5 ms·

James Watson - who was as close to royalty as you can get in science - worked very long and hard to get himself fired. It wasn’t just ”an interview”, but a life

by stenl 7y ago

James Watson - who was as close to royalty as you can get in science - worked very long and hard to get himself fired. It wasn’t just ”an interview”, but a lifetime of racism and sexism. Lior Pachter has a handy collection of quotes with links to sources: https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/james-watson-in-his-own-words/ https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/james-watson-in...

l0000p 7y ago
But you're just assuming that he is wrong based on your own presumptions without any actual knowledge about the subject. The question is who is most likely to be right, a nobel prize winning Ph.D. specialized in molecular biology, genetics and zoology, who worked 20 years at Harvard etc, etc....or you. This is exactly the problem of cancel culture. Just because he points out something you don't like you're suddenly an expert and somehow think he is now wrong. What about double helix? Is he wrong about that too? Based on what? Why don't you have an opinion about that? Because you don't care? Even though your ability to judge the correctness of this research is the same as the race-related studies.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > The question is who is most likely to be right, a nobel prize winning Ph.D. specialized in molecular biology, genetics and zoology, who worked 20 years at Harvard etc, etc....or you. It doesn't really matter either way when you're pushing your opinions and anecdotal opinions as fact. > What about double helix? Is he wrong about that too? Based on what? Why don't you have an opinion about that? Because you don't care? Even though your ability to judge the correctness of this research is the same as the race-related studies. How exactly is this relevant?
  - l0000p 7y ago
    So somehow, without any deep knowledge of any of these subjects, you're able to determine that one statement is correct and the other is not. I'm doubting that this is based on anything else than emotions.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > So somehow, without any deep knowledge of any of these subjects On what basis do you make this assumption?
      - l0000p 7y ago
        Great, show me your Nobel price in a relevant field and proof of 20 years of research expertise at Harvard and I'll take your opinion serious.
- nl 7y ago
  The question is who is most likely to be right, a nobel prize winning Ph.D. specialized in molecular biology, genetics and zoology, who worked 20 years at Harvard etc, etc....or you. Lior Pachter (who that link was from) is a Professor of Computational Biology at CalTech. His other post about Watson is good too: https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/the-perfect-human-is-puerto-rican/ https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/the-perfect-hum... But you don't need to steal a Nobel prize to recognise racism. And yes, "scientific" racism is wrong as in incorrect, as any honest search will show.
  - anglercut 7y ago
    No, his other post is hot garbage. He's using his knowledge, wit and ability to obfuscate, ridicule and discredit the information critical to our well-being as a species – all the while committing character-assassination. It's honestly despicable. Let's look at it closer. > One of Watson’s obsessions has been to “improve” the “imperfect human” via human germline engineering. This is disturbing on many many levels. First, there is the fact that for years Watson presided over Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory which actually has a history as a center for eugenics. Then there are the numerous disparaging remarks by Watson about everyone who is not exactly like him, leaving little doubt about who he imagines the “perfect human” to be. But leaving aside creepy feelings… could he be right? Is the “perfect human” an American from Chicago of mixed Scottish/Irish ancestry? Should we look forward to a world filled with Watsons? Then he brings up the topic of "good" and "bad" SNPs and seques into an inane argument about ethnicity of perfect human: «since many disease SNPs are population specific», "admixed" Puerto Ricans are superior. But that's working backwards from the conclusion, not a knockdown argument against Watson's dream. To wit: Watson is racist and racists are obviously wrong, therefore we should renounce research into human germline engineering. Most damningly, Pachter poisons the well of engineering by tying it to eugenics with nothing but guilt by association. Now, any non-indoctrinated human can understand that the issue of "perfect" phenotype is not about modern groups at all; indeed, every human on the planet has a decidedly wretched genome. A word to Maynard Olson, one of the founders of the Human Genome Project: > So, what have our first glimpses of variation in the genomes of generally healthy people taught us?... What is on the top tier? Increasingly, the answer appears to be mutations that are “deleterious” by biochemical or standard evolutionary criteria. These mutations, as has long been appreciated, overwhelmingly make up the most abundant form of nonneutral variation in all genomes. A model for human genetic individuality is emerging in which there actually is a “wild-type” human genome—one in which most genes exist in an evolutionarily optimized form. There just are no “wild-type” humans: We each fall short of this Platonic ideal in our own distinctive ways.[1] It seems that Watson was correct again. The degree to which we fall short, to which we are damaged by deleterious mutations, is hard to appreciate, but near-certainly astronomical. By helping to suppress this line of research with his non sequitur and vitriol, Pachter subjects future generations to an avoidable misery of historically known human condition. Gwern makes a compelling case for intelligence: «since existing differences in intelligence are driven so much by the effects of thousands of variants, the CLT/standard deviation of a binomial/gamma distribution implies that those differences represent a net difference of only a few extra variants, as almost everyone has, say, 4990 or 5001 or 4970 or 5020 good variants and no one has extremes like 9000 or 3000 variants—even a von Neumann only had slightly better genes than everyone else, probably no more than a few hundred. Hence, anyone who does get thousands of extra good variants will be many SDs beyond what we currently see. »[2] But since so much is heavily hereditary, the same logic is true for longevity, willpower, general health, mental health, hedonic tone, beauty of course... Our descendants could be as Gods, way above ugly squabbles for ethnicity rankings that we have and Pachter is obsessed with – but only if some Professors of Computational Biology don't succeed at completely brainwashing people on fairly uncontroversial topic. Article Pachter links to is also just opinionated blather and guilt by association: > Watson then sought to pre-empt any scientific self-doubt: “We should be proud of what we’re doing and not worry about destroying the genetic patrimony of the world, which is awfully cruel to too many people,” he said. “We get a lot of pleasure from helping other people. That’s what we’re trying to do.” ... Making “better human beings” differs from making human beings better by curing their diseases. Making better human beings is more closely aligned with the old eugenics vision. The previous century’s eugenicists sought to breed better humans by promoting specific types. Besides the heavy–handed implicit demand to clutch pearls at Watson's suggestion, I don't see how he is wrong or bad, and how the author is making an argument at all. A community of hackers should be able to easily understand the eldritch horror or a long, highly redundant, 90% dysfunctional code that evolved by random alterations and no fitness function sans "can actually survive" running their entire biochemistry; as well as the potential for improvement here. But no, listening to politically motivated demagogues is more fun I guess. It's a shame really. 1: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6019/872.3 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6019/872.3 2: https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection#limits-to-iterated-selection-the-paradox-of-polygenicity https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection#limits-to-iterated-se...
