. Racial generalizations are not wrong. But the government of a civilized state must be blind to these differences. I would not wish for a world of John Lennon's Imagination where we all were indifferent to one another. We are different. Our groups are different too.

So, what are the characteristics of different groups?

In Sri Lanka, it is common to hear that the Singhalese are lazy and the Tamils make good accountants. In Cameroun, the Bamileke are good at business. According to Somerset Maugham, the Chinese outside of China are the Jews of the Orient. And according to James Watson, Africans are not intelligent.

I'll set aside the question of definition of "race". (I recall a wonderful letter to The Economist concerning a UK census question about "racial" origin. The writer asked how to describe his daughter given that her father was Welsh/Scottish and her mother Bantu/Arab.) Instead, I'll confront James Watson's idea (an idea that I fear is far too commonly held in the world) with my simple response.

My great-grandmother was born about 100 years before me. (IOW, there's about 40 generations in a 1000 years.) My great-grandmother was an illiterate fool (and I know this because my grandmother was illiterate). Going back several thousand years, my ancestors could not read, write or even think in any intelligible manner. The difference between me and my immediate ancestors is not genetics - it's education.

Each of us alive today carries the genes of someone alive at the time of Christ - 2000 years ago. Have these genes fundamentally changed? No. Any baby born then in 30 AD, brought by time machine to the present, could go to school and learn how to use a ThinkPad. Indeed, a child born 50,000 years ago, brought to the present could do the same - assuming the baby received modern day inoculations.

Our genes change but not noticeably in 50,000 years. 50,000 years is too short a time period. OTOH, the greatest change in 50,000 years is our education and what we know. If I were looking for differences between (for example) Africans, Chinese and Europeans, I'd look to how they educate themselves, what they know and how they desire to learn.

In this, the greatest scourge is slavery. I don't know its origins but it has coloured all of the modern world. Like a genetic affliction, it is passed on from generation to generation.

Edited October 19, 2007 by August1991

[NovaScotian]

Well said August!

[geoffrey]

I agree, very good post August.

It seems very clear to me that culture and education are the cornerstones of developing future leaders, not genetics or race (though certainly a component of genetics relates to intelligence).

In our current society, races are often still segregated, mostly by their own doing, and therefore develop distinct cultures. If there is any reason for disparity between racial groups from an intelligence perspective, it's due to this and not because one race may be more intelligent than another. That said, some cultural groups really have to take a look at what they are doing to encourage their kids to be free thinkers and future leaders.

Fundamentalist Christians and Muslims are defintiely the leaders in the cry against this. The intelligent design vs. evolution debate is one clear example. Any group that asks that science not be taught in schools to protect tradition is placing their kids at serious risk. We see this in the lesser developed nations of the world, when traditional 'realities' often outplace science, rationality and logic in teaching.

We can't ever let it become that way here.

[ScottSA]

Well written, well thought out post, August, but with, I'm afraid, a weak conclusion. I prefer to think there is no difference between races, but that may not be the truth...I just don't know, so I won't "confront" someone knows far more than I do about the subject. Neither I nor you have the slightest idea how much genetic drift or modification 50,000 years can bring, although I tend to agree with you on a visceral, if not particularly knowledgeable level.

Everyone realizes that people are phenomologically different...that uncomfortable fact is a bit hard to escape. But if you've lived elsewhere you know, as does anyone who has lived elsewhere, that people are different in other ways too...whether for cultural or genetic reasons none of us are able to tell, yet. Those are questions for a different and hopefully future age; one in which the pursuit of truth is more important than the pursuit of political correctness.

But the immediately relevant thing is that people feel they are different by category of race, and do so with a deep attachment that goes well beyond the blithe "education" prescription the left is so enamoured of, as if humanity is a tabula rasa upon which to imprint right-think. Facing that truth and acting accordingly is something we will do. Whether we do it now or after it's too late for the caucasian west is yet an open question.

[kimmy]

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."

A fundamentally sound statement. Politically incorrect, but scientifically, solid.

Confronted with this statement, a reputable scientist would not disagree. He would point out that there are no reliable conclusions that can be drawn from the statement. He might further point out that there is little reason to think that one environment would be more likely to select for intelligence than another, and therefore little reason to think that there'd be any significant deviation in intelligence from one reason to another.

Each of us alive today carries the genes of someone alive at the time of Christ - 2000 years ago. Have these genes fundamentally changed? No. Any baby born then in 30 AD, brought by time machine to the present, could go to school and learn how to use a ThinkPad. Indeed, a child born 50,000 years ago, brought to the present could do the same - assuming the baby received modern day inoculations.

