NickIrons

What is more interesting about this issue, as I
will always take the scientific view, if it has a
valid argument is, If this man's views (And I don't
have the time to look into them) scientific, racist
or however they are portrayed, would it not be better
to allow this mans to spout his cr-ap (If that's what
it really is) in the public domaine to show what a mug
he is being portrayed to be, thus enforcing the decision/s
that have been made to stifle him?
Rather than shut him up....
I can't help thinking that if he's full of bo-llox, then let him
discredit himelf by doing it on his own.......
Sex Pistols "Never mind the Bollo-cks" demostrated this
example very well.

Aardvark

Of course, now he's apologised...

__________________
When in Woking do as the Wokes do.

"I do not wish to form my opinions by thoughtlessly quoting others; I wish others to support their opinions by sensibly quoting me." Paul Wesson (Aardvark) 13th April 2008

kernow

True! Whether it is a fact or not that Whites are more intelligent than Blacks in the scheme of things it does not matter. But it is very, very offensive to millions of people to make this statement publicly. Even my worst enemy couldn't accuse me of being a lefty, but I do think this man even if he's right should have kept his trap shut!

Tom Wilde

Watson has now been suspended by the management board of the laboratory he heads. However, he has received some support from fellow scientists, as reported in today's Independent.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...cle3078883.ece

(scroll 2/3 of the way down)

Baron von Lotsov

There has only ever been one notable female physicist and that was a long time ago and she ended up dying from the very radiation she had discovered. That's another big no-no for the PC brigade but it is blatantly obvious to the rest of us.

Besoeker

Given that evolution has resulted in differences in physical attributes, would it not seem reasonable to expect differences in intelligence?
Differences. Or not the same.
That's all James Watson was reported to have said.
Yet he is being castigated for it.

Tom Wilde

OK, first of all, I don't see inherently crazy about the idea that one race might have a higher average IQ than another, or that females might have a higher average IQ than males or vice versa. These are scientific questions that can only be settled by going out and looking - ie by conducting large-scale IQ testing. For what it is worth (not much), I have at different times met two extremely good physicists who were simultaneously female and black. Out of all the physicists I've ever known (a couple of dozen?) I'd say that that is quite a high proportion of black females - about one per dozen - but my sample size is much too small to be signficant! This kind of thing has to be done with IQ tests on a really large scale, not just on anecdotal evidence!

Having said that, we need to be cautious about IQ tests. They are meant to be a measure of pure intelligence unaffected by the cultural or educational background of the test subjects. However, I think there are big doubts over this. If you come from Swindon rather than Swaziland, your cultural affinity to the people who wrote the tests may give you some sort of advantage. If you've just finished a PhD in astrophysics, your long practice at number-juggling and problem-solving might give you an IQ test advantage over somebody born with equal intelligence who has spent the last five years doing drugs and working as a bouncer. Therefore just because group A score higher on IQ tests than group B, that doesn't necessarily mean Group A are inherently brighter.

One way to remove this uncertainty would be to redesign the IQ tests to remove any sort of cultural or gender bias. However, I suggest that you would be wasting your time: people will always pick holes in the neutrality of such a test. Anyway, if you want to compare the relative intelligence of different races or genders there is a much easier way to eliminate this doubt. You can do this by ensuring that all members of the groups you are comparing come from similar socioeconomic and educational backgrounds. Therefore you don't just test a group of white Harvard graduates and a group of black miners and then announce that the blacks are on average brainier (or vice versa). Instead what you do is compare a group of white Harvard graduates with a group of black Harvard grads, or a group of white miners with a group of black miners, or a group of female chartered accountants with a group of male chartered accountants. You have to iron out the "cultural bias" wrinkle in this way, or the results will always be suspect.

Baron von Lotsov

Well my example was dealing with a number of you points. It covers a wide time frame and it also was measuring results rather than any specific test devised by a certain type of person. Also the test was reality itself, no one has any more or less exposure to the world around them. Also it was about the top fraction of a percent where it appears the differences are at the greatest between male and female.

I have always wondered about the normal tests involved. They called them verbal reasoning for the 11+ but that is to do with a certain part of the brain which the female excels in. If it were mathematical and of a kind of intelligence to do with spatial problem solving then the boys would have the advantage. I like to stick to the definition of intelligence in meaning ones ability to apply themselves to solving real world problems of a unique kind. Puzzles you can learn.

Besoeker

Perhaps better is:
"the ability to learn, understand and apply"

Besoeker

Nor do I. But that's not actually what James Watson said - not the same is how he put it according the the articles. The newspaper headlines put their own slant on it of course.
Anyway, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that different races should have developed intelligence differently. Looking at it the other way round, it would seem improbable that all races have developed intelligence in the same way.

I agree. I think it would be very difficult to objectively test one race against another and particularly so where there has been little mixing of cultures. To that extent, I don't think your example of comparing white Harvard graduated with black Harvard graduates would give an objective measure of difference in intelligence between races. Both would have had exposure to the same sort of culture and cultural values. To get a truly objective measure, I think you would need to separate out the nature/nurture issues.