38 ms·

James Watson's Nobel Prize Medal Will Be Returned to Him

65 points by analogj 12y ago

Paul_S 12y ago
Poetic justice also works in positive ways. It's nice to read something uplifting once in a while, though finding a Russian oligarch in such a story feels strange.
- andrewchambers 12y ago
  My guess is a rich Russian won't shy away from issues regarding politically correctness the same way a rich american would.
  - sxcurry 12y ago
    According to BBC News, in the interview with The Sunday Times, Watson said he was "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." He went on to say he hoped everyone was equal but that "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true." Sounds more like racism than political correctness.
    - Alupis 12y ago
      Racist or not, he is still a pioneer in biology and should keep his award for his contributions. I certainly don't agree with Watson's remarks, but I think it was an admirable thing that Usmanov did here.
      - peteretep 12y ago
        > Racist or not, he is still a pioneer in biology and > should keep his award for his contributions He wasn't stripped of it. He chose to sell it because he wanted to buy an expensive piece of art.
        Alupis 12y ago
        > He chose to sell it because he wanted to buy an expensive piece of art. So? Usmanov decided he would rather make a charitable contribution to Watson in a symbolic manner. Does not change the fact that i was an admirable thing to do (it was, after all, $4.7 million of his own money)
    - trhway 12y ago
      >whereas all the testing says not really." sounds like his statement is based on facts known to him (and being Nobel winning scientist he probably has good skills at understanding and analyzing facts) >Sounds more like racism Either you're trying to say what his statement wasn't based on his knowledge and analysis of facts or you're introducing a concept of "racism rooted in facts" I wonder though whether the Watson will accept the medal back from Usmanov's hands.
      - peteretep 12y ago
        > > whereas all the testing says not really. > sounds like his statement is based on facts known to him Really? He follows it up by saying "people who have to deal with black employees" will "know" that it's true. My understanding is that IQ correlates to socio-economic background, but once that's adjusted for, all race considerations fall away. If you've got a credible source that says something else, I'm sure we'd find it interesting.
        smm2000 12y ago
        Income does not really explain white-black gap in IQ. Blacks from families with >$200k/year income do about as well as whites from families with income <$20k/year. SAT test is not IQ test but it's probably highly correlated. http://isteve.blogspot.com/2014/03/2008-sat-scores-by-race-by-income.html http://isteve.blogspot.com/2014/03/2008-sat-scores-by-race-b...
        peteretep 12y ago
        Did you read the article you linked to? It suggested that socio-economic background is more important than just looking at the income.
        smm2000 12y ago
        Article speculates about it and does not provide any data. Anyway, it's difficult to argue that kids in black families with 200k+ income have less access to resources than kids in white families living below poverty line. Besides it does not really matter - the fact is that blacks in Africa have much lower average IQ than average in most other countries. It could explain lack of positive examples of countries in Africa developing as fast as China, SKorea or many other countries in other part of the world.
    - smm2000 12y ago
      What he said is racist but it's still true - IQ in most countries in Africa is abysmally low. Problem is that saying it loud today in US produces the same effect on your career as saying that communism is not the true path to future would have produced in USSR.
      - throwaway451 12y ago
        It's worse than that. The higher up you go, the more bound to standard social-justice tropes you must adhere to or risk losing everything. In that sense, America isn't that different from other countries like China or the former USSR. Dissent from The Party is punished severely, and loyalty is rewarded.
      - dubfan 12y ago
        Or for suggesting that capitalism isn't all the bee's knees in 1950s America. How quickly we forget.
    - andrewchambers 12y ago
      If Watson is racist, does that make helping Watson racist? In my opinion, no, it may be politically incorrect, which is what I was talking about.
- osipov 12y ago
  Handing back a prize to a Nobel winning scientist? $4.7 million. Keeping your wealth safe from Western governments? Priceless.
- peteretep 12y ago