Our genes change but not noticeably in 50,000 years. 50,000 years is too short a time period. OTOH, the greatest change in 50,000 years is our education and what we know. If I were looking for differences between (for example) Africans, Chinese and Europeans, I'd look to how they educate themselves, what they know and how they desire to learn.to generation.

The genes themselves may be substantially similar, but I think you are making a huge error in discounting the effect of 50,000 years of natural selection.

As an aside, a recent episode of "Crime Scene Investigation" had an interesting comment on natural selection. Musing on mankind's fear of the unknown, Gil Grissom said something to the effect of: "If you're on the plains of Africa and you see something out of the corner of your eye, it might be grass blowing in the wind, or it might be a hyena. If you assume it's a hyena and run away, you might live. If you assume it's grass blowing in the wind, and stand still, you die. We are descendants of the ones whose instinct was to ran away."

-k

[ScottSA]

The genes themselves may be substantially similar, but I think you are making a huge error in discounting the effect of 50,000 years of natural selection.

As an aside, a recent episode of "Crime Scene Investigation" had an interesting comment on natural selection. Musing on mankind's fear of the unknown, Gil Grissom said something to the effect of: "If you're on the plains of Africa and you see something out of the corner of your eye, it might be grass blowing in the wind, or it might be a hyena. If you assume it's a hyena and run away, you might live. If you assume it's grass blowing in the wind, and stand still, you die. We are descendants of the ones whose instinct was to ran away."

-k

I daresay your aside, couched in the language you use, is not an aside at all. If fight or flight is "instinct," and if 50,000 years is truly enough time to evolve to any substantive degree, and if we are the descendants of those who ran away, then by rights we ought to be a race of cringing fearful beings, and yet we're quite the opposite. At least most of us. I would suggest instead that, if are the premises above are true, that we're the descendants of those who snuck up on the waving grass, slew the hyena, and took it home for the stewpot. Yuck. I'm the descendant of hyena-eaters?

[Renegade]

We discussed a similar topic some time ago: "Thy're far above average", Racial impact on academic performance

What never fails to amaze me is not what Watson claims, but people reaction to it. It would seem the issue is so sensitive that it is much easier to attack the claimant for daring to make the claim, than to use evidence to refute the claim.

[Michael Hardner]

Renegade,

What never fails to amaze me is not what Watson claims, but people reaction to it. It would seem the issue is so sensitive that it is much easier to attack the claimant for daring to make the claim, than to use evidence to refute the claim.

Why would anyone be amazed by the reaction ? Racial prejudice is widely regarded as a scourge from which the west is only starting to emerge.

Most people have a knee-jerk reaction to things, and as such will react without thinking.

I also agree with Auguste that 50,000 years or less (maybe 10,000 years) isn't necessarily enough to differentiate intelligence by geographic region. Knowledge, of course, is retained by cultures but this isn't the same thing.

It's still pretty much impossible to separate nurture from nature, and I'm more amazed why some of these academics think it's worth trying to do that.

[M.Dancer]

Another way to look at this is: althought the separation of the species may have caused us to evolve intelligene differently, it can't be infered that it has made one smarter or less smart than the other.

[ScottSA]

It's still pretty much impossible to separate nurture from nature, and I'm more amazed why some of these academics think it's worth trying to do that.

Whyever would you say that?

[Michael Hardner]

Whyever would you say that?

Why do you ask ?

[Renegade]

Why would anyone be amazed by the reaction ? Racial prejudice is widely regarded as a scourge from which the west is only starting to emerge.

Probably because I give people more credit to act rationally than they deserve.

It's still pretty much impossible to separate nurture from nature, and I'm more amazed why some of these academics think it's worth trying to do that.

Difficult, possibly but not impossible. It is worth trying to make that separation because only if you understand the weight of each force, can you act to influence the forces which are truly under your control.

[White Doors]

Our genes change but not noticeably in 50,000 years. 50,000 years is too short a time period. OTOH, the greatest change in 50,000 years is our education and what we know. If I were looking for differences between (for example) Africans, Chinese and Europeans, I'd look to how they educate themselves, what they know and how they desire to learn.to generation.

It was long enough to change skin colour. It was long enough to change the size of our skulls and the shape of our skulls. It was long enough to change the physical build. it was long enough to change the eyes.

Why was it not long enough to change the brain?

[Michael Hardner]

It was long enough to change skin colour. It was long enough to change the size of our skulls and the shape of our skulls. It was long enough to change the physical build. it was long enough to change the eyes.

Why was it not long enough to change the brain?

WD - I don't think humans have evolved that much over 50K years. Over 1M years, yes, but not over 50K years.

[M.Dancer]

WD - I don't think humans have evolved that much over 50K years. Over 1M years, yes, but not over 50K years.

In fact, humans have evoved quite a bit according to the fossil records in the last 50,000 years. And a tangible record is the tool explosion which started about 50,000 which suggests that the mind may have evoved in new ways at that point.

