Re: [xmca] Disgrace: How a giant of science was brought low

I guess the fact that this fool holds a Nobel Prize for work in genetics
makes his remarks particularly dangerous. A year ago I flipped over a paper
published by the Australian Journal of Psychology which agreed with Watson.
Both idiots think that a statistical difference in educational outcomes can
only explained by genetics. Maybe a better explanation would be the lousy
education our anglo-saxon scientists get from our universities? Given the
current fad for everything genetic this is all unsurprising, but dangerous
nonetheless.
Andy
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Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 22:35:06 +1000
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Subject: Re: [xmca] reading ability is genetic!? (read this one!)

Here's a paper by this group:
http://genepi.qimr.edu.au/staff/nick_pdf/CV382.pdf
They prove that differential reading ability in people is genetic using ...
statistics.

Andy

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At 10:37 PM 20/10/2007 -0300, you wrote:
>It was not Watson´s first time:
>
>http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2195980,00.html
>
>For those who want to skip the link, the essential paragraphs written
>by Robin McKie in London and Paul Harris in New York say:
>"Watson is renowned for his controversial views. He sees himself as a
>free-thinker, though it must be admitted his ideas often simply seem
>eccentric. In 1997, he suggested it would be acceptable to terminate
>a foetus if it carried a gene that might mean the adult that grows
>from it was gay. He has also suggested a link between sunlight and
>libido. 'That is why you have Latin lovers. You've never heard of an
>English lover,' he said. And Watson has also proposed that a foetus
>destined to be 'stupid' should be aborted.
>
>Such maverick remarks led the journal Science to conclude, in 1990,
>that 'to many in the scientific community, Watson has long been
>something of a wild man, and his colleagues tend to hold their
>collective breath whenever he veers from the script'. This track
>record explains one intriguing feature of the Watson affair. Although
>the Sunday Times carried the interview in which the scientist
>outlined his disparaging views about black people, the paper kept his
>remarks buried in its colour magazine.
>
>A story was offered to the Sunday Times newsdesk by magazine staff,
>but was declined on the grounds that Watson had said such things in
>the past, as indeed he had. Thus it was left to Simon Kelner, editor
>of the Independent, to take Watson's claims and to run them as its
>lead story on Wednesday, under the banner: 'Africans are less
>intelligent that Westerners, says DNA pioneer'. In this way, Watson's
>fate was sealed."
>
>More contextual info in the above link and in this one (which
>includes more similar insensitive statements):
>
>http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article3078966.ece
>
>There is a track of remarks he has made that show, beyond reasonable
>doubt, he has a political agenda disguised as science.
>
>I am sure we will hear in the next few days of some (not necessarily
>representative of their fields) evolutionary psychologists and
>behavioral geneticists... trying to sell us the idea that opposing
>these remarks is an attack on free speech (in a similar manner the
>neoconservatives think that criticism of the government is
>unpatriotic). Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio...
>
>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
>
>_______________________________________________
>xmca mailing list
>xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca

  Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/ tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435,
mobile 0409 358 651

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Received on Sat Oct 20 20:38 PDT 2007