Watson’s Lecture Canceled After Racist Remarks

Dr. James D. Watson, famed co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, is in Britain this week promoting his new book, with his first lecture scheduled at London’s Science Museum. In an interview with the Sunday Times, he made some disturbing comments, which are reportedly expounded upon in his book. Watson claimed to be:

‘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 goes on to say:

‘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.’

While I respect Watson for his scientific achievement, and sincerely hope his remarks have been taken out of context, I take issue with him for a couple of reasons. First, he’s generalizing. All the testing? That certainly sounds unequivocal, until it is critically examined. What testing, exactly? Culturally biased IQ testing? Analysis has shown that performance on IQ tests has more to do with socioeconomic status than “race,” as Caucasian children from low income households also perform poorly on these types of tests.

And which Africans is he referring to? Egyptians?

Egyptologist Zahi Hawass

Algerians?

 

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika

Kenyans?

Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai

Second, while I agree that geographic isolation can lead to changes in phenotype, Watson equates behavior with skin color, something that anthropologists have repeatedly spoken out against. The American Anthropological Association released a “Statement on Race and Intelligence” 13 years ago, stating in part:

WHEREAS all human beings are members of one species, Homo sapiens, and

WHEREAS, differentiating species into biologically defined “races” has proven meaningless and unscientific as a way of explaining variation (whether in intelligence or other traits),

THEREFORE, the American Anthropological Association urges the academy, our political leaders and our communities to affirm, without distraction by mistaken claims of racially determined intelligence, the common stake in assuring equal opportunity, in respecting diversity and in securing a harmonious quality of life for all people.

The American Association of Physical Anthropologists, of which I am a member, has their own “Statement on Biological Aspects of Race,” which says:

Physical, cultural and social environments influence the behavioral differences among individuals in society. Although heredity influences the behavioral variability of individuals within a given population, it does not affect the ability of any such population to function in a given social setting. The genetic capacity for intellectual development is one of the biological traits of our species essential for its survival. This genetic capacity is known to differ among individuals. The peoples of the world today appear to possess equal biological potential for assimilating any human culture. Racist political doctrines find no foundation in scientific knowledge concerning modern or past human populations.

And Watson’s own institution, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, hosts the Eugenics Archive, a chronicle of the American eugenics movement. Their virtual exhibits include information on the flaws of eugenics research, including reification:

Reification is the tendency to treat complex traits – especially behaviors – as if they were a single entity, stemming from a single cause. For example, eugenicists treated intelligence as if it were an innate quality of the brain that could be represented by a single factor. Morgan commented: “It is commonly assumed that there is one, and only one, criterion of intelligence – that we are speaking always of the same thing when we use the word… In reality, our ideas are very vague on the subject.” Later experts recognized that there may be many “intelligences” – including mechanical, quantitative, visual/spatial, verbal, and abstract.

If Watson’s remarks are accurate, he is guilty of this, as well.

London’s Science Museum has canceled Watson’s lecture. And the Mayor of London released a statement, responding:

Professor James Watson’s comments about the genetic inferiority of Africans, and of black people being less intelligent than white people, represent racist propaganda masquerading as scientific fact.

Such discredited racist theories seek to establish a genetically based racial hierarchy of the human race and have been condemned by leading scientists throughout the world.

That is, perhaps, what is most disturbing about this entire episode. That such an eminent scientist could fall victim to pseudo-scientific thinking.