4 ms·

This is an ignorant take on what really happened. There are many sources online to better understand what happened, you might want to start with the Nature arti

by Jun8 11mo ago

This is an ignorant take on what really happened. There are many sources online to better understand what happened, you might want to start with the Nature article: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5 If you want to attack Watson, his comments on race later in life is a better angle.

throwawaymaths 11mo ago
FWIW watson was incredibly racist against scots-irish americans, repeatedly calling them dumb in his lectures. that doesn't necessarily excuse his casual racism, but i would assume he meant to imply that people can overcome their genetic ingroups' statistical predilections
- thot_experiment 11mo ago
  lmao that's an extremely charitable take that doesn't comport with other racist bullshit he said
  - throwawaymaths 11mo ago
    have you actually been to a talk he's given or are you just aping what other people report?
  - catigula 11mo ago
    What specificially did he say and why did it upset you? I am genuinely curious, I could google it easily enough, but it's actually more interesting why people have a certain impression of things and how strongly they've interrogated the accuracy of that impression.
    - cogman10 11mo ago
      > He says that he is "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", and I know that this "hot potato" is going to be difficult to address. His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true". He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because "there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don't promote them when they haven't succeeded at the lower level". He writes that "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". [1] Seems pretty clear that he thought black people had a genetic disadvantage compared to white people. And "all the testing" is simply wrong. What we've found is that Africa is the most genetically diverse area humanity has [2]. To generalize capabilities based on genetics is simply foolish as the pool is far more vast than what you'd find in England, for example. [1] https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/the-elementary-dna-of-dr-watson-gllb6w2vpdr https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/the-elementary-d... [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4067985/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4067985/
      - catigula 11mo ago
        > To generalize capabilities based on genetics is simply foolish as the pool is far more vast than what you'd find in England, for example. This seems like a very, very odd statement. The genetic pool of Ashkenazi Jews is fairly small and nobody believes they’re not particularly intelligent. The genetic pool of a single family of very, very bright people is even smaller still. Next, we can discuss what percentage of intelligence is heritable. You’re going to be surprised.
        cogman10 11mo ago
        Why? If you fundamentally believe intelligence is solely linked to genetics, then trying to say a group with vast genetic diversity is all inferior is racist. A widely diverse genetic population will have a wide and diverse intelligence. You couldn't reasonably tell what any given individual or group could achieve because there's so much diversity. > The genetic pool of Ashkenazi Jews is fairly small and nobody believes they’re not particularly intelligent. This is widely disputed [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence
        catigula 11mo ago
        > If you fundamentally believe intelligence is solely linked to genetics Strawman argument. I never said that. >This is widely disputed. No, it isn’t. You can plot ashkenazi Jews on a pct chart and their cluster is much tighter than the SNP distance between Norwegians and Swedish people. That means they have less genetic diversity, which is what you’d expect from a cohesive ethnic group.
        cogman10 11mo ago
        > No, it isn’t. Yes it is. See the linked wikipedia article to see a bunch of references to the dispute.
      - inglor_cz 11mo ago
        "Africa is the most genetically diverse area humanity has" AFAIK Africa has small pockets of very high diversity, but most Africans belong to the Nigero-Kordofan family which isn't very diverse at all. The groups that contribute to high overall diversity of the continent (Pygmies, the San) are very small, numbering in tens of thousands or so.
dsr_ 11mo ago
That's a quote from the NYT obituary.
- dekhn 11mo ago
  It's also incomplete and incorrect. It was Gosling's photo, he did the work for Franklin. And she had already shared the results in a department seminar before Wilkins showed it to W&C. And she was credited for this in the W&C paper in Nature.
- echelon 11mo ago
  Your own editorialized summary is the problem: > Codiscoverer of Rosalind Franklin's notebooks. Watson and Crick were already working on a double helix model. The crystallographic data helped them fit the puzzle pieces and confirm the model. You're discounting all of the work they put into it. Having a diffraction picture of DNA helps, but you still have to put all of the residues in the correct places, understand the 5' to 3' alignment, work out how replication might work... This is what the diffraction pattern gets you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_51#/media/File:60251254_photo-51-print-qp867-a4_2.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_51#/media/File:60251254_... Now solve for the atoms and bonds. You're making them out to be thieves. If you were working on a theoretical model of an unknown molecule using primitive tools and somebody had data that could confirm your ideas and fix the kinks, wouldn't you want to see it so you could finish your work? Watson, Crick, Franklin, and Wilkins were all talking to one another about their work. Franklin had dismissed Watson and Crick's previous molecular model as it was incorrect at the time. Franklin wasn't working on a molecular model of her own. Watson and Crick were able to synthesize information from several labs and experimental sources, including Franklin's experimental data, and apply it to the problem they were directly working on in order to deduce the correct model. Right place, right time, right problem, right context. That Franklin died before she could win a Nobel Prize is tragic, but she wasn't the lone discoverer of DNA's structure.
catigula 11mo ago
What comments did he make and what type of fact-based concerns do you have with them?
- pazimzadeh 11mo ago
  if you read the article: "he ignited an uproar by suggesting, in an interview with The Sunday Times in London, that Black people, over all, were not as intelligent as white people. He repeated the assertion in on-camera interviews for a PBS documentary about him, part of the “American Masters” series."
  - catigula 11mo ago
    That’s actually a correct belief. That’s what the testing says. Note that I’m not saying the cause, merely that’s simply what the testing indicates and is a statement with a pure basis in fact. There are different group averages in intelligence measurement and people have many feelings about why that is, but nobody credible disputes the mere existence of those data. Anyways, that’s not in quotes so doesn’t answer the question.
    - pazimzadeh 11mo ago
      First of all, what tests? Second, you’d need to prove it’s genetic and not due to socio-economic factors. I’m assuming you’ve thought of this?
  - inglor_cz 11mo ago
    Taboos are very culture-specific. I suspect that the above statement would cause approximately zero uproar in China, or the Arabic world.
    - pazimzadeh 11mo ago
      And that means that black people are inherently less intelligent?
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

