posted
According to Nobel Prize winner Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than Westerners
Celebrated scientist attacked for race comments: "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really" By Cahal Milmo
Published: 17 October 2007
One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.
James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.
The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.
The newly formed Equality and Human Rights Commission, successor to the Commission for Racial Equality, said it was studying Dr Watson's remarks " in full". Dr Watson told The Sunday Times 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 said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
His views are also reflected in a book published next week, in which he writes: "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."
The furore echoes the controversy created in the 1990s by The Bell Curve, a book co-authored by the American political scientist Charles Murray, which suggested differences in IQ were genetic and discussed the implications of a racial divide in intelligence. The work was heavily criticised across the world, in particular by leading scientists who described it as a work of " scientific racism".
Dr Watson arrives in Britain today for a speaking tour to publicise his latest book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. Among his first engagements is a speech to an audience at the Science Museum organised by the Dana Centre, which held a discussion last night on the history of scientific racism.
Critics of Dr Watson said there should be a robust response to his views across the spheres of politics and science. Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "It is sad to see a scientist of such achievement making such baseless, unscientific and extremely offensive comments. I am sure the scientific community will roundly reject what appear to be Dr Watson's personal prejudices.
"These comments serve as a reminder of the attitudes which can still exists at the highest professional levels."
The American scientist earned a place in the history of great scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century when he worked at the University of Cambridge in the 1950s and 1960s and formed part of the team which discovered the structure of DNA. He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine with his British colleague Francis Crick and New Zealand-born Maurice Wilkins.
But despite serving for 50 years as a director of the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory on Long Island, considered a world leader in research into cancer and genetics, Dr Watson has frequently courted controversy with some of his views on politics, sexuality and race. The respected journal Science wrote in 1990: "To many in the scientific community, Watson has long been something of a wild man, and his colleagues tend to hold their collective breath whenever he veers from the script."
In 1997, he told a British newspaper that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual. He later insisted he was talking about a "hypothetical" choice which could never be applied. He has also suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, positing the theory that black people have higher libidos, and argued in favour of genetic screening and engineering on the basis that " stupidity" could one day be cured. He has claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying: "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would great."
The Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory said yesterday that Dr Watson could not be contacted to comment on his remarks.
Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University and a founder member of the Society for Social Responsibility in Science, said: " This is Watson at his most scandalous. He has said similar things about women before but I have never heard him get into this racist terrain. If he knew the literature in the subject he would know he was out of his depth scientifically, quite apart from socially and politically."
Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson's remarks to be looked at in the context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust, a black human rights group, said: "It is astonishing that a man of such distinction should make comments that seem to perpetuate racism in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be looked at for grounds of legal complaint."
posted
It always comes back to the same issue! jejeje
quote:Celebrated scientist attacked for race comments: "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really"
"They" can refer to anyone we do not like since the headline leaves it vague! Substitute they are Arab, Muslim, African, homosexual, and even theirs. Puttin myself in the headline, i.e. I believe George Bush intelligence is the same as mine but I am mistaken.
Aha
quote:he said argued in favour of genetic screening and engineering on the basis that " stupidity" could one day be cured
Is that stupidity in himself, or because he has the power (power begins in the barrel of a gun), he (and those like him) will be the one to determine who is "stupid".
Posts: 1290 | From: usa | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by R U 2 religious: Djehuti ... this article was just posted today ... I can't believe there still people like this out there.
Peace!~
Believe it. None Europeans can't understand that every discipline supports white supremacy. As a result, while people on this forum may suggest that race does not exist. In the real world the idea and reality of race still hold court.
posted
^ People believe in race, therefore race exists.
This is what you are saying.
It is a basic error of logic.
Belief in a thing, is not proof of a thing.
Formally ad populum fallacy
Logical Fallacy:
Appeal to Popularity
The Appeal to Popularity has the following form:
Most people approve of X (have favorable emotions towards X).
Therefore X is true.
The basic idea is that a claim or practise is valid because it is commonly accepted.
ex: Believe it. Non Europeans can't understand that every discipline supports witchcraft. As a result, while people on this forum may suggest that witches do not exist. In the real world the idea and reality of witchcraft still hold court.Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
How can one speak about "race" when every human being is a homo sapiens sapiens, as far as I am aware? Race would mean that there are different subspecies. But can intraspecies mating produce offspring capable of reproducing? Mixed-race people are capable of producing such offspring. Also, for international IQ tests to be fair, they should be tailored to each specific culture, because knowledge is relative and culturall-determined in many ways. Plus note how Watson includes North Africans and Indians along with Westerners. But wait, I thought that North Africans were Arab Muslims, and therefore the enemy that the grand ol' US of A is fighting right now .
As someone has said here before, it lies in the power of definition.
Posts: 140 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
It is not too surprising that a Nobel-Prize winner would say this, seeing that V.S. Naipal, an uber-racist Indian from Trinidad who hates Blacks, won the Nobel prize for literature some years ago. I wonder whether they would give such a prize to a Black person who hated whites or other non-Blacks. Then again, Chinweizu, I have read, is more hostile to the "West" than Achebe, and he is not as well-known in the "West." See a connection?