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > The question is who is most likely to be right, a nobel prize winning Ph.D. specialized in molecular biology, genetics and zoology, who worked 20 years at Harvard etc, etc....or you. Or we could, instead of argument to authority, look at the actual research in the field, which doesn't support Watson's conclusions. (Neither does it strongly support their negation.) And Watson's expertise is in the low-level mechanics of heredity; it's less relevant to broad population psychometry and the analysis of heredity of traits measured through such psychometry than is, say, a bachelor's degree in any of the social sciences. > What about double helix? Is he wrong about that too? By “he” do you mean Rosalind Franklin? But, no, of course that's not wrong, it's been extensively confirmed.
  - l0000p 7y ago
    What is interesting here is that you disregard authority for results you disagree with and quotes authority for results you agree on. It sounds like your emotions are deciding which results you find 'correct'. This is the exact problem we're discussing.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > What is interesting here is that you disregard authority for results you disagree with and quotes authority for results you agree on. What is interesting here is that you have an obviously pre-conceived argument and simply invent false facts (such as the appeal to authority I did not make anywhere) to fit it when reality doesn't supply them for you.
      - l0000p 7y ago
        You're showing a curious case of projection. I'm not presenting any arguments in favor of Mr Watson's research, I'm pointing out that you are not basing your opinion on all available facts since you're arguing for censorship of research you disagree with for emotional reasons. And in turn, you accuse me of inventing facts that you're not willing to examine yourself. How curious.
  - Chris2048 7y ago
fishnchips 7y ago
Wow, I never realized the extent of it!
anglercut 7y ago
Well, let's just pick one example of a supposedly absolutely reprehensible and wrong statement in that collection. > “The one aspect of the Jewish brain that is not first class is that Jews are said to be bad in thinking in three dimensions.. it is true” – Watson > Sorry but these are racist and misogynist in a direct way. In what high school were you taught to read deliberations about Jewish brains as “rude comments about people in general”. That would also explain your curious view on what biology is. – some busybody > Different studies have found different results, but most have found well above-average verbal and mathematical intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews, along with slightly below-average spatial intelligence,[2][3] producing an average IQ score in the range of roughly 107 to 115, well above the general mean of 100.[4][5][6][7] – Wikipedia* He was supremely politically incorrect and unconcerned with how his views might be misrepresented. However, here we see that he was factually correct (inasmuch as intelligence is function of the brain) and, also, simply expessing mainstream scientific views. To someone who is not yet a true believer, you are only further confirming that his cancellation was part of general ideological assault on science. He "worked very long and hard to get himself fired" by saying things he as someone who respects and understands science believed. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence
- pseudalopex 7y ago
  Slightly below average is not bad. The median Ashkenazi Jew is not all Jews. Watson implied the difference is innate. Wikipedia does not.
dennis_jeeves 7y ago
I read the quotes in the links. None of that to me constitutes as 'racism' and 'sexism' as commonly defined. They are just plain observations which incidentally resonates with my own observations. Of course your average person out there will construe all his statements as being racist and sexist. You could argue that some of his statements are bad jokes, but that is subjective. To quote the guy 'rob' who made the comment on June 4, 2018 at 5:22 am : ------------------------------------------ Is he an old man? Yes. Does he not know when to keep his mouth shut? Yes. Are some of his views outdated? Yes. Get over it. 90% of the planet is as bad as him, if not worse. And 90% of your views will be outdated too in 20 years. This never-ending desire of "the left" (which includes most of academia) to feel offended is far more damaging than the ramblings of an old man. ------------------------------------------
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  You mean to tell me an old man who grew up in even more racist and sexist societies, making racist and sexist "jokes", is not racist because he is old and this used to be normal? We all know plenty of old racist men like this. Hell, some of the more civilized (your definition of "left") people may have acted like this as children or young adults. Some of us also know better men than this. Better ones who find most of that page pretty despicable in any context. Are you stating what it seems you are -- that the better ones are wrong because they do not observe the these things that resonate with you? I think you should seriously re-evaluate your observations if half of those quotes are things you hold true, let alone all of them. Also, why don't you spend some time to expand on rob's comment. What _about_ his views is so outdated? What _about_ him being old makes him hold those views and "open his mouth" to express them? See, many on the planet are over him and his kind. We thank him for his contribution, but it's time he got off the stage. There's hardly room for 90% of the planet on it. Perhaps the people who worship the egos of "outdated" and "bad" "old" people lacking in self control should recognize the fact that they worship the weakness of, in your commenters words, the bottom 10th percentile of people.
Chris2048 7y ago
I don't really trust the selective quoting of that blog, e.g: quote: “Some anti-Semitism is justified” full quote: “Should you be allowed to make an anti-Semitic remark? Yes, because some anti-Semitism is justified. Just like some anti-Irish feeling is justified. If you can’t be criticized, that’s very dangerous. You lose the concept of a free society.” They pounced on the unfortunate and/or unusual use of the word "justified", where the full context makes it clear he's talking about what you should be allowed to say, not what is correct. He means its existence in public discourse is "justified".