by Jun8 11mo ago

throwawaymaths 11mo ago

FWIW watson was incredibly racist against scots-irish americans, repeatedly calling them dumb in his lectures. that doesn't necessarily excuse his casual racism, but i would assume he meant to imply that people can overcome their genetic ingroups' statistical predilections

thot_experiment 11mo ago
lmao that's an extremely charitable take that doesn't comport with other racist bullshit he said
- throwawaymaths 11mo ago
  have you actually been to a talk he's given or are you just aping what other people report?
- catigula 11mo ago
  What specificially did he say and why did it upset you? I am genuinely curious, I could google it easily enough, but it's actually more interesting why people have a certain impression of things and how strongly they've interrogated the accuracy of that impression.
  - cogman10 11mo ago
    > He says that he is "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", and I know that this "hot potato" is going to be difficult to address. His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true". He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because "there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don't promote them when they haven't succeeded at the lower level". He writes that "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". [1] Seems pretty clear that he thought black people had a genetic disadvantage compared to white people. And "all the testing" is simply wrong. What we've found is that Africa is the most genetically diverse area humanity has [2]. To generalize capabilities based on genetics is simply foolish as the pool is far more vast than what you'd find in England, for example. [1] https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/the-elementary-dna-of-dr-watson-gllb6w2vpdr https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/the-elementary-d... [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4067985/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4067985/
    - catigula 11mo ago
      > To generalize capabilities based on genetics is simply foolish as the pool is far more vast than what you'd find in England, for example. This seems like a very, very odd statement. The genetic pool of Ashkenazi Jews is fairly small and nobody believes they’re not particularly intelligent. The genetic pool of a single family of very, very bright people is even smaller still. Next, we can discuss what percentage of intelligence is heritable. You’re going to be surprised.
      - cogman10 11mo ago
        Why? If you fundamentally believe intelligence is solely linked to genetics, then trying to say a group with vast genetic diversity is all inferior is racist. A widely diverse genetic population will have a wide and diverse intelligence. You couldn't reasonably tell what any given individual or group could achieve because there's so much diversity. > The genetic pool of Ashkenazi Jews is fairly small and nobody believes they’re not particularly intelligent. This is widely disputed [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence
        catigula 11mo ago
        > If you fundamentally believe intelligence is solely linked to genetics Strawman argument. I never said that. >This is widely disputed. No, it isn’t. You can plot ashkenazi Jews on a pct chart and their cluster is much tighter than the SNP distance between Norwegians and Swedish people. That means they have less genetic diversity, which is what you’d expect from a cohesive ethnic group.
        cogman10 11mo ago
        > No, it isn’t. Yes it is. See the linked wikipedia article to see a bunch of references to the dispute.
    - inglor_cz 11mo ago
      "Africa is the most genetically diverse area humanity has" AFAIK Africa has small pockets of very high diversity, but most Africans belong to the Nigero-Kordofan family which isn't very diverse at all. The groups that contribute to high overall diversity of the continent (Pygmies, the San) are very small, numbering in tens of thousands or so.

