James Watson’s Ordeal - MacDonald

October 27, 2007 on 9:13 pm | Friedrich Braun | Ethnicity and Ethnic Genetic Interests , Free Speech , Genetics & Human Bio-Diversity , IQ and Heredity , Jewish Diaspora , Liberalism & the Left , Marxism & Culture War , Military Matters , Multiculturalism, Psychology , Race Realism , Race Relations, Racialism, Science & Technology , The Jewish Question, White Nationalism | | Email This Post | Print this Post

James Watson’s Ordeal
Kevin MacDonald
October 24, 2007
James Watson’s embrace of racial differences in intelligence once again shows the undiminished power of the left to control public discourse on critical issues related to diversity and multiculturalism. When Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray published The Bell Curve in 1994, it was greeted with a great sense of anticipation in some circles that at last issues related to race and IQ could be discussed openly and honestly. Finally, a book had been published by a mainstream publisher that dared to argue that not only were there racial differences in intelligence, but also that it was reasonable to suppose that these differences were partly due to inheritance.

But it never happened. One has to look long and hard to find mainstream media accounts of race differences in academic success that even propose genetic differences as a reasonable hypothesis. For example, recent state reports on school success have emphasized that economic differences do not explain the racial gap in school success. One would think that the failure of the favorite explanation of the cultural left would prompt reasonable people to at least suggest at least the possibility that genetic differences are involved. But that explanation is utterly taboo in the mainstream media.

Below the surface, however, in the labyrinths of academia, The Bell Curve has had an impact. Many new researchers are now studying general intelligence. Even the US military and much work in industrial-organiza tional psychology is taking the importance of “g,” the general factor of mental ability, into account.

Admittedly, the topic of race differences is still highly controversial. Nonetheless, even here there are real signs of progress. For example, an entire issue of the top-drawer American Psychological Association journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law was devoted to a review of Black-White IQ differences by J. Philippe Rushton and Arthur Jensen. Their paper (in 2005) entitled “Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability” concluded that Black-White differences were between 50 and 80 percent heritable. Most recently, Rushton and his colleagues published two studies in a paper in the July 2007 Proceedings of the Royal Society of London showing that the East Asian-European- South Asian-Colored- Black differences, mainly in South Africa, were substantially heritable.

However, these positive indications have not yet percolated up into the mainstream media. Watson was in some ways an ideal person to express his views on the topic and bring this material into the light of day. At 79 years old, he has little tangible to lose. He is a world-renowned figure with the sort of stature that can only come from making one of the central discoveries of 20th-century science. He is also a biologist with a professional understanding of genetic influences on behavior. Gene/behavior linkages are a major research interest of the Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory that he led until being suspended because of his comments on African intelligence. Watson also has a deep personal interest in genetic influences on behavior because his son has schizophrenia.

Of course, the egalitarians are free to have as much of their say as they like, no matter how nonsensical. A good example is Steven Rose, an old-time warrior in the IQ wars who is mentioned several times in Ch. 2 of The Culture of Critique. He not only condemns Watson for expressing his opinion, but is quite happy to see that Watson’s life has been upended, stating that “the repercussions are to be welcomed.” At least that far-left ideologue was honest enough to say he didn’t believe in free speech for scientists. Stalinism lives! Perhaps Watson deserves a long prison term in a psychiatric hospital.

It’s noteworthy that Watson has not caved in on the general point that natural selection may result in differences between human groups. He has defended himself by rejecting any implication that the entire continent of Africa is “genetically inferior” while nevertheless writing

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. 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.

Watson believes that in 10–15 years we will get “an adequate understanding for the relative importance of nature versus nurture in the achievement of important human objectives.”

So is the clock ticking for the cultural left? Are we about to enter an age in which it will impossible to deny genetic differences on intelligence and we will be able to rationally discuss race differences in intelligence in the mainstream media? I think not. The cultural left has a long and largely successful history of being able to combat scientific ideas that it doesn’t like. This was the main conclusion of The Culture of Critique: The long and sorry history of Boasian anthropology, psychoanalysis, the anti-hereditarian and anti-Darwinian movements in the social sciences, and the Frankfurt School all masqueraded as science but they also wore their politics on their sleeves. Like other political movements, dissenters were simply excluded ­ drummed out of professional societies, publically humiliated, and relegated to the fringes of intellectual life.

It’s a tradition that is alive and well in the 21st century. Watson has seen his book tour cancelled, he has been suspended from his position at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and has been subjected to outraged moralism from people who can’t hold a candle to his intellectual stature. And all for expressing his professional opinion on how the blind hand of natural selection may have operated to make people different.

12 Comments »

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  1. Mom, I’m not going to waste my time debating whether the earth is flat on my blog. You’re wholly ignorant of even the basic science behind racial differences in both intelligence and temperament. Have you read any of the following monographs?:

    Richard Lynn: Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis

    Frank Salter: On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethny, and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration

    J.P.Rushton: Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective (3rd Edition)

    Arthur Jensen: The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability (Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence)

    Michael Levin: Why Race Matters

    Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein: Bell Curve : Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life
    http://www.thecivicplatform.com/2006/05/17/my-reading-suggestions-for-all-racialists-and-white-nationalists/

    No, you have not, of course.

    Have you at least read?:
    Rushton, J. P., & Jensen, A. R. (2005). Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11, 235-294.
    http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/PPPL1.pdf

    No, you have not, of course.

