Museum cancels race row scientist

Source: BBC

The Science Museum has cancelled a talk it was due to host by a geneticist, after he claimed black people were less intelligent than white people.

Dr James Watson, who won the Nobel Prize for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, was due to speak at the venue on Friday.

But the museum has cancelled the event, saying Dr Watson's views go "beyond the point of acceptable debate".

Dr Watson was due to arrive in Britain on Friday for a speaking tour.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7050020.stm

It's mindblowing in the irony department-- Watson's part of discovery lead to molecular and genetic revolution in biology, which then went on to blow all "theories" on racial science out of the water. Shit like he's saying is exactly the stuff his discovery debunked.

And, as a scientist, I am deeply embarrassed by his statements.

something that does not exist like race(it seems clear that race markers are only markers of where your great -great - great -grandparents lived - unless you are trying to find some importance to the color of your skin - shade by shade - and good luck there).

race is a social not a scientific construct

intelligence has varied aspects and have several different measures

:-)

we all should hope for a spouse or partner that can let us know when we are loosing it.

Exactly how intelligent is James Watson, really?

What kind of a dodo gives an interview and says things like that when he is on tour to promote his autobiography in the halls of academe?

http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3070583.ece

The 79-year-old American academic, who won a Nobel Prize for his part in unravelling the structure of DNA in the 1960s, had been due to kick off a week-long publicity tour at some of Britain's leading academic institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge Universities, tomorrow by addressing a capacity audience at the museum.

... The move came as other academic institutions hosting Dr Watson vowed to ensure he faced tough questioning on his views, which have once more opened a debate on race and intelligence considered beyond the pale by the scientific mainstream.

... Organisers at each of the appearances in London, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol said there would be questions from the audience. The co-ordinator of one event, who asked not be named, said: "The correct way to respond is to allow him to be challenged as strongly as possible. A view that is not based on science or is simply wrong will be exposed as such."

Actually, I'd say that the correct way to "respond" is not to offer a platform in the first place. If he wants one, let him build it himself.


Some brief background on the "scientific wild man" that is James Watson and his fellow travellers:

http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3067222.ece
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3067223.ece

It ain't just people of colour who bother him.

>>>Exactly how intelligent is James Watson, really?

What kind of a dodo gives an interview and says things like that when he is on tour to promote his autobiography in the halls of academe?<<<

Smart enough to know what sells books.

If he wouldn't have made the comments, would you and I be aware of him or his new book?

This is how publicity gets made today for better or for worse.

http://www.bloodbook.com/race-eth.html
Race and Ethnicity Blood Type Analysis - BloodBook.com, Blood Information for Life

http://www.bloodbook.com/world-abo.html
Racial and Ethnic Distribution of ABO Blood Types - BloodBook.com, Blood Information for Life


funny i don`t see anything about intelligence

He also advocates eugenics with regard to homosexuality stating that women should have the right to abort a homosexual child. He certainly knows what will inflame the passions and lean people towards his views. As Hitler did. As Bush does.

And of course then there are no doubt others who should also be aborted and he would probably advocate sterilization of those who are somehow "less than" in his obviously phobic and obviously racist eyes. Why not just sterlize the entire African race. And why stop in Africa? Why even bother to sterilize them? Why not just send them to gas chambers and be done with it. Heil Hitler!

This is how the Holocaust began. With the assertion that some are "less than" and serve no purpose in society and therefore have no place in society. And therefore should be eliminated from society.

Can a Nobel Prize be taken back? It certainly should be taken back from him. Anyone who promotes eugenics on any basis which he does should never have been given a Nobel Prize to begin with.

The world, it seems, has forgotten the Holocaust. And the good Dr. Mengele. Dr. Watson will rot in hell along with Dr. Mengele.

He also advocates eugenics with regard to homosexuality stating that women should have the right to abort a homosexual child.

Women DO have the right to abort any EMBRYO/FETUS they choose, for whatever reason they choose, including -- if there were such a thing as a gay gene, and it were ever possible to detect it prenatally -- because the fetus might become a homosexual child.

Stating that women "should have" a right that women have is not eugenics. Even advocating that women exercise that right is not eugenics.

Compelling women to terminate a pregnancy in that situation would be a form of eugenics, and advocating that women be compelled to terminate a pregnancy in that situation would be advocating a form of eugenics.

So really, Watson was saying the equivalent of "the earth should be round". It is, regardless of what he says, just as women have the right to terminate any pregnancy, regardless of what he says.


This is really an entirely different matter from his thoughts about the characteristics of any group of human beings, which are sufficiently stupid and unpleasant to stand on their own.

The Nazis got the idea of Eugenics from the U.S.

Long before the Nazis came to power, Americans considered undesireables were being sterilized by state government decrees and laws. During the 1920s, 27 states had Eugenic laws on their books. The Supreme Court ruled the laws were constitutional.

Books on Eugenics written by U.S. doctors and scientists were popular in Germany during the rise of the Nazi party.

Watson and Crick used her work without giving her credit. Class act, that Watson.

Let's write Watson and Crick out of the history books as the discoverers of DNA and put Franklin in instead. We can refer to Watson and Crick if we need an example of members of a dominant social group appropriating the credit for the work of a member of a subjugated group.

names of the folks that discovered that the gene coding is turned off and on and that there is coding that changes based inheriting that gene from mom rather than dad - like who gets credit for the real story of Epigenetics (Methylation - DNA methylation or protein methylation)?

Besides - was Watson even in the game when Crick did the 57 paper?

Watson wrote a bullshit book later on that treated her like crap, but they cited Franklin and Willkins in the original paper.

Anyone disposed to start crying in his beer over poor Dokkktor Watson's freedom of speech and how that might be squelched, what with him getting uninvited to speak and all, please first answer me this:

Why is it that for you, one white man's interest in spreading propaganda against hiring blacks actually outweighs the interests of millions of blacks in being allowed to earn a living like everybody else?

concerned. I believe it was he who once said something to the effect of, "If we could eliminate a stupidity gene why wouldn't we want to do that?"

:rofl:

and the Science Museum is only now finding out about this?!

In other words, they knew, or should have known, what he was when they booked him. Worse luck for them, it happened to hit the news (it has been suggested, in an attempt to discredit that other Nobel, Al Gore's) and they ended up with egg all over their face. :nopity:

edit: spelling

is familiar with Cold Spring Habor, NY and the Eugenics Record Office.

Dr. Watson is currently the director of Cold Spring Habor Lab, as the BBC article states.

Yep. US eugenics, once operationalized in the Third Reich. Combined with Bush/Cheney enabling acts and Republican RW family values.

This gives me a headache, I only read 'The Double Helix' not too long ago.