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

Yes, there is a kind of sanctimonious mob reaction to Watson's remarks.
We have been here before with THIS issue and one does not have to go back
to Latin. We might start with Larry Summers re gender.

The crux of the matter seems to me to be the following in Watson's case:
"all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is
the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really".

The "them" appears to apply to people of African decent, which includes
everyone
on XMCA if one wants to take that implication seriously, but really, to
people who
remained in Africa (a hugelyl heterogeneous continent) when our more
immediate
predecessors migrated elsewhere, including the Australian outback, the north
of Norway, and
island of Hokaido (for whom similar claims have been made).

In my view, the man is badly misinformed. "The testing" he refers to is
not like the kind of test for
genetic markers, HIV, etc that he is used to dealing with, and scholars
like Sternberg and Grigorenko,
following on a long line of work (the early history of which is traced by SJ
Gould, Gustav Jahoda, in my monograph
of 1996, the Handbook of Cross Cultural Psychology, where the work of Dasen,
Serpell, and others
is described says NO SUCH THING.

However, if he wants to site literature to support his point of view, he can
find it. Arthur Jensen has retired
but he has not disappeared. Nor have some other behavioral geneticists who
make the same argument.
I would not be surprised to see them surface in his defense as time passes.
We will see.

Remind me not to make ill informed pronouncements about DNA that offend
people's deep beliefs.

mike
On 10/20/07, Wolff-Michael Roth <mroth@uvic.ca> wrote:
>
> I don't want to be overly picky, but it is "rero" (Lat. for accused)
> not "reo," as I seem to be recalling from my Latin lessons some 40
> years ago. :-)
> Cheers,
> Michael
>
>
>
> On 19-Oct-07, at 11:43 PM, E. Knutsson wrote:
>
> In dubio pro reo? No doubt! Immediate crucifixion! And where is
> Barabbas? Or
> Giordano Bruno?
>
> On 2007-10-19, at 15:55, David Preiss 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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Received on Sat Oct 20 09:23 PDT 2007