Posts: 140 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
^ Indeed. Unfortunately there are alot of ignorant and/or gullible people out there. Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
It's time for the nobel committe to yank this a-hole's prize, and purge his name from their award roster.
We should readdress the issue of human intelligence --Watson is proof that cavemen with an I.Q. lower than room temperature can get a PhD-- and maybe in ten years science will find the gene repsonsible for creating congenital idiots like Watson.
What an asshat clown. Sheesh!
Posts: 248 | From: Way Down South | Registered: Sep 2007
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quote:Originally posted by R U 2 religious: Djehuti ... this article was just posted today ... I can't believe there still people like this out there.
Peace!~
Believe it. None Europeans can't understand that every discipline supports white supremacy. As a result, while people on this forum may suggest that race does not exist. In the real world the idea and reality of race still hold court.
.
You are right that European scientists are not immune to dogma, and in fact, this at times comes across their comments and work, as the example provided in the opening topic. This doesn't mean that one, who is intellectually liberated and capable, can't look past such bias and still realize fact from fiction. Yes, the concept of "races" only exists as a *social* reality - a figment of imagination effectively utilized by the establishment in the Eurocentric world to divide the working class; nobody is denying that - that is just a red herring. The reality that some of us have awoken up to, is that biologically such thing doesn't exist in humanity. Also keep in mind that not all societies even share the same concept of subjectively grouping people, usually in hierarchical manner, towards political ends of maintaining certain structures of socio-political priviledge. To make matters even more complex, [economic] class hierarchy is thrown in.
If one is living in a society, where whites make up the majority of the thin layer of ruling elites, what to expect? To ensure that such a socio-political priviledge isn't shaken up, this ruling elite and its social apologists do everything they can to reassure themselves its longivity, and thus far, there appears to be nothing more effective than using time-tested subjective political constructs like "race", "gender" and "income status" as tools to divide a society. A divided general society can't effectively organize enough to turn the status quo on its head.
According to Nobel Prize winner....
One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.
Can Watson even objectively demonstrate that the concept of human "races" is anything but a delusion; see right there, there is a fundamental weakness in the premise he is operating from.
The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary.
Another severely flawed thinking on the old man's part; If the so-called "Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts", perhaps Europeans would have negotiated with Africans about sharing resources, and setting up fair trade institutions, rather than going on a rampage of sub-human genocidal policies without familiarizing themselves with the histories of these folks.
Perhaps they would not have accepted to take an equal as a slave either.
Perhaps their so-called scholars would not have gone to great lengths to create fake constructs like Hamites [blackened whites basically], including the laughable refusal to recognize any accomplishment "African" on African soil [e.g. Egypt is in Africa but it isn't African, Great Zimbabwe is in Africa but it isn't Africa, relics of iron and steel furnaces found to date earlier than those in other regions are not the work of Africans, and like wise].
Perhaps they wouldn't have acted the parts of "blacks" in the early days of Hollywood, presumably to say that blacks are intellectually incapable of even acting "black" parts.
Perhaps would have allowed black folks to vote from the onset.
Perhaps would have seen the idiocy of enforcing apartheid in Southern Africa on the land of blacks, and Jim Crow in America.
Does any of this sound like working from the "assumption that blacks were as clever as their white counterparts"? The real question is, whether Watson is *clever enough* to be acquainted with these facts, and still say "yes" to this question.
He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.
Well Watson, please enlightened us with the genes that you've found, that support the interesting claim that blacks are genetically intellectually inferior to whites. What is this gene called, found at what site - elaborate on its working and how this working has been tested in the lab; for Watson to make the statement he made, one would have to assume that he knows what this gene is.
What was going on with the genetically intellectually superior whites, when highly organized literate societies were maturing in Africa, the so-called "Near East", Indus Valley, Yellow River Valley and the Americas?
What was going on with the intellectually superior whites, when agriculture was being invented independently in different parts of the world but Europe?
What was going on with the intellectually superior whites, when they claimed to be in the "Dark Age" during the "Medeival" period, and what intellectual enlightment did they have prior to this so-called "Dark Age" to begin with?
Perhaps Watson has answers to these 'starter-questions'.
Dr Watson told The Sunday Times 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".
I wonder if Mr. Watson thinks that the so-called Western policies are so defensive...you know, like social-segregations, unfair trade policies, colonial policies, fussing about other countries not creating stockpiles of nuclear arsenals while they continue to stockpile their's and even expand on them, fussing about possibility of over-consumption in emerging markets like say, China, India, South Africa, South Korea, Brazil and so forth threatening the environment while they are the most irresponsibly over-consuming societies with little regard for the environmental consequences, the price of which btw, is felt in so-called Third World countries around the globe, not to mention the Artic region...because they are under the assumption that 'blacks are as clever as their white counterparts', and so, a level playing field would be disadvantageous to "Western" policy makers? Could this be what Watson is talking about, the need to not be so hysterically defensive in world affairs...by assuming that 'blacks' could catch up because they are "as clever as their white counterparts"?
