I have no idea if Watson is correct. However as a scientist he should know that if you are going to put forward a theory that goes against the consensus then you had better back it up with facts. As a geneticist I would have thought he could point to the DNA strand that supports his theory?

From what I have read today he hasn't done that and apparently neither has anyway else. Most scientists will argue that the differences between peoples are socio-economic and cultural and have nothing to do with genetics. They maybe wrong but it is up to someone to prove that.

I find it sad that he is being vilified for his views and his great achievement is being over looked. From what I read he is not a racist just a person making a controversial statement with very little to back it up.

Edited by Badger11 (13 Jan 2019 8.29pm)

One more point

I have seen this story in a number of articles and several radio reports. If he has evidence then they are not reporting it.

One more point

I would have thought it were straightforward to produce sample surveys of different races that show to a given confidence level that there are statistically significant differences between them in terms of intelligence, physical strength, size, sensory perception, longevity etc. etc. etc. And that should surprise nobody: they evolved in different environments and those environments demanded different attributes for survival, growth and competition with other hominid species.

It says nothing about the relative value of races or peoples and that is where some people have got it wrong. Some wine is red and some is white. Is white wine "better" than red wine? Of course not. It's just different.

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The Ferret
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in Evolution, environment is everything.

Eskimo peoples are short, with short arms and legs and a torso which is evolved to conserve heat. Fair enough.

the irish are world champions at digesting cow's milk.

australian aboriginals have a supernatural ability to remember landmarks across large boring undulating terrains of land.....

in all cases because that characteristic saved the lives of their forebears.

as for intelligence ? it must be environment again. A cushty environment with a generous dole will spawn lazy stupids. A nasty rat race will favour cunning rats. An environment which gives opportunities to for teams to succeed, and not loners, will breed team-players.

like ascertaining what women want in a man....its complex and multivariate. Stephen Hawking was super clever, yet many footballers wives would prefer to stick with the footballer.

tall trees was the environment that made giraffes tall. Human environments across all history and geography are all different...fostering differences in the people. Its basic science. But its not all about IQ. Its adaptation to environments.

Tibetans have adaptations to high altitude living...in the genes. Whether they were clever or stupid was of lesser importance. What pretty woman in Tibet wants to marry a bloke who spends his whole time sitting in the corner trying to catch his breath ? who will dance with her at the ball tonight ?

imagine if Silicone Valley stayed the same for 200 years. Eventually all the kids being born there would have a natural talent for computer programming. Failure computer-programmers cannot afford the high cost of living in Silicone Valley and always move away....and have kids somewhere far away.

my theory on the extremely high IQ of some groups of European Jews is after hundreds and hundreds of years of persecution and harshness from Romans & later Christians ... the clever jews learned to survive - the other jews didnt survive the persecutions. The fact of so many Physics Labs in america having so many jewish number-crunchers working there could be a innate talent with numbers following hundreds years of their forebears being banned from most professions but allowed to work as moneylenders. The Merchant of Venice is all based on a real history. Sometimes environment favours intelligence, sometimes it doesn't.

for most mammal species, the females will mostly all reproduce. Only the successful males will do so. therefore much of the pressures on natural selection happen down the male line. Males must often compete with each other in a way that may seem unseemly if you saw two females fighting each other.

if you are a tenth generation.. <insert profession here >.... the chances are you will have a natural talent for that job. If i told you the room beside you was filled with sons of professional basketball players and goalkeepers what sort of height would you expect those kids to be ?

Environment is everything. For sure, humanity did not stop evolving 50,000 years ago when we left Africa. Its every year, even up to today. If you are connected to South London you are royalty, if its Brighton you smell of birdsh..t

Edited by PalazioVecchio (14 Jan 2019 1.01am)

Kayla did Anfield & Old Trafford

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If I said the world was flat no one would listen or care. If Stephen Hawking had said it he would be challenged to prove it.

I take no view on who is right or wrong I simply don't know. I also agree that when it comes to race there are people who want to shut down the debate and I don't agree with the way he has been hounded.

However he is a world famous scientist and must have known that making such a statement would be controversial so it was down to him to back it up.

Remember he is a geneticist talking about genetic differences. You can point to study's that say black people perform worse but that doesn't prove it is down to genetics.

Scientists can now pin point in the genome the DNA that affects all sorts of things including illness, eye colour etc. To justify his statement he should be able to point to the DNA that impacts our intelligence and then show the difference between the racial groupings.

Now if he had done that no doubt other scientists would disagree with his finding but at least they would be arguing over the interpretation of how DNA works

At the moment he has offered an opinion without backing it up and so has presented himself as a target to be taken down.

One more point

No one has proved that HIV causes Aids.

However, no one serious challenges it.

Edited by Stirlingsays (14 Jan 2019 11.34am)

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