by stenl 7y ago

l0000p 7y ago

But you're just assuming that he is wrong based on your own presumptions without any actual knowledge about the subject. The question is who is most likely to be right, a nobel prize winning Ph.D. specialized in molecular biology, genetics and zoology, who worked 20 years at Harvard etc, etc....or you. This is exactly the problem of cancel culture. Just because he points out something you don't like you're suddenly an expert and somehow think he is now wrong. What about double helix? Is he wrong about that too? Based on what? Why don't you have an opinion about that? Because you don't care? Even though your ability to judge the correctness of this research is the same as the race-related studies.

saagarjha 7y ago
> The question is who is most likely to be right, a nobel prize winning Ph.D. specialized in molecular biology, genetics and zoology, who worked 20 years at Harvard etc, etc....or you. It doesn't really matter either way when you're pushing your opinions and anecdotal opinions as fact. > What about double helix? Is he wrong about that too? Based on what? Why don't you have an opinion about that? Because you don't care? Even though your ability to judge the correctness of this research is the same as the race-related studies. How exactly is this relevant?
- l0000p 7y ago
  So somehow, without any deep knowledge of any of these subjects, you're able to determine that one statement is correct and the other is not. I'm doubting that this is based on anything else than emotions.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > So somehow, without any deep knowledge of any of these subjects On what basis do you make this assumption?
    - l0000p 7y ago
      Great, show me your Nobel price in a relevant field and proof of 20 years of research expertise at Harvard and I'll take your opinion serious.
nl 7y ago
The question is who is most likely to be right, a nobel prize winning Ph.D. specialized in molecular biology, genetics and zoology, who worked 20 years at Harvard etc, etc....or you. Lior Pachter (who that link was from) is a Professor of Computational Biology at CalTech. His other post about Watson is good too: https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/the-perfect-human-is-puerto-rican/ https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/the-perfect-hum... But you don't need to steal a Nobel prize to recognise racism. And yes, "scientific" racism is wrong as in incorrect, as any honest search will show.
- anglercut 7y ago
  No, his other post is hot garbage. He's using his knowledge, wit and ability to obfuscate, ridicule and discredit the information critical to our well-being as a species – all the while committing character-assassination. It's honestly despicable. Let's look at it closer. > One of Watson’s obsessions has been to “improve” the “imperfect human” via human germline engineering. This is disturbing on many many levels. First, there is the fact that for years Watson presided over Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory which actually has a history as a center for eugenics. Then there are the numerous disparaging remarks by Watson about everyone who is not exactly like him, leaving little doubt about who he imagines the “perfect human” to be. But leaving aside creepy feelings… could he be right? Is the “perfect human” an American from Chicago of mixed Scottish/Irish ancestry? Should we look forward to a world filled with Watsons? Then he brings up the topic of "good" and "bad" SNPs and seques into an inane argument about ethnicity of perfect human: «since many disease SNPs are population specific», "admixed" Puerto Ricans are superior. But that's working backwards from the conclusion, not a knockdown argument against Watson's dream. To wit: Watson is racist and racists are obviously wrong, therefore we should renounce research into human germline engineering. Most damningly, Pachter poisons the well of engineering by tying it to eugenics with nothing but guilt by association. Now, any non-indoctrinated human can understand that the issue of "perfect" phenotype is not about modern groups at all; indeed, every human on the planet has a decidedly wretched genome. A word to Maynard Olson, one of the founders of the Human Genome Project: > So, what have our first glimpses of variation in the genomes of generally healthy people taught us?... What is on the top tier? Increasingly, the answer appears to be mutations that are “deleterious” by biochemical or standard evolutionary criteria. These mutations, as has long been appreciated, overwhelmingly make up the most abundant form of nonneutral variation in all genomes. A model for human genetic individuality is emerging in which there actually is a “wild-type” human genome—one in which most genes exist in an evolutionarily optimized form. There just are no “wild-type” humans: We each fall short of this Platonic ideal in our own distinctive ways.