    Come back when you have familiarized yourself with the scientific evidence contained in the above works. Until then, good bye.

    Comment by Friedrich Braun — October 28, 2007 #

  2. The decision to delete “Mom’s” comment is warmly applauded. Her ignorant, smug denials of basic knowledge in that post were a bit hard to stomach, and I considered posting a comment myself, calling for its deletion.

    Comment by Fred Scrooby — October 28, 2007 #

  3. People like Mom cannot handle the truth. It’s like debating evolution with a religious fanatic. No matter the types of evidence you present, you’ll never convince her. I can’t be bothered with such people.

    Comment by Friedrich Braun — October 28, 2007 #

  4. I am no scientist, but Watson’s observations of race differences in intelligence really require little more than open eyes and a philosphy that science should trump politics.

    Absent liberal politics, debating the more than obvious differences in intelligence among different ethnicities would make little more sense than debating whether or not Blacks really had curlier hair or darker skin than Whites.

    If clearly observable physical differences exist between the races, why should it be an inviolate principle that differences below the skin cannot possibly exist?

    Given these clearly observable and differences that exist in height, skin color, facial features, hair texture, eye color and susceptibility to certain deseases, wouldn’t it be most unlikely that intelligence alone has evolved exactly indentical in every race?

    Certainly it is conceivable that natural selection would select for intelligence more in some environments than others.

    Perhaps there was less evolutionary pressure to evolve greater intelligence in Africa than in Asia, for example. Perhaps Africans were as smart as they needed to be given the challenge of their environment.

    Natural selection, seeking no grants and not having to commune with the far-left academia, has no politics. When it comes to science, politics is the elephant in the room.

    Comment by Frankb — February 25, 2008 #

  5. Excellent comment above by Frankb. You’ve got all the basics down, Frank, and you’re in an impregnable position. No one … no one … can overcome you in an argument. You’re there, you’ve arrived. You already surpass Fjordman, Conservative Swede, and more than half the writers at BrusselsJournal.com. I’m impressed! Congratulations!

    Comment by Fred Scrooby — February 25, 2008 #

  6. “Natural selection, seeking no grants and not having to commune with the far-left academia, has no politics. When it comes to science, politics is the elephant in the room.”

    A very accurate observation.

    Comment by Friedrich Braun — February 25, 2008 #

  7. I’m reading this on 4-08-08. I wonder what Mom wrote. I’m disappointed you deleted the post. I thought the deletion of contrary opinions was a practice strictly limited to the left. I’ve had my posts deleted from left and PC sites, and was sure it was taken down because it was thought provoking and irritated the closed minded left.

    I think an article should only be taken off for using traditional foul language, and this does not include the N-word.

    Comment by Walter Lewkowsji — April 8, 2008 #

  8. W.L., you’re starting to watch a movie half way through while pretending to know what happened at the beginning. Mom is a compulsive spammer whose opinions have been addressed and refuted countless times, to no avail. She would show up with the exact same nonsensical material over and over. I didn’t start this blog with the idea of wasting my time on peecee liberals like Mom. As to your advice, thanks. Start your own blog and do as you feel. My blog is driven by a certain worldview and is not an equal opportunity forum. It is not a free speech area where all are welcome to contribute.

    Comment by Friedrich Braun — April 9, 2008 #

  9. Walter, if you had seen Mom’s comments you would have begged the site owner to delete them, trust me. I guarantee it. That stuff was very simply sickening, nauseating. Made you vomit. You talk about “foul language”? Foul language is refreshing compared to Mom. I’d rather have the foul language.

    Comment by Fred Scrooby — April 9, 2008 #

  10. There’s a male version of Mom polluting the threads over at Prozium’s, by the way — a first-rate asshole signing as “The Monitor.” Guy’s been at it over there for what must be several weeks now. No one, no force on earth, can make this asshole shut the f*** up.

    Comment by Fred Scrooby — April 9, 2008 #

  11. Dear Mr. Braun,

    Thank you for your polite answer. However, I was not “pretending to know what happened at the beginning”, I did not know and I wanted to know. If a person’s writings are obnoxious this is a valid reason for not giving him a forum.

    I came to your site by way of interest in Kevin MacDonald and had no way of knowing the governing rules for posting. I can appreciate your strong personal feeling about your blog and would not presume to tell you how to be successful. But a really bad post would be scrolled down in a hurry, and posting contrary opinions, even poorly expressed have a way of spurring on the faithful to post insightful critiques.

    And after reading Fred Scrooby remarks I am not any less curious. I have resigned myself to never knowing what Mon wrote, but this is less an annoyance than not knowing who kill Kennedy.

    Comment by Walter Lewkowski — April 9, 2008 #

  12. I think liberals might be hypocritical and unable to defend their position intellectually, but that does not mean the people who hold the contrary position are any better.

    Saying evolution works and created these brilliant and great Europeans or even Jews must be nauseating. In the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, they said they would promote Science and materialism over religion. It seems to me they have succeeded and anyone who thinks that Science can determine the unvarnished truth without any assumptions or beliefs is deluded. Science has a philosophy, that philosophy has an ideology, the ideology and philosophy shapes Science and its findings.

    I bet there are black people who are far better at looking after their cultures and people than white people…yet all this detail is lost in ‘collectivist’ accounts.

    Comment by db — May 7, 2008 #

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