This is typical Social Darwinist stuff of years past. Herrnstein and Murray's Bell Curve argued that minorities have lower IQs than blacks and therefore social outcomes are a result of this and not inequality. Fischer and crew responded to that with their book Inequality by Design. Not a surprising or groundbreakingn debate there.

This guy is not the most intelligent man if he can't draw the correct conclusions of his research or convey his message without being offensive, i.e. "those who have had to deal with black employees." He's a geneticist and being a geneticist means that he knows that race isn't biological (there's no race gene), it is cultural and different societies can call "race" something different. So any differences in genes that he claims to have found would be the impact of nurture-vs-nature rather than something that people are supposedly born with. For the same reason that high rates of certain diseases in certain racial groups doesn't necessarily mean that the group is prone because God genetically wired them to be prone centuries ago.

Being intelligent is different than being smart because it is about cognitive ability, reasoning, communication, etc. So there are cultural (not biological) differences to the extent that there are generalizations that can be made regarding the types of environments that blacks are in as compared to whites. This is a testament to the extremely high racial segregation of this society that has blacks and whites living in different neighborhoods, going to different schools, churches, social gatherings, family gatherings, and so forth. Inequality in education and employment, for example, weren't crafted because people saw blacks' and whites' genes and noticed inherent differences in intelligence. Inequality was and still is a social control mechanism and genetic explanations are post hoc attempts at justifying it.

Exactly. People give me the :confused: look when I discuss race as societal and cultural rather that biological. People genuinely think that racial differences are by birth, which is a self fulfilling prophecy if people think they interact with smarter whites than blacks.

Indeed.

This is spot-on - it's not surprising that confirmation bias is the strongest force in most people's impressions of race.

Besides this, I think there's a strong tendency among the general population to write off things they don't understand as "genetic" which is clearly incredibly dangerous.

Also LOL at "my comments were misconstrued" - not hard to parse something like "anyone who has worked with a black person knows what I'm talking about," you senile douche.

I completely agree.

And when people start to experience things that counter their preconceived notions, they write it off as "exceptions."

LOL.

It's the typical "damn...I said that...time for damage control."

I think it's more... Damn, please buy my book still.

as i said before...I hate it when people 'apologize' for saying things they mean....sometimes, I think you have time to think about what you are going to say before you say it and once it hits the floor, it's pretty much a done deal at that point....and in this day and age of digital media, 1/2 the world will know about your verbal slip before you have time to get the I and apostrophe to "I'm sorry" out of your mouth.

THINK before you speak and don't say it if you don't mean it

He should be used to that by now the ignorant old f*ck - I mean seriously this guy has uttered stupid crap like this in the past (differences in sexes, race linked to libido, homosexuality being an abomination, obese people being stupid, etc.). Just because someone is intelligent doesn't mean they can't also be an ignorant bigot afterall - and I wish people would realize this and stop giving this guy a podium.

Any attention is good attention?

Not really true in the world of academia - and in Watson's case I suspect that the only thing keeping him from being completely 'black balled' is the Nobel... and even before this latest comment he was already on the academic fringe in terms of speaking engagements and lectures (particularly in some circles considering the controversy behind whether or not all the work was even his).

Actually, there are academics and scientists who have built their academic reputations off of (what can be interpreted as) bigotry. I mentioned the Social Darwinists Herrnstein and Murray who were loved by many despite the hate of many.

I don't know how the Nobel prize works but I imagine you have to be doing something in the interest of humankind so bigotry isn't a good thing. I can also see why this guy is losing speaking engagements. He's a loose canon.

This Week's Irony Overload.

yea, i don't get it. white people have generally been lagging behind asians in those standardized tests for a while now. i guess it really is genetic.

You are not asian. If you were included you probably held down the average. Do people still eat dogs in your country?

yes i am. last time i checked, asian/pacific islander was still a category on the census. i guess that entitles me to kick white people's asses in standardized test because i'm genetically smarter because i'm asian. it explains so much, but i never wanted to hurt inferior people like you. that also means that you're beneath me because you're severly less intelligent.

do you still count with all of your fingers and toes? that kind of thing happens with inbreeding in the mountains.

but i do enjoy the fact that you were smart enough to use the search function. does that mean you're IQ is higher than 70?