Fossils found in Spain around that time display an "africaness" about them.....it is a few thousand years that they start appearing more european.

[ScottSA]

In fact, humans have evoved quite a bit according to the fossil records in the last 50,000 years. And a tangible record is the tool explosion which started about 50,000 which suggests that the mind may have evoved in new ways at that point.

Fossils found in Spain around that time display an "africaness" about them.....it is a few thousand years that they start appearing more european.

Link please?

[White Doors]

WD - I don't think humans have evolved that much over 50K years. Over 1M years, yes, but not over 50K years.

Humans only got to Europe at most 60, 000 years ago so how do you explain that?

Also, humans have been in China for at most 70,000 years, so again, how do you explain that?

Edited October 24, 2007 by White Doors

[Michael Hardner]

WE

Humans only got to Europe at most 60, 000 years ago so how do you explain that?

Also, humans have been in China for at most 70,000 years, so again, how do you explain that?

What am I supposed to be explaining ?

[White Doors]

WE

What am I supposed to be explaining ?

You stated that 50,000 years is not enough time for gentic differences and I showed you examples that demonstrate that you are clearly wrong.

[Michael Hardner]

WD,

Based on MD's post, if he can provide cites, and other posts I will consider myself educated on the matter that some evolution has indeed happened over 50K years. So, yes, the brain could have changed.

Did it ? Can we say for sure that the different tribes had different abilities to learn or to reach intelligence levels ? Were they that different from each other, say, 10000 years ago when civilization had yet to begin ? Are the differences statistically significant ?

I agree with Scott:

that people are different in other ways too...whether for cultural or genetic reasons none of us are able to tell, yet.

And as he said the examination of differences is still fraught with superstition and the baggage of falling into past prejudices.

[White Doors]

I agree that there are differences in all things, not just physical characteristics.

I think individual differences far outwefgh any racial differences - but this does not rule out that there are racial differences.

[August1991]

It seems very clear to me that culture and education are the cornerstones of developing future leaders, not genetics or race (though certainly a component of genetics relates to intelligence).

Geoff, I think you got my basic point.

While significant differences exist between races, religions and cultures, these differences disappear quickly with education. Consider language. No one disputes that we learn our mother tongue from our parents - and our accent lives with us for our entire life. (BTW, we learn much more than language from our parents.)

The genes themselves may be substantially similar, but I think you are making a huge error in discounting the effect of 50,000 years of natural selection.

Sorry, I'm inclined to think that 50,000 years is a mere blink from the standpoint of evolution. [i have always thought that the two great difficulties to understand randomness are understanding time and space. It is impossible to understand the age of the universe and it is impossible to understand its size. This makes understanding probability difficult.]

Keep in mind too Kimmy that no individual on this planet is "racially pure" - at least in a time frame of 50,000 years. As recently as 15,000 years ago, most of Canada was under several kilometers of ice. A land bridge existed between Russia and Alaska. Since 15,000 years, native Americans and Asians are genetically distinct.

Like cats or butterflies, I can imagine that superficial features such as hair colour or skin colour would change in 15,000 years or even 50,000 years. (Heck, these can change in a generation or two.) But any woman anywhere on the planet can become pregnant with any man on the planet and their children can also procreate. In terms of genetic change, we're not talking zebras and horses.

As an aside, a recent episode of "Crime Scene Investigation" had an interesting comment on natural selection. Musing on mankind's fear of the unknown, Gil Grissom said something to the effect of: "If you're on the plains of Africa and you see something out of the corner of your eye, it might be grass blowing in the wind, or it might be a hyena. If you assume it's a hyena and run away, you might live. If you assume it's grass blowing in the wind, and stand still, you die. We are descendants of the ones whose instinct was to ran away."

My comparison is the movie "Quest for Fire". We are the product of ancestors who survived such a life.

Indeed, we are remarkable not for risk aversion or peripheral vision - we are remarkable because our genes allow us to solve problems our genes hadn't thought of. Imagine programming a robot sent to a distant solar system compared with robots we first sent to the moon. Kimmy, we don't move because of our eyes and hyenas and grass blowing. We move because our parents have taught us about the difference betwen hyenas and grass blowing.

Yes Kimmy, parents matter. And their ability to teach us matters too. Such is our species, whatever our religion or skin taint.

I agree that there are differences in all things, not just physical characteristics.

I think individual differences far outwefgh any racial differences - but this does not rule out that there are racial differences.

First of all, if there are any racial differences, then a government in a civilized society would be blind to them.

Secondly, I just don't think there are any significant racial differences. Our differences due to education explain any apparent differences. Humans of whatever race are remarkable because they learn so much and so quickly.

----

Two books have made me think in the past year or so about these questions.