  > It's nice to read something uplifting once in a while Poetic justice? Dr Watson said: 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" but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true". He sold the medal because he wanted the money to acquire an expensive painting.
noobermin 12y ago
"Usmanov hailed Watson one of the greatest biologists in the history of mankind." Does anyone have a link to a longer statement from Usmanov?
baddox 12y ago
So, sell it again for more charity?
metal13 12y ago
I thought he sold it because he wanted money and art. "Mr Watson told the Financial Times he had become an “unperson” after he “was outed as believing in IQ” in 2007 and said he would like to use money from the sale to buy a David Hockney painting." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11261872/James-Watson-selling-Nobel-prize-because-no-one-wants-to-admit-I-exist.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11261872/James-Watso...
- huxley 12y ago
  For anyone who isn't familiar with the backstory, Watson didn't become an unperson for believing in IQ, he claimed in an interview with the Sunday Times Magazine that testing proved that black Africans aren’t as smart as white people, then followed it up with the sentiment that ideally one should think that all people are equal, but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true." http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1673952,00.html http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1673952,0... http://www.wired.com/2007/10/more-on-james-b/ http://www.wired.com/2007/10/more-on-james-b/
  - waps 12y ago
    You forgot the detail which massively complicates this : James Watson' claim about the test scores is true [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence Note the first paragraph in the Wikipedia article : "The connection between race and intelligence has been ... It is still not resolved what relation, if any, there is between group differences in IQ and race." Currently we have about 104 years of data, which shows, to put it mildly, a clear pattern of racial differences in intelligence (and pretty much every other metric. Size. Weight. Speed. Color. Body temperature...). Worse, they also show a clear difference in intelligence between different ideological groups (e.g. religion) (again, and they also show a large difference in other metrics). To some extent Watson, in his first claim, has a point that we seem to be unwilling to make. There is a clear conclusion to be drawn here : Different races are different. In pretty much any metric you can come up with. Furthermore, if you look at the effect of average differences in a certain metric to examples in individuals, you get an even more politically incorrect result, based on pure math. If you take 2 groups, who differ by x percentage points in "blueness". Then if you take a random individual from group 1, and a random one from group 2, what are the chances that the first individual is more blue ? x = 1% => p =~ 76% x = 2% => p =~ 92% x = 3% => p =~ 98% So this means that if blue humans are 1% taller than green humans, then if you meet a blue and a green human on the street, the chance is about 76% that the blue human will win (be taller) than the green. (Only intelligence scores vary more than 1 standard deviation. The largest difference is between 2.5 and 3 standard deviations (and does not involve either a white ethnic or a black ethnic group))
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
Should have given it to the family of Rosalind Franklin.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
frontsideair 12y ago
I'm very split on this topic. I read this on The Verge[1] and I know they're pretty left-leaning. But to my experience they rarely lie and they made many criticisms I find valid. On the other hand, marginalization is another big problem of our age. Let me elaborate. First of all, him stealing research from Rosalind Franklin comment is a bit of a hyperbole. Sure, not asking for her permission before using data and not crediting her at all are major dick moves, but I'm pretty sure he was a brilliant scientist. The quotes from his book The Double Helix don't really help here, they are extremely misogynistic. But The Verge does not mention that in the epilogue of the same book, he said he was usually wrong about Franklin and he acknowledges the hardships she endured as a woman in science.[2] This is just the part about Franklin. The rest of The Verge article mentions about him being a generally horrible person and does not even quote the parts about obese people and genetic screening, so bonus points for them. But one thing we need to consider is that he is old. Really, he is 86. Of course this shouldn't shield him from criticism, but he was born and lived in a different world than ours. Bad behavior should be called out and shunned, but there's a fine line between this and marginalization. We should all be responsible about it. The last thing I want to add is how everyone thinks if you made one great achievement you win all the points. This reminds me a lot about what's going on with Linus Pauling.