Dr. James D. Watson: DNA Pioneer, Nobel Prize Winner and Racist

Posted by Pam Spaulding at 4:44 AM on October 19, 2007.

This post, written by Pam Spaulding, originally appeared on Pam's House Blend

Just because you're the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA doesn't make you an expert on race and intelligence. 1962 Nobel Prize winner James D. Watson, clearly a scientific genius, provides race-hate organizations with an air of legitimacy by tossing out this pantload to the Sunday Times of London:

H]e was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of 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."

He recognized that the prevailing belief was that all human groups are equal, but that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true."

Well, isn't he special?

Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University in Britain, was quick to dismiss Watson's comments.

"This is Watson at his most scandalous, " Rose told the Times of London. "If he knew the literature in the subject, he would know he was out of his depth scientifically, quite apart from socially and politically."

Nevertheless, people who truly belive in racial superiority will buy into this. Again, it brings up the question of what is race anyway? Does Watson believe that it boils down to melanin surplus = lower IQ? That's ridiculous. Culture and socioeconomic factor clearly play a more significant role in the development of one's intelligence than simple genetic differences that evolved based on where one's ancestors came from and how that group physically adapted to that environment over time.

Watson's been down this sad path before. In 2000, he suggested that there is a link between melanin levels and sex drive - that dark-skinned people have stronger libidos. He also automatically drifts to the race/intelligence connection as an excuse as to why he has difficulty recruiting candidates for his DNA learning center near Harlem in New York. He says, even as he has found a black girl to participate, "there's no one to recruit."

Using Watson's logic, the fact that there are fewer women in the hard sciences should indicate that women are not as intelligent as men because they possess ovaries.

Or, had he built his DNA learning center in poverty-streaked Appalachia, I think he'd probably have a hard time recruiting candidates there too -- or do poor white folks have some kind of genetic defect that cripples them as badly as having a melanin surplus?

Madness.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Watson is spot-on. What is race anyway? Watson's view is that race is a scientifically based attribute, rather than an artificial social construct. How do biracial or mixed race people fit in the mix, that is, how black is black enough to make one inferior intellectually? Is there some sliding melanin scale to judge intelligence? Does this mean that Mensa-level-intelligent dark-skinned blacks are an anomoly, people who have overcome their defective genetic programming?

Oh, this is just impossible to tackle in the wee hours.

Tagged as: race, racism, science, genetics, intelligence, dna, watson

Pam Spaulding blogs at Pam's House Blend.