The first is "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" by Harriet Jacobs (Linda Brent). I had an understanding of colonialism but this story made me realize the full effect of slavery. (This story deserves a good Hollywood script.)

The second is "Out of My Mind" by Kristin (Harmon) Nelson. She's crazy but she made me understand that the way we understand the world (education) is passed from generation to generation, from parent to child.

As a species, in evolutionary terms, what matters is not passing our genetic code to the next generation but rather passing our knowledge and ability to learn. Too many parents simply pass on frustration, trouble and pain - while other parents pass on a desire to learn.

Edited October 28, 2007 by August1991

[Argus]

Geoff, I think you got my basic point.

While significant differences exist between races, religions and cultures, these differences disappear quickly with education.

What kind of education? It seems to me that education has not eliminated religious fanaticism. For example, the doctors who tried to murder people at that Scottish airport, or the many other university educated Islamists involved in various brutal bombings to advocate a medieval interpretation of Islam. They might be educated but they still think women are second class citizens and should keep their faces covered, gays should be killed, and thieves should have their hands cut off.

I don't want to turn this into another discussion of Islam. But I would like to point out that even educated people, particularly those from third world cultures, have expressed some amazingly barbaric, primitive, and brutal beliefs which are much more in keeping with the way they were raised than in anything they picked up at college. Examine, for example, the Shining Path, a particularly brutal, murderous group founded by a former university philosophy professor and grew, not among ignorant peasants, but among university students and young teachers. Abimael Guzman was an educated man, as were his senior followers, but that education did nothing to restrain their barbarism, and certainly did make them "like us". And I put it to you that no similar group would arise in Canada because our culture would not tolerate that level of brutality and insanity. A man like Guzman would be mocked and ridiculed, not pick up followers.

[sharkman]

This is a good point that can't just be tossed aside as another Islam rant. However, it seems to me that when considering these educated religious zealots who blow things up, we need to look at their education. The education by other means, not the one they received at university.

As soon as they (or we) are born, their conditioning begins and throughout their childhood they are told how evil the West, Jews, infidels, and whatever else is. They grow up thinking it is normal for woman to be property that is covered up, for adultery and fornication to be right up their with murder, and for how evil it is to blaspheme against Allah. They learn how Jews and the West have ruined their once great countries and Allah wants to punish them blah blah blah. By the time they hit university, their is little good an education can do.

Under these conditions, it is difficult to discover what unique traits a race might have.

[ScottSA]

Examine, for example, the Shining Path, a particularly brutal, murderous group founded by a former university philosophy professor and grew, not among ignorant peasants, but among university students and young teachers. Abimael Guzman was an educated man, as were his senior followers, but that education did nothing to restrain their barbarism, and certainly did make them "like us". And I put it to you that no similar group would arise in Canada because our culture would not tolerate that level of brutality and insanity. A man like Guzman would be mocked and ridiculed, not pick up followers.

The "education" as panacea mantra is one so ingrained that it has become a truism. Almost all revolutionary leaders are "educated," and most of the leaders of barbaric countries are educated [insert snide response from the self-hating left here]. In fact, I'd say there are so many holes and exception to the rule that education has very little effect at all as an equalizer.

And then there's the thorny question of what is meant by "education." It used to mean, once upon a time in the west, a "classical" education, where one learned the threads of social evolution of the west, and celebrated its accomplishments in the rise to the highest socio-political-economic state yet achieved by humans. It then graduated to mean a 'liberal' education, in which the free play of ideas sought after truth, in the Grecian philosophical tradition. The 60s turned things completely on their head, substituting student driven rebellion and 'rights' for knowledge. What was once a celebration of western accomplishment became a mournful dirge for the past sins of the west, Greek and Roman classics were thrown out in favor of "Black Studies", as if tribal barbarism had more to teach us than the High Empire or the Greek city states. Somewhere along the line, out of the wreckage of the 60s, crawled the present notion of what "education" means: pure Platonic indoctrination. When a feminist or homosexual activist uses the term 'education' today, as in "more education is required to change opinions," the very last thing they want is a free play of ideas. What they want is the orthodoxies of their respective belief systems enforced and planted firmly in the minds of everyone.

It's sad to see the results of such an educational system...people, many of them here, pandering to slogans and meaningless heuristic devices and imagining it to be higher thought. The almost complete rejection of critical thinking in favor of wishful thinking, the dismissal of stoic self-denial in favor of what "feels good," and the abandonment of discrimination in favor of moral equivalency. Hell, some of the recent visitors to this board don't even have basic writing skills, like periods and sentence capitalization, and can't even make themselves understood even if they did have something cogent to say. We have, I'm afraid, much to learn from the decline of Rome...even its art catalogued its slow decline, as does ours.