How Not to End a Career: The Racism of James D. Watson

We have enough problems in this country without Nobel Laureate American scientists pontificating in error about fields of science outside their own expertise -- especially when the issues are vital to public policy and when what they say rips the American social fabric into pieces.

James D. Watson, of DNA and Double Helix fame, now 79 years old, was scheduled to give a talk on October 18th at the prestigious British Science Museum. But in an interview with The Sunday Times, Dr. Watson has effectively shot himself in the foot and maybe blown his leg off with some inflammatory comments apparently based on only minimal knowledge of the science involved.

According to BBC News, in the interview with The Sunday Times, Watson said he 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 went on to say he hoped everyone was equal but that "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true."

The British Science Museum immediately cancelled his planned talk, saying, "We feel Dr. Watson has gone beyond the point of acceptable debate."

Yes, indeed. And what "clarification" will come to us tomorrow? Will he say he's sorry if he offended anyone? Will he say his words were taken out of context? What the hell can he say to rectify this ridiculous exposure of an expert who steps outside his field to talk about another field (to the UK Sunday Times, no less) without bothering to do his homework before shooting his mouth off?

It's difficult to imagine that in all his years in science this is the first time James D. Watson has considered the question of group differences in so-called "intelligence". So any explanation that this was a "spur of the moment thought" is unacceptable. Maybe he'll have an opportunity to "clarify" his remarks in some debate in Harvard Yard. Maybe. How he tries to wriggle out of this (if it happens) will be an interesting media show.

Meanwhile, here are some facts:

1) No one has a firm handle on "group" differences in "intelligence", and the evidence is that variation within any group is much greater than variation between groups (for example, see Lewontin et al, Not in Out Genes).

2) No one has a firm idea on what "intelligence" is other than it's what IQ tests measure. Change the structure and content of the IQ test and you change the score. Both structure and content are culture-dependent. "Intelligence" is not a unitary performance, and the neurological significance of its "measurement" is more mythology than hard science.

3) No one has proof that the genetic contribution to cognitive performance is more important than the contribution of a combination of fetal and postnatal environments. Maybe Watson will tell us he did not mean genes, he meant environmental damage. We'll see, but I don't think that's what he meant.

4) As for "race", it's a sticky muck that has sucked up more than one famous scientist -- including Nobel Laureate physicist William Shockley, the inventor of the transistor who wanted to sterilize American blacks to prevent corruption of the American "gene pool". The term "race" generally refers to a human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics. But which physical characteristics? And if the question which physical characteristics is a reasonable question, what is the implication for any attempt to relate a specific set of physical characteristics to behavior -- in particular, to something as nebulous as "intelligence"? In Nazi Germany in the 1930s, a group of prominent anthropologists devoted their professional careers to investigating the correlations between what they considered to be the physical characteristics of the Jewish "race" and what they considered to be the "inferior" traits of Jews. The Nazis were out of power only a few decades, when in America a group of prominent psychologists led by A.R. Jensen began investigating the correlations between "race" and "general intelligence" in American subpopulations. Through the remainder of the 20th century, these psychologists fed the American public the idea that Asians and Jews are more "intelligent" than non-Jewish whites, who in turn are more "intelligent" than blacks, and the idea that these differences are inherited and unchangeable. Is Jensenism the origin of Watson's ideas about race and intelligence?

5) Like "intelligence", the term "race" is ill-defined in science. The extent to which racial classifications of humans reflect any underlying biological reality is highly controversial among anthropologists and biologists, and proponents of racial classification schemes have been unable to agree on the number of races (proposals range from 3 to more than 100), let alone how specific populations should be classified.

For more of my views on this, see the chapter on race and IQ in my book Junk Science. Also, read my Huffington Post piece entitled, "Genes and IQ" posted on October 9, 2007.

It's an awful problem that James D. Watson, who still holds several positions that make or influence American science policy, apparently thinks Africans and African-Americans are less "intelligent" than whites because of their "race". It's also an embarrassment.

Maybe Dr. Watson has attended too many back-slapping Harvard dinner parties with people who have steered him wrong. I cannot imagine that he's reached his views by a thorough reading of the scientific literature.