4 ms·

FWIW watson was incredibly racist against scots-irish americans, repeatedly calling them dumb in his lectures. that doesn't necessarily excuse his casual racis

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.

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.