dsr_ 11mo ago

That's a quote from the NYT obituary.

dekhn 11mo ago
It's also incomplete and incorrect. It was Gosling's photo, he did the work for Franklin. And she had already shared the results in a department seminar before Wilkins showed it to W&C. And she was credited for this in the W&C paper in Nature.
echelon 11mo ago
Your own editorialized summary is the problem: > Codiscoverer of Rosalind Franklin's notebooks. Watson and Crick were already working on a double helix model. The crystallographic data helped them fit the puzzle pieces and confirm the model. You're discounting all of the work they put into it. Having a diffraction picture of DNA helps, but you still have to put all of the residues in the correct places, understand the 5' to 3' alignment, work out how replication might work... This is what the diffraction pattern gets you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_51#/media/File:60251254_photo-51-print-qp867-a4_2.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_51#/media/File:60251254_... Now solve for the atoms and bonds. You're making them out to be thieves. If you were working on a theoretical model of an unknown molecule using primitive tools and somebody had data that could confirm your ideas and fix the kinks, wouldn't you want to see it so you could finish your work? Watson, Crick, Franklin, and Wilkins were all talking to one another about their work. Franklin had dismissed Watson and Crick's previous molecular model as it was incorrect at the time. Franklin wasn't working on a molecular model of her own. Watson and Crick were able to synthesize information from several labs and experimental sources, including Franklin's experimental data, and apply it to the problem they were directly working on in order to deduce the correct model. Right place, right time, right problem, right context. That Franklin died before she could win a Nobel Prize is tragic, but she wasn't the lone discoverer of DNA's structure.

catigula 11mo ago

What comments did he make and what type of fact-based concerns do you have with them?

pazimzadeh 11mo ago
if you read the article: "he ignited an uproar by suggesting, in an interview with The Sunday Times in London, that Black people, over all, were not as intelligent as white people. He repeated the assertion in on-camera interviews for a PBS documentary about him, part of the “American Masters” series."
- catigula 11mo ago
  That’s actually a correct belief. That’s what the testing says. Note that I’m not saying the cause, merely that’s simply what the testing indicates and is a statement with a pure basis in fact. There are different group averages in intelligence measurement and people have many feelings about why that is, but nobody credible disputes the mere existence of those data. Anyways, that’s not in quotes so doesn’t answer the question.
  - pazimzadeh 11mo ago
    First of all, what tests? Second, you’d need to prove it’s genetic and not due to socio-economic factors. I’m assuming you’ve thought of this?
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  Taboos are very culture-specific. I suspect that the above statement would cause approximately zero uproar in China, or the Arabic world.
  - pazimzadeh 11mo ago
    And that means that black people are inherently less intelligent?

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]