Re: [xmca] Nobel prize fool says stupid things about human intelligence

From: Jay Lemke <jaylemke who-is-at umich.edu>
Date: Fri Oct 19 2007 - 08:42:21 PDT

Geez! what is it with these biologists? I can
see that from a purely biological perspective
diversity of traits according to gene pools is
expected, and some are supposed to be better
adapted than others. That is just the way they are trained to think.

And there is some responsibility on the part of
psychologists, too, especially psychometricians,
for continuing to treat "intelligence" as if it
were a quantitatively measurable single "trait",
when the measures are so ridiculous on their
face, and the phenomenon itself, insofar as "it"
exists, is an extremely complex multi-dimensional
mishmash of culture-specific high prestige
abilities, correlates of success in activities
that are the product of a particular
social-technological history, and perhaps some
genuinely survival-in-the-wild -relevant
characteristics that might actually have been
taken notice of by processes of natural selection over the long timescale.

He's talking to the Sunday Times. Are we?

JAY.

At 09:55 AM 10/19/2007, you wrote:

>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7052416.stm
>
>In his Sunday Times interview, Dr James Watson was quoted as saying
>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 was further quoted as saying that his hope was that everyone was
>equal but that "people who have to deal with black employees find
>this is not true".
>
>
>
>Just disgusting, racist, horrible...
>
>David
>
>
>David Preiss, Ph.D.
>Subdirector de Extensión y Comunicaciones
>Escuela de Psicología
>Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
>Av Vicuña Mackenna 4860
>Macul, Santiago
>Chile
>
>Fono: 3544605
>Fax: 3544844
>e-mail: davidpreiss@uc.cl
>web personal: http://web.mac.com/ddpreiss/
>web institucional: http://www.epuc.cl/profesores/dpreiss
>
>
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Jay Lemke
Professor
University of Michigan
School of Education
610 East University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Tel. 734-763-9276
Email. JayLemke@UMich.edu
Website. <http://www.umich.edu/~jaylemke%A0>www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
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Received on Fri Oct 19 08:48 PDT 2007

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