"There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically.
Likewise...there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved in the sense that one entire continent of "diverse" people is intellectually superior to those of "diverse" people in another...especially when no such evidence has been brought to light. In fact, there is no firm reason to anticipate "diverse" people in continents to all "evolve" in the exact same way - if that were the case, there would be no diversity to speak of to begin with.
I wonder: Does Watson consider South and Southeast Asians, whose students consistently outperform white students in the States and across Europe, as genetically intellectually superior to whites?
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I know it is a cliché among us Africans, but really, I think this has to do with psychological warfare by former colonial power. Since slavery/colonialism is out and replaced by "Human Right", "Freedom of Expression", "Free Market", etc. we know nothing has changed.
Thanks to globalism and fast moving communication, and top of that, China's fast grip on African market, they realize their time is UP! What do they have?
The Middle East is on fire. The East is becoming the powerhouse in economic. Latin America does not want to be a poodle anymore.
So what you have left is Africa; the real backyard of the West, and they are pissing on their pants!
We only need one, just ONE country or even a small federal state, to show us the right way. Just ONE!
Unfortunately, uncle Mugabe is 27 years too late and his biggest mistake was signing the "status quo" deal.
Posts: 2198 | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:Originally posted by R U 2 religious: Djehuti ... this article was just posted today ... I can't believe there still people like this out there.
Peace!~
Believe it. None Europeans can't understand that every discipline supports white supremacy. As a result, while people on this forum may suggest that race does not exist. In the real world the idea and reality of race still hold court.
.
You are right that European scientists are not immune to dogma, and in fact, this at times comes across their comments and work, as the example provided in the opening topic. This doesn't mean that one, who is intellectually liberated and capable, can't look past such bias and still realize fact from fiction. Yes, the concept of "races" only exists as a *social* reality - a figment of imagination effectively utilized by the establishment in the Eurocentric world to divide the working class; nobody is denying that - that is just a red herring. The reality that some of us have awoken up to, is that biologically such thing doesn't exist in humanity. Also keep in mind that not all societies even share the same concept of subjectively grouping people, usually in hierarchical manner, towards political ends of maintaining certain structures of socio-political priviledge. To make matters even more complex, [economic] class hierarchy is thrown in.
If one is living in a society, where whites make up the majority of the thin layer of ruling elites, what to expect? To ensure that such a socio-political priviledge isn't shaken up, this ruling elite and its social apologists do everything they can to reassure themselves its longivity, and thus far, there appears to be nothing more effective than using time-tested subjective political constructs like "race", "gender" and "income status" as tools to divide a society. A divided general society can't effectively organize enough to turn the status quo on its head.
According to Nobel Prize winner....
One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.
Can Watson even objectively demonstrate that the concept of human "races" is anything but a delusion; see right there, there is a fundamental weakness in the premise he is operating from.
The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary.
Another severely flawed thinking on the old man's part; If the so-called "Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts", perhaps Europeans would have negotiated with Africans about sharing resources, and setting up fair trade institutions, rather than going on a rampage of sub-human genocidal policies without familiarizing themselves with the histories of these folks.
Perhaps they would not have accepted to take an equal as a slave either.
Perhaps their so-called scholars would not have gone to great lengths to create fake constructs like Hamites [blackened whites basically], including the laughable refusal to recognize any accomplishment "African" on African soil [e.g. Egypt is in Africa but it isn't African, Great Zimbabwe is in Africa but it isn't Africa, relics of iron and steel furnaces found to date earlier than those in other regions are not the work of Africans, and like wise].
Perhaps they wouldn't have acted the parts of "blacks" in the early days of Hollywood, presumably to say that blacks are intellectually incapable of even acting "black" parts.
Perhaps would have allowed black folks to vote from the onset.
Perhaps would have seen the idiocy of enforcing apartheid in Southern Africa on the land of blacks, and Jim Crow in America.
Does any of this sound like working from the "assumption that blacks were as clever as their white counterparts"? The real question is, whether Watson is *clever enough* to be acquainted with these facts, and still say "yes" to this question.
He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.
Well Watson, please enlightened us with the genes that you've found, that support the interesting claim that blacks are genetically intellectually inferior to whites. What is this gene called, found at what site - elaborate on its working and how this working has been tested in the lab; for Watson to make the statement he made, one would have to assume that he knows what this gene is.
What was going on with the genetically intellectually superior whites, when highly organized literate societies were maturing in Africa, the so-called "Near East", Indus Valley, Yellow River Valley and the Americas?
What was going on with the intellectually superior whites, when agriculture was being invented independently in different parts of the world but Europe?
What was going on with the intellectually superior whites, when they claimed to be in the "Dark Age" during the "Medeival" period, and what intellectual enlightment did they have prior to this so-called "Dark Age" to begin with?