[3] He did awesome things, yes, but at some point he stopped being a pioneer in science and bullishly promoted benefits of vitamin C even though scientific community was mostly united against it. People want to see them as authority figures even after they age and lose their touch. This is sad, really. But continuing taking them seriously is usually more harm than silently ignoring them. I'm sorry no one takes him seriously anymore. But I understand universities not considering working with him anymore. I understand press not caring about what he says anymore. They all have good reasons. But that's where my pity ends. Him deciding to sell his Nobel medal makes him look like a victim, but as far as I know he didn't do it because he was poor or anything. He wanted to buy a painting, which I'm perfectly fine with. And maybe he wanted a little attention? People get old and sad, which is depressing, but there's not much we can do about it. Sorry for the long comment. [1]: http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/9/7363969/dna-pioneer-james-watson-nobel-returned-richest-man-in-russia http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/9/7363969/dna-pioneer-james-... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Use_of_King.27s_College_results http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Use_of_King.27s_Co... [3]: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitamin-myth-why-we-think-we-need-supplements/277947/?single_page=true http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitami...
Gatsky 12y ago
This is quite depressing. There isn't anything special about Watson. Like all scientific discoveries, he was in the right place at the right time, and depending on how you look at it was sufficiently ruthless/ambitious to claim his place in history. But so what? If not him, someone else would have worked it out, just like the people that almost discovered calculus or the Higgs boson. If you want to honour science, then give 5 million dollars to someone who is actually still interested in doing research. He's had his day, and has received all the accolades he deserves, if not more.
FD3SA 12y ago
A fascinating controversy in all respects. I find it difficult to argue with the conclusions in this article as an empiricist, but it does provoke some very troubling considerations about our future as a global species: http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/10/james-watson-tells-inconvenient-truth_296.php http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/10/james-watson-tells-inconven...
- seekingtruth 12y ago
  Prepare to have this comment flagkilled within the hour by the less empirically inclined. It happened to me when I posted this same article the last time a Watson thread appeared here.
  - FD3SA 12y ago
    Hence my fascination with the human mind and its inherent demons and nuanced machinations. The concept of IQ is fascinating, not least because it causes a fierce ideological firestorm almost instantaneously upon its mentioning. However, mentioning that athletic ability is genetically determined gets a heartfelt, "really, ya think??!" Alas, we are but a bunch of hominids scrambling in the dark in fear of the world in which we find ourselves. If we get too close to an idea that can burn us, most of us scurry away back to the comfortable dark. That is except for a few insane pioneers, who embrace the flames even at the cost of their own safety...
klenwell 12y ago
The level of unconscious racism in this thread is amazing. Whenever the subject of race comes up and someone sites a statistic purporting to demonstrate "African" or "black" intellectual inferiority, I suggest he imagine a seismologist who stated, "Black earthquakes are inherently inferior to white earthquakes." "I don't get it." "Exactly. Why the hell would any reputable seismologist care about white or black earthquakes?"
- seekingtruth 12y ago
  Seriously. I like the example of bears, since it allows us to remain in the realm of biology. I mean, does any reputable biologist posit meaningful differences between polar bears & black bears? It's absurd. One bear is black and the other is white. What else does that possibly tell us about their behavior or other attributes?
- throwaway451 12y ago
  It's not unconscious. I find frank discussion refreshing if terrifying thus the throwaway. Nobody used the word inferior or superior except you. No value judgements were added but your own.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

