science, journalism and political-correctness
From Chris Kenning in this morning's C-J...
Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Watson has canceled his appearance at next month's Kentucky Author Forum in Louisville, one week after worldwide condemnation for suggesting black people are less intelligent than whites.
Watson, 79, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for discovering the double-helix structure of DNA, was scheduled to be interviewed Nov. 12 by NPR host Neal Conan to promote his new memoir, "Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science."
But he told forum officials Monday it would be in the best interest to cancel after an Oct. 14 Times of London Magazine article in which he said he was "inherently gloomy" about 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."
So, is this politically-incorrect Science or a scientist who's a nut and over-reaching beyond his areas of expertise? Either option is rather interesting...Noted social scientist, Charles Murray, got into similar (very) hot water with a book on the same set of topics in the 1990s, The Bell Curve.
Raoul Cunningham, president of the Louisville NAACP, said it was a "wise decision on his part" to cancel on the heels of his "racist remarks."
Cunningham said, however, that it would have been a dangerous precedent for any organization to cancel a talk because of controversial or disagreeable remarks....
An interesting combo from Raoul. Watson made racist remarks but Cunningham supports free speech, so he's glad that Watson succumbed to media/public pressure and bowed out.He has said previously that the published comments did not reflect his views -- but he has not claimed to have been misquoted.
In an Oct. 19 opinion piece in a British newspaper, Watson wrote: "To 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."
I suppose it's possible that Watson was misquoted. I've never had much trouble with that in my work with the media. But I've certainly heard a lot of stories. In any case, one has to wonder whether the interviewee was not being careful enough, especially with such a delicate topic.
posted by Eric Schansberg @ 10:36 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Perhaps he was speaking of outcomes. I.e. - they are just as smart as 'we' are, so why can't they solve hunger/AIDS/genocide/etc.?
It's not inherent intelligence, but perhaps the overwhelming weight of the issue (or corruption) at hand that keeps solutions at arm's length.
Which might lead one to say that based on the outcome (lack of solution), that there are some smarts missing somewhere.
(I see that unfortunately most of the posts on this site don't get comments, although that certainly isn't a measure of their quality and readership in this busy world.)
There is a very careful balance to be struck between the need, in a free and open society, to maximize the development and interchange of fact and opinion, and the rightful sensitivies of groups that have historically been the targets of vicious application of ideologies run amuck. One only need to remember the Holocaust.
I've never read "The Bell Curve", and so am in no position to judge whether or not what it said has been accurately represented. Assuming it did suggest some kind of demonstrable evidence of genetic intellectual differences between "races" (a disputed term in some quarters based on DNA discoveries, and that those differences were real (which I personally doubt highly, then I fear that those who would otherwise sign up to the idea of "equal protection of the law" would suddenly find that such differences to justify a "rational basis" test (instead of the current "heightened scrutiny" one courts apply to racial matters. Once that happens, we would be on a slippery slope indeed.
Great post FC!
The other thing to note is that all of this assumes the efficacy of IQ tests in measuring innate intelligence, the coherence of "race" as a construct, the usefulness of such broad generalizations, and the over-arching importance of intelligence.
I touched on this, but should have spent more time on it: The more interesting, big-picture thing here is the implications of Science and Materialism as worldviews. Both tend to be reductionistic in a number of ways-- in practice and by philosophy. This often leads to amusing and sad inferences about the data we have available to us.
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