The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #105580   Message #2174190
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
19-Oct-07 - 12:06 AM
Thread Name: BS: Racism of top scientist?
Subject: RE: BS: Racism of top scientist?
Perhaps a quote from Watson's latest book will lead to rational rather than emotional comment.

"A priori, there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically." ... Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so. Rather than face up to facts that will likely change the way we look at ourselves, many persons of goodwill may see only harm in our looking too closely at individual genetic essenses."
He also points to a search for genes that significantly affect a person's intelligence, and characterizes it as a "very hot potato."

He does not "draw any conclusions," merely points out avenues of investigation. This is the nature of scientific inquiry; where it will lead, the future will tell.

He also says scientists may identify malfunctioning genes that predispose people to criminal habits or behavior (Several other geneticists already are investigating genes and behavior). He writes that "the integrity of science, no less than that of ethics, demands that we let the truth be known"

See post above for book reference, American edition. So far, I have only looked at a few pages of his book; it seems to have quite a bit of gossip about other scientists in it. This may be boring to many readers. A review I saw called the book boring and disappointing when compared with his previous works.