[1] It seems that Watson was correct again. The degree to which we fall short, to which we are damaged by deleterious mutations, is hard to appreciate, but near-certainly astronomical. By helping to suppress this line of research with his non sequitur and vitriol, Pachter subjects future generations to an avoidable misery of historically known human condition. Gwern makes a compelling case for intelligence: «since existing differences in intelligence are driven so much by the effects of thousands of variants, the CLT/standard deviation of a binomial/gamma distribution implies that those differences represent a net difference of only a few extra variants, as almost everyone has, say, 4990 or 5001 or 4970 or 5020 good variants and no one has extremes like 9000 or 3000 variants—even a von Neumann only had slightly better genes than everyone else, probably no more than a few hundred. Hence, anyone who does get thousands of extra good variants will be many SDs beyond what we currently see. »[2] But since so much is heavily hereditary, the same logic is true for longevity, willpower, general health, mental health, hedonic tone, beauty of course... Our descendants could be as Gods, way above ugly squabbles for ethnicity rankings that we have and Pachter is obsessed with – but only if some Professors of Computational Biology don't succeed at completely brainwashing people on fairly uncontroversial topic. Article Pachter links to is also just opinionated blather and guilt by association: > Watson then sought to pre-empt any scientific self-doubt: “We should be proud of what we’re doing and not worry about destroying the genetic patrimony of the world, which is awfully cruel to too many people,” he said. “We get a lot of pleasure from helping other people. That’s what we’re trying to do.” ... Making “better human beings” differs from making human beings better by curing their diseases. Making better human beings is more closely aligned with the old eugenics vision. The previous century’s eugenicists sought to breed better humans by promoting specific types. Besides the heavy–handed implicit demand to clutch pearls at Watson's suggestion, I don't see how he is wrong or bad, and how the author is making an argument at all. A community of hackers should be able to easily understand the eldritch horror or a long, highly redundant, 90% dysfunctional code that evolved by random alterations and no fitness function sans "can actually survive" running their entire biochemistry; as well as the potential for improvement here. But no, listening to politically motivated demagogues is more fun I guess. It's a shame really. 1: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6019/872.3 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6019/872.3 2: https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection#limits-to-iterated-selection-the-paradox-of-polygenicity https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection#limits-to-iterated-se...
dragonwriter 7y ago
> The question is who is most likely to be right, a nobel prize winning Ph.D. specialized in molecular biology, genetics and zoology, who worked 20 years at Harvard etc, etc....or you. Or we could, instead of argument to authority, look at the actual research in the field, which doesn't support Watson's conclusions. (Neither does it strongly support their negation.) And Watson's expertise is in the low-level mechanics of heredity; it's less relevant to broad population psychometry and the analysis of heredity of traits measured through such psychometry than is, say, a bachelor's degree in any of the social sciences. > What about double helix? Is he wrong about that too? By “he” do you mean Rosalind Franklin? But, no, of course that's not wrong, it's been extensively confirmed.
- l0000p 7y ago
  What is interesting here is that you disregard authority for results you disagree with and quotes authority for results you agree on. It sounds like your emotions are deciding which results you find 'correct'. This is the exact problem we're discussing.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > What is interesting here is that you disregard authority for results you disagree with and quotes authority for results you agree on. What is interesting here is that you have an obviously pre-conceived argument and simply invent false facts (such as the appeal to authority I did not make anywhere) to fit it when reality doesn't supply them for you.
    - l0000p 7y ago
      You're showing a curious case of projection. I'm not presenting any arguments in favor of Mr Watson's research, I'm pointing out that you are not basing your opinion on all available facts since you're arguing for censorship of research you disagree with for emotional reasons. And in turn, you accuse me of inventing facts that you're not willing to examine yourself. How curious.
- Chris2048 7y ago

fishnchips 7y ago

Wow, I never realized the extent of it!

anglercut 7y ago

Well, let's just pick one example of a supposedly absolutely reprehensible and wrong statement in that collection. > “The one aspect of the Jewish brain that is not first class is that Jews are said to be bad in thinking in three dimensions.. it is true” – Watson > Sorry but these are racist and misogynist in a direct way. In what high school were you taught to read deliberations about Jewish brains as “rude comments about people in general”. That would also explain your curious view on what biology is. – some busybody > Different studies have found different results, but most have found well above-average verbal and mathematical intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews, along with slightly below-average spatial intelligence,[2][3] producing an average IQ score in the range of roughly 107 to 115, well above the general mean of 100.[4][5][6][7] – Wikipedia* He was supremely politically incorrect and unconcerned with how his views might be misrepresented. However, here we see that he was factually correct (inasmuch as intelligence is function of the brain) and, also, simply expessing mainstream scientific views. To someone who is not yet a true believer, you are only further confirming that his cancellation was part of general ideological assault on science. He "worked very long and hard to get himself fired" by saying things he as someone who respects and understands science believed. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence

pseudalopex 7y ago
Slightly below average is not bad. The median Ashkenazi Jew is not all Jews. Watson implied the difference is innate. Wikipedia does not.

dennis_jeeves 7y ago

I read the quotes in the links. None of that to me constitutes as 'racism' and 'sexism' as commonly defined. They are just plain observations which incidentally resonates with my own observations. Of course your average person out there will construe all his statements as being racist and sexist. You could argue that some of his statements are bad jokes, but that is subjective. To quote the guy 'rob' who made the comment on June 4, 2018 at 5:22 am : ------------------------------------------ Is he an old man? Yes. Does he not know when to keep his mouth shut? Yes. Are some of his views outdated? Yes. Get over it. 90% of the planet is as bad as him, if not worse. And 90% of your views will be outdated too in 20 years. This never-ending desire of "the left" (which includes most of academia) to feel offended is far more damaging than the ramblings of an old man. ------------------------------------------

ilikehurdles 7y ago
You mean to tell me an old man who grew up in even more racist and sexist societies, making racist and sexist "jokes", is not racist because he is old and this used to be normal? We all know plenty of old racist men like this. Hell, some of the more civilized (your definition of "left") people may have acted like this as children or young adults. Some of us also know better men than this. Better ones who find most of that page pretty despicable in any context. Are you stating what it seems you are -- that the better ones are wrong because they do not observe the these things that resonate with you? I think you should seriously re-evaluate your observations if half of those quotes are things you hold true, let alone all of them. Also, why don't you spend some time to expand on rob's comment. What _about_ his views is so outdated? What _about_ him being old makes him hold those views and "open his mouth" to express them? See, many on the planet are over him and his kind. We thank him for his contribution, but it's time he got off the stage. There's hardly room for 90% of the planet on it. Perhaps the people who worship the egos of "outdated" and "bad" "old" people lacking in self control should recognize the fact that they worship the weakness of, in your commenters words, the bottom 10th percentile of people.

Chris2048 7y ago

I don't really trust the selective quoting of that blog, e.g: quote: “Some anti-Semitism is justified” full quote: “Should you be allowed to make an anti-Semitic remark? Yes, because some anti-Semitism is justified. Just like some anti-Irish feeling is justified. If you can’t be criticized, that’s very dangerous. You lose the concept of a free society.” They pounced on the unfortunate and/or unusual use of the word "justified", where the full context makes it clear he's talking about what you should be allowed to say, not what is correct. He means its existence in public discourse is "justified".