by Ris

Created on: November 14, 2007   Last Updated: November 16, 2007

Nobel-winning biologist James D. Watson, who played a vital role in the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA, told the NY 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."

I placed emphasis on the word "ours" in Watson's quote. I did this because "ours" clearly does not imply 'white race'. I'm sorry... but everything in this society does not come down to black and white (although the media would lead us to believe differently).

Watson is a scientist. We're not supposed to understand him or agree with him. His interest is in world-wide IQ estimates and the measure of intelligence between people of different cultural backgrounds, not offending black people. His recent statement is not psycho-babble that can be attributed to his age, nor is it Jerry Lewis syndrome. Here's an excerpt from his book DNA: The Secret of Life:

"Racism is not implicit to eugenics-good genes, the ones eugenics seeks to promote, can in principle belong to people of any race. Starting with Galton, however, whose account of his African expedition had confirmed prejudices about "inferior races," the prominent practitioners of eugenics tended to be racists who used eugenics to provide a "scientific" justification for racist views. Henry Goddard, of Kallikak family fame, conducted IQ tests on immigrants at Ellis Island in 1913 and found as many as 80 percent of potential new Americans to be certifiably feebleminded. The IQ tests he carried out during World War I for the U.S. Army reached a similar conclusion: 45 percent of foreign-born draftees had a mental age of less than eight (only 1 percent of native-born draftees fell into this category). That the tests were biased-they were, after all, carried out in English-was not taken to be relevant: racists had the ammunition they required, and eugenics would be pressed into the service of the cause."

As he referenced the continent of Africa in his statement to the Times, he also made a reference to Africa in his book. Once again, he was clearly making reference to AFRICA, not Bob the black guy in Texas or Betty the Black Woman in the UK. AFRICA, the continent. The people who live in that continent.

There is no scientific proof that Africans are inferior to anyone, but statistical studies have shown that people who live in AFRICA display poor IQ scores compared with other continents. Bushmen

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