Perhaps Watson has answers to these 'starter-questions'.
Dr Watson told The Sunday Times 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".
I wonder if Mr. Watson thinks that the so-called Western policies are so defensive...you know, like social-segregations, unfair trade policies, colonial policies, fussing about other countries not creating stockpiles of nuclear arsenals while they continue to stockpile their's and even expand on them, fussing about possibility of over-consumption in emerging markets like say, China, India, South Africa, South Korea, Brazil and so forth threatening the environment while they are the most irresponsibly over-consuming societies with little regard for the environmental consequences, the price of which btw, is felt in so-called Third World countries around the globe, not to mention the Artic region...because they are under the assumption that 'blacks are as clever as their white counterparts', and so, a level playing field would be disadvantageous to "Western" policy makers? Could this be what Watson is talking about, the need to not be so hysterically defensive in world affairs...by assuming that 'blacks' could catch up because they are "as clever as their white counterparts"?
"There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically.
Likewise...there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved in the sense that one entire continent of "diverse" people is intellectually superior to those of "diverse" people in another...especially when no such evidence has been brought to light. In fact, there is no firm reason to anticipate "diverse" people in continents to all "evolve" in the exact same way - if that were the case, there would be no diversity to speak of to begin with.
I wonder: Does Watson consider South and Southeast Asians, whose students consistently outperform white students in the States and across Europe, as genetically intellectually superior to whites?
LOL! Man some white folks are so absurdly silly in justifying their nonsense it is ridiculous. Europe has been responsible for producing some of the most genocidal, homicidal, fascist enemies of freedom, peace and prosperity in the worlds history, yet they "claim" to be enlightened. Leopold, Hitler, Bizmark, Stalin, King Henry, the Papacy, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria, the Boers, the French, the Portuguese and so forth and so on. Raping, pillaging, plundering, looting, murdering, stealing and burning now becomes justified because Africans are not "intelligent" enough to engage in such acts without "European" guidance and influence. These acts of savagery and depravity reflect the UNCIVILIZED nature of Europe and the fact that it had nothing to offer the world except death and destruction in return for profits made off the backs of other people and their resources. Whites need to get off this B.S. fantasy trip that rape, pillage and plunder are reflections of a "civilized" society.
Posts: 8893 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
What we are dealing with is nothing short of scientific racism. And since science has debunked the notion of 'race' altogether, nothing but pseudo-science.
Then again, with this quote below I doubt there is anything scientific for his basis, not even psuedo!
He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
So the guy basis his claims on some bad experiences he's had with black employees?! Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: What we are dealing with is nothing short of scientific racism. And since science has debunked the notion of 'race' altogether, nothing but pseudo-science.
Then again, with this quote below I doubt there is anything scientific for his basis, not even psuedo!
He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
So the guy basis his claims on some bad experiences he's had with black employees?!
Of course, because modern Western capitalist societies are founded on the premise that the only way a black person is useful is in a context where they are working as subordinates for whites. All the years of trying to "civilize" blacks was a breaking in period in order to make them willing and eager workers for white capitalist profits, not their OWN profit. The paradigm of freedom, progress and civilization espoused by these racist retards is that blacks are only happy, progressive, free and civilized when working in a system where whites are the dominant force in the upper rungs of the social, economic, military and industrial ladders. This vision of progress, freedom and civilization for Africa NEVER meant Africans being free to control their own economics, military defense, societies and industries. THAT is why they MUST continue to preach that Africans are INHERENTLY inferior to justify them being beat, stabbed, cooked, shot, trampled, hanged, boiled, chopped, burnt and drowned by whites in order make them ACCEPT the dominion of whites over them. These sort of statements are nothing more than a form of mental beating and whippings designed continue to produce an acceptance of WHITE domination in African economic, social, industrial and military affairs. And if they did, along with the Native Americans and others, these people would be branded as "savages" for defending themselves against European conquest. This is nothing more than propaganda parading as science, which is what science has always been used for when it comes to blacks, justification for conquest and exploitation.
After all, if Africans were REALLY intelligent, they would have NEVER have let white people do all the things that they have done to them over the last 500 plus years and would have pushed them back to the sea when they first arrived. But of course in any discussion of African intelligence, Africans getting rid of the neocolonial white masters who are STILL strangling Africa for its resource wealth is NEVER the issue at hand. It is always why WHITE companies and institutions should go into Africa and put Africans to work for pennies on the dollar while the WHITES use them as menial servants and make MILLIONS of dollars in return..... The same sh*t Leopold and other racist colonialists said as they were killing millions in the Congo and elsewhere in Africa. Again, AFRICAN INTELLIGENCE would mean NOT letting this happen again.... but of course the double talk of Europeans in no way even begins to address that.
Posts: 8893 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
^ First of all Doug, I fail to see what capitalism has to do with racism especially considering how I myself am a proud capitalists and I know many black folks who are also. Your association of racism with capitalism sounds an awful lot like Hore.
And second, I believe Europeans are paying hell for what they did right now in Europe considering that they are being overrun by non-white immigrants. Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
The mans insensitivity shows his lack of intelligence. It doesn't matter what he believes to be true. It doesn't matter what he's accomplished. The comments that he has made is hurtful to alot of people. Anyone that doesn't realize the insensitivity of their own statements, can't really be that intelligent in my opinion.
Posts: 197 | Registered: Jul 2007
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posted
^ I don't think "sensitivity" is the issue here. All the black people I know after hearing this weren't so much "hurt" as they were annoyed by this recurring rubbish.
Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ First of all Doug, I fail to see what capitalism has to do with racism especially considering how I myself am a proud capitalists and I know many black folks who are also. Your association of racism with capitalism sounds an awful lot like Hore.
And second, I believe Europeans are paying hell for what they did right now in Europe considering that they are being overrun by non-white immigrants.
That is because many people don't realize that capitalism began as one founding principles at the root of European exploitation and subjugation of most of the world during the growth of the European colonial empires. All of this was economic in nature, with the goal being to generate capital for the investors and stakeholders in Chartered Companies that were authorized by the royalty of European countries, which authorized them to take the land and demand labor from the natives of any lands that they "discovered". That is the origin of capitalism and it is inherently based on racism and exploitation. Meaning the indigenous people of the lands being exploited had no identity or rights except as WORKERS for white European controlled companies. That same system is still in play today, with the only difference being that many people of color and others around the world are willingly allowing themselves to be used because they believe the fantasy that somehow they will one day have wealth and power equal to that of the white European capitalist elite. This will never happen by supporting a system that implicitly only benefits those at the top the most and those at the bottom the least. Of course people of color are almost exclusively at the bottom of this ladder and the most subject to believing the nonsense that working in the capitalist system will really help them get ahead. The only definition of getting ahead in a capitalist system is to have others GENERATING CAPITAL for you, not YOU doing all the work. Unless YOU have people busting their humps 24/7 GENERATING MONEY FOR YOU, you are not a capitalist. You are just a worker.
quote: chartered companies
associations for foreign trade, exploration, and colonization that came into existence with the formation of the European nation states and their overseas expansion. An association received its charter from the state and sometimes had state support. In the regulated company each member was an independent trader operating with his own capital and bound only by the general rules of the company charter. In the joint stock company the organization itself transacted the business, operating on the joint capital invested by members, each of whom shared proportionately in the profits and losses. The company received a monopoly of trade or colonization in a certain region and customarily exercised lawmaking, military, and treaty-making functions, subject to the approval of the home government, besides other privileges. The English Merchants Adventurers (1359) was more of a guild organization, but it foreshadowed such companies as England’s Muscovy (1555), Levant (1581), East India (1600, perhaps the greatest of them all), Hudson’s Bay (1670) and Holland’s Dutch East India (1602). Such colonizing companies as the Virginia Company (1606), the Massachusetts Bay Company (1629), the French Royal West Indian Company (1664–74), the Santo Domingo Company (1698), and the Dutch West India Company (1621) were more quickly taken over by their governments. Later 19th-century colonizing and trading companies, such as the British North Borneo (1881), Royal Niger (1886), British South Africa (1888), and German East Africa (1884), did not last long and had more restricted powers, but attested to the continuing significance of the chartered company. In a technical sense, the modern corporation is a chartered company.
Most people of course are not aware of this because of the way the economic history of Europe is taught. It is not taught that the first colonies in America were actually COMPANIES chartered by England. It is not taught that these chartered companies were the basis of most of the exploration and colonies in the so-called New World. And it is not generally taught that the whole purpose of these "enterprises" was to generate wealth for the European banking system through the exploitation of the land and labor of the natives, backed by the authority of the King, who claimed divine right to rule based on religious edict. This is WHY the natives had to be converted, in order to get them to acquiesce and accept the rule and exploitation of these foreigners.
Of course this is not what is told in the history books. What you get in the history books is the nonsense about people "searching for freedom" and being "persecuted" and looking for the "promised land" which is a bunch of bull crap to make you feel sympathy for people who deserve none.
And by the time anyone does go into any lessons on Capitalism it is of course part of general economics, which won't tell you that the basis of the economics of the European world in the 15th century forwards was based on the exploitation and oppression of people around the world. If it is told it is not told in that context. It is told in the context of the "great" advances of the "industrial age", the "steam engine", the "enlightenment" of Europe and the "philosophy" and "intellect" of the European mind of the time.
Capitalism is never discussed as an agency for white supremacy in world economic affairs. It is again discussed as an example of the "enlightened" mind of Europeans in creating a more "liberal" economic system based on the "free exchange" of goods and ideas and the "free will" of individuals to create and innovate, thereby having a ripple effect on the economy. But all of this freedom of will and exchange only applied to whites, not to those being exploited, as it was assumed that the whites hat the explicit right to exploit and oppress anyone not white because of the newly created "science" of anthropology. Such discussions of capitalism almost always uphold the ideas of people like Adam Smith as the epitome of capitalist thought, but in reality capitalism was nothing more than using brute force to take control of the ancient trade routes, resources and countries that had existed in Africa, Asia and elsewhere for many year before the Europeans came on the scene. "Freedom" had nothing to do with it.
quote: Adam Smith's attack on mercantilism and his reasoning for "the system of natural liberty" in The Wealth of Nations (1776) are usually taken as the beginning of classical political economy. Smith devised a set of concepts that remain strongly associated with capitalism today, particularly his theory of the "invisible hand" of the market, through which the pursuit of individual self-interest unintentionally produces a collective good for society. He criticized monopolies, tariffs, duties, and other state enforced restrictions of his time and believed that the market is the most fair and efficient arbitrator of resources.
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ I don't think "sensitivity" is the issue here. All the black people I know after hearing this weren't so much "hurt" as they were annoyed by this recurring rubbish.
Yes, it's annoying. More so if it comes from someone who's a supposed know it all in DNA or someone who has credibility in his field. But it still is hurtful, and incredibly insensitive. There should at the very least be this level of respect or tolerance where you keep your own opinions to yourself, especially when they may impact others in a negative way.
Posts: 483 | From: cairo | Registered: Mar 2006
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^ Dr. James Watson and his colleague Francis Crick are the ones who first discovered the molecular structure of DNA back in 1953. What's funny is that he maybe an expert when it comes to DNA structure, but the guy has apparently forgot about the principles and functions of DNA when it comes to expression in populations, since the very field he's helped pioneer has totally debunked the very basis for his racist premise-- that is the existence of 'race' itself.
quote:Originally posted by lamin: Well, Watson makes 3 main points:
1)Blacks are intellectually less capable than? because one only has to work with them to see that.
2)Europeans in their interactions with Africans at the governmental level are wrong to assume that "Africans are as clever as Europeans" because the results of this interaction( I guess he means those bogus and phony AID packages and tricked up trade aggreements) are negative.
3) The fact that humans evolved in different environments would suggest that their cognitive skills and levels would be different...
Yes, so let's analyze his points and see how 'scientific' they really are. Of course those of us who've posted in this forum for a while are all too familiar that not everything that comes from scientists is scientifically sound.
1)Blacks are intellectually less capable than? because one only has to work with them to see that.
Yes, one of the first things I noticed is that the guy makes his premise based on observations and/or experiences with black employees! There is nothing scientific at all there to even refute. All it is, is just stereotyping based on his personal experiences.
2)Europeans in their interactions with Africans at the governmental level are wrong to assume that "Africans are as clever as Europeans" because the results of this interaction( I guess he means those bogus and phony AID packages and tricked up trade aggreements) are negative.
Indeed. And apparently Dr. Watson ignorant of African history or else he would know that Africa not only had civilizations, many of which older than Europe, but that these polities were thriving before European conquesti and colonialism.
3)The fact that humans evolved in different environments would suggest that their cognitive skills and levels would be different.
This would be true if only there actually any proof that some environments select for higher intelligence than others. From archaeology we all know that modern humans originated in Africa as well as their modern thought processes, mental capacity, and behaviors. Archaeology shows these ascpects did not change or differ among those populations who left Africa anymore than those populations who remained in Africa. Further more we know from archaeology as well as history that African populations developed cultures more advanced and sophisticated than those of Europe and that the roots of civilization (Neolithic culture) was only introduced to Europe.
And lastly one point that Lamin didn't point out is that the underlying premise of Dr. Watson's belief is that 'races' exist let alone a black/African 'race'. Physical anthropology has not only debunked that belief, but genetics (the very field he pioneered!) has utterly vaporized it into oblivion!! Races don't exist because phenotype such as black skin and facial features do not correlate to specific lineages, and that all humans are closely related with the human genome being 99.9% the same among all human beings. Not only that, but since humanity originated in Africa, it is not surprising that Africans possess the greatest genetic diversity which means that even if there exist genes that determine or govern intelligence, it would be silly to say that such genes are the same for all members of a population, let alone all the populations of the continent of Africa!!...
^ So as you can see, most of the things he bases his claims on are unscientific and those that seem scientific in regards to genetics were in fact debunked a long time ago by that very field he helped pioneer!!
I believe the conclusion is simple: He is just an old white geezer whose senility has exposed the racism he likely always had. (Celt, what's your excuse? )
Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Nobel-winning biologist apologizes for remarks about blacks
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Nobel laureate biologist Jim Watson apologized "unreservedly" Thursday for stating that black people were not as intelligent as whites, saying he was "mortified" by the comments attributed to him. "I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said," Watson said during an appearance at the Royal Society in London.
"I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways that they have."
"To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief," he said.
Watson, 79, an American who won the 1962 Nobel prize for his role in the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA, told the Sunday Times 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."
Watson also asserted there was no reason to believe different races separated by geography should have evolved identically, and he said that while he hoped everyone was equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true."
His comments were met with an avalanche of criticism, and London's Science Museum canceled Watson's planned Friday appearance, saying his remarks had "gone beyond the point of acceptable debate."
The British government's skills minister, David Lammy, who is black, called the comments "deeply offensive."
"It is a shame that a man with a record of scientific distinction should see his work overshadowed by his own irrational prejudices," Lammy said.
Watson's remarks to the Sunday Times were the latest in a number of controversial comments from the eminent biologist.
In 1997, Britain's Sunday Telegraph quoted Watson as saying that if a gene for homosexuality were isolated, women who find that their unborn child has the gene should be allowed to have an abortion.
During a lecture tour in 2000, he suggested there might be links between a person's weight and their level of ambition and between skin color and sexual prowess.
"That's why you have Latin lovers," he said, according to The Associated Press, which cited people who attended the lecture. "You've never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient."
And in a British TV documentary that aired in 2003, Watson suggested stupidity was a genetic disease that should be treated
Posts: 391 | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Neith-Athena: It is not too surprising that a Nobel-Prize winner would say this, seeing that V.S. Naipal, an uber-racist Indian from Trinidad who hates Blacks, won the Nobel prize for literature some years ago. I wonder whether they would give such a prize to a Black person who hated whites or other non-Blacks. Then again, Chinweizu, I have read, is more hostile to the "West" than Achebe, and he is not as well-known in the "West." See a connection?
I would never characterize Naipaul as racist! Naipaul imagines himself English! despite being Asian Indian (his ethnicity) and he was brought up under the British colonial system and he exhorts the Britsh system as being superior! Nothing wrong with that POV. He would never marry a Hindu (as if that matters or is proof of anything) but one wife was an English woman and the most recent a Pakistani Muslim!
He just like to turn his nose up at stuff and he is boldface like the Trini he is but he cannot hide it.
Posts: 1290 | From: usa | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: I believe the conclusion is simple: He is just an old white geezer whose senility has exposed the racism he likely always had. (Celt, what's your excuse? ) [/QB]
There really is no excuse when making those kinds of generalizations about a whole group of people. It's especially an insult to those members of the group that are accomplished and beneficial to progression and mankind in general. My views about the people of ancient Egypt don't extend over to that kind of behavior. He ought to be greatly ashamed of his comments. That kind of overt insensitivity shows me that he is the one that lacks real intelligence.
Posts: 197 | Registered: Jul 2007
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^ Either way, the very branch of science that the guy help found (Genetics) debunks his very claims. How ironic does that sound? Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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What social programs are based on the equality of people of Black African decent? I am not sure what this man is referring to nor do I understand what he is proposing. He sounds no different than Hitler with pretty much the same argument. Essentially kill Homosexuals and Blacks and certainly Jews are next. Always thought the idea that AIDS was manufactured by an evil scientist to kill Blacks and Gays a joke but this man sends chills down my spine when I reconsider my position on this.
The root of all contention is Pride.
Posts: 154 | From: Seattle Washington | Registered: Oct 2007
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His comments led event organisers to cancel his appearances The Nobel Prize-winning DNA pioneer James Watson has been suspended by his research institution in the US. Dr Watson has drawn severe criticism over remarks he made in a British newspaper at the weekend.
In the interview, he was quoted as saying Africans were less intelligent than Europeans.
The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory had already distanced itself from the scientist's comments but its trustee board has also now suspended him.
A statement from the Long Island, New York, institution said the action was being taken "pending further deliberation by the board".
Unreserved apology
Dr Watson was due to give a lecture at the Science Museum in London on Friday as part of a book tour. But the museum cancelled the event, saying the scientist had gone beyond the point of acceptable debate.
The Bristol Festival of Ideas has also cancelled an appearance by Dr Watson.
And further critical comment of Dr Watson's views has come from Dr Craig Venter, the scientist/businessman who led the private effort to decode the human genome, and who, by coincidence, is also visiting the UK to promote a book.
"Skin colour as a surrogate for race is a social concept not a scientific one," Dr Venter said. "There is no basis in scientific fact or in the human genetic code for the notion that skin colour will be predictive of intelligence."
Dr Watson helped unravel the structure of DNA
Profile: Dr James Watson In his Sunday Times interview, Dr Watson was quoted as saying 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 was further quoted as saying that his hope was that everyone was equal but that "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true".
The scientist has since said that the way the words were presented did not reflect properly his position.
"I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have," he said.
"To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly.
"That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief."
Scientific endeavour
And in comments published in The Independent newspaper on Friday, Dr Watson tries to clarify his position.
"We do not yet adequately understand the way in which the different environments in the world have selected over time the genes which determine our capacity to do different things," he is quoted as saying. "The overwhelming desire of society today is to assume that equal powers of reason are a universal heritage of humanity.
"It may well be. But simply wanting this to be the case is not enough. This is not science. To question this is not to give in to racism. This is not a discussion about superiority or inferiority, it is about seeking to understand differences, about why some of us are great musicians and others great engineers."
Dr Watson was a joint winner in 1962 of the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA, the molecule that lies at the heart of heredity in living organisms.
When, some 40 years later, Dr Venter and colleagues were finally able to read all of the DNA in our cells, they concluded the concept of race could not easily be described by our genetics.
Venter and his team pointed to the fact that people from different racial groups could be more genetically similar than individuals within the same group. Genetic studies show that there is more variability in the gene pool in Africa, than outside.
Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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When, some 40 years later, Dr Venter and colleagues were finally able to read all of the DNA in our cells, they concluded the concept of race could not easily be described by our genetics.
Venter and his team pointed to the fact that people from different racial groups could be more genetically similar than individuals within the same group. Genetic studies show that there is more variability in the gene pool in Africa, than outside.
^ Which means the 'good' Dr. Watson hasn't been keeping up with the science he's helped started.
To be honest, I kind of feel sorry for the guy being suspended from his lab and all. He is an old white guy whose old age senility seems to have gotten the better of him. Not that there is any excuse for what he said. I think the best solution is to use the very science that he helped usher in such as the findings above. The guy is a product of his time (1950s), it would disturb me more that young people of this generation would share his views and sentiments.
Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Good post Mystery Solver, I was just about to post myself, but Djehuti just eradicated any purpose yet again by saying what I was going to say, the way I was going to say it [blunt] , although in simpler terms.
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: [b]I believe the conclusion is simple: He is just an old white geezer whose senility has exposed the racism he likely always had. (Celt, what's your excuse? )
posted
Surprised that people have so far fail to recognize that Dr Watson is an EUGENIST..
Here are other remarks made by this "respectable scientist"..
-in the January 2007 ed of the Esquire Magazine that anti-Semitism,in some circumstances,is justified..
-complains that the poorer classes are having more children than the richer,more intelligent classes
-"I think now we are in a terrible situation were we should pay rich people to have more children".
-says that if we do not encourage procreation of wealthier citizens,IQ levels will most definitely fall.
Finally Margaret Sanger noticed the same thing and Planned Parent Parenthood(American Birth Control league) was born...and financed by the Ford,Carnegie,Rockfeller,etc.. Foundations
posted
I wonder where he gets the idea that wealthy people are generally more intelligent than everyone else? A great many wealthy people are not wealthy by their own doing. Sounds to me like he is just a product some dumb luck and now he thinks he's better than most everyone else because of it.
Posts: 197 | Registered: Jul 2007
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If, as some state and agree that places in Africa are in Africa but should not be there or they don't represent Africa, why is there not the same syllogistic agreement of countries in Europe that should not be in Europe, or do not belong there? Just as I thought!
Posts: 1290 | From: usa | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by ray2006: Surprised that people have so far fail to recognize that Dr Watson is an EUGENIST..
Here are other remarks made by this "respectable scientist"..
-in the January 2007 ed of the Esquire Magazine that anti-Semitism,in some circumstances,is justified..
-complains that the poorer classes are having more children than the richer,more intelligent classes
-"I think now we are in a terrible situation were we should pay rich people to have more children".
-says that if we do not encourage procreation of wealthier citizens,IQ levels will most definitely fall.
Finally Margaret Sanger noticed the same thing and Planned Parent Parenthood(American Birth Control league) was born...and financed by the Ford,Carnegie,Rockfeller,etc.. Foundations
^ And again, his beliefs are all debunked by the very science he helped founded-- genetics!
In fact yet again, there is nothing scientific about these claims. Since when does wealth correlated with intelligence?!
quote:Originally posted by Celt: I wonder where he gets the idea that wealthy people are generally more intelligent than everyone else? A great many wealthy people are not wealthy by their own doing. Sounds to me like he is just a product some dumb luck and now he thinks he's better than most everyone else because of it.
Indeed. It is true that in capitalist societies, most people who do make it rich are very intelligent, but the question is how many people today are rich by their own making? Can someone say Paris Hilton? LOL But going by what we know in genetics, even then there is no guarantee that Paris will have offspring as low in intelligence as her! Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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But you gotsa be smart to stay a step ahead of your accountants and lawyers who wanna swindle you outta all yer dough. And I ain't playin'! Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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^ Yes, but you are talking about those rich people who actually take the responsibility of maintaining their finances as opposed to folks in general who happen to be rich.
By the way, are you speaking from experience? Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Footing shown in CNN today about this fellow Watson, interestingly being very well received by a seemingly very gleeful black fellow, standing very close to his side.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Ps - If there is anything else to take away from this James Watson fiasco, it is further proof that people of recent African descent simply cannot afford to not get involved in understanding genetics; notable presence in this field will keep people like Watson on their toes and perhaps incite them to think twice about using their 'noble prize' to high-jack science to forward their reactionary political dogma.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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^ Indeed. It's as a few folks have said-- science is objective but some so-called scientific minds are still subjective. Genetics is and still proves to be a powerful tool, and like all science is not simply meant for whites to have only.
Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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