65 points by analogj 12y ago

Poetic justice also works in positive ways. It's nice to read something uplifting once in a while, though finding a Russian oligarch in such a story feels strange.

andrewchambers 12y ago
My guess is a rich Russian won't shy away from issues regarding politically correctness the same way a rich american would.
- sxcurry 12y ago
  According to BBC News, in the interview with The Sunday Times, Watson said he was "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." He went on to say he hoped everyone was equal but that "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true." Sounds more like racism than political correctness.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    Racist or not, he is still a pioneer in biology and should keep his award for his contributions. I certainly don't agree with Watson's remarks, but I think it was an admirable thing that Usmanov did here.
    - peteretep 12y ago
      > Racist or not, he is still a pioneer in biology and > should keep his award for his contributions He wasn't stripped of it. He chose to sell it because he wanted to buy an expensive piece of art.
      - Alupis 12y ago
        > He chose to sell it because he wanted to buy an expensive piece of art. So? Usmanov decided he would rather make a charitable contribution to Watson in a symbolic manner. Does not change the fact that i was an admirable thing to do (it was, after all, $4.7 million of his own money)
  - trhway 12y ago
    >whereas all the testing says not really." sounds like his statement is based on facts known to him (and being Nobel winning scientist he probably has good skills at understanding and analyzing facts) >Sounds more like racism Either you're trying to say what his statement wasn't based on his knowledge and analysis of facts or you're introducing a concept of "racism rooted in facts" I wonder though whether the Watson will accept the medal back from Usmanov's hands.
    - peteretep 12y ago
      > > whereas all the testing says not really. > sounds like his statement is based on facts known to him Really? He follows it up by saying "people who have to deal with black employees" will "know" that it's true. My understanding is that IQ correlates to socio-economic background, but once that's adjusted for, all race considerations fall away. If you've got a credible source that says something else, I'm sure we'd find it interesting.
      - smm2000 12y ago
        Income does not really explain white-black gap in IQ. Blacks from families with >$200k/year income do about as well as whites from families with income <$20k/year. SAT test is not IQ test but it's probably highly correlated. http://isteve.blogspot.com/2014/03/2008-sat-scores-by-race-by-income.html http://isteve.blogspot.com/2014/03/2008-sat-scores-by-race-b...
        peteretep 12y ago
        Did you read the article you linked to? It suggested that socio-economic background is more important than just looking at the income.
        smm2000 12y ago
        Article speculates about it and does not provide any data. Anyway, it's difficult to argue that kids in black families with 200k+ income have less access to resources than kids in white families living below poverty line. Besides it does not really matter - the fact is that blacks in Africa have much lower average IQ than average in most other countries. It could explain lack of positive examples of countries in Africa developing as fast as China, SKorea or many other countries in other part of the world.
  - smm2000 12y ago
    What he said is racist but it's still true - IQ in most countries in Africa is abysmally low. Problem is that saying it loud today in US produces the same effect on your career as saying that communism is not the true path to future would have produced in USSR.
    - throwaway451 12y ago
      It's worse than that. The higher up you go, the more bound to standard social-justice tropes you must adhere to or risk losing everything. In that sense, America isn't that different from other countries like China or the former USSR. Dissent from The Party is punished severely, and loyalty is rewarded.
    - dubfan 12y ago
      Or for suggesting that capitalism isn't all the bee's knees in 1950s America. How quickly we forget.
  - andrewchambers 12y ago
    If Watson is racist, does that make helping Watson racist? In my opinion, no, it may be politically incorrect, which is what I was talking about.
osipov 12y ago
Handing back a prize to a Nobel winning scientist? $4.7 million. Keeping your wealth safe from Western governments? Priceless.
peteretep 12y ago
> It's nice to read something uplifting once in a while Poetic justice? Dr Watson said: 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" but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true". He sold the medal because he wanted the money to acquire an expensive painting.

noobermin 12y ago

"Usmanov hailed Watson one of the greatest biologists in the history of mankind." Does anyone have a link to a longer statement from Usmanov?

baddox 12y ago

So, sell it again for more charity?

metal13 12y ago

I thought he sold it because he wanted money and art. "Mr Watson told the Financial Times he had become an “unperson” after he “was outed as believing in IQ” in 2007 and said he would like to use money from the sale to buy a David Hockney painting." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11261872/James-Watson-selling-Nobel-prize-because-no-one-wants-to-admit-I-exist.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11261872/James-Watso...

huxley 12y ago
For anyone who isn't familiar with the backstory, Watson didn't become an unperson for believing in IQ, he claimed in an interview with the Sunday Times Magazine that testing proved that black Africans aren’t as smart as white people, then followed it up with the sentiment that ideally one should think that all people are equal, but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true." http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1673952,00.html http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1673952,0... http://www.wired.com/2007/10/more-on-james-b/ http://www.wired.com/2007/10/more-on-james-b/
- waps 12y ago
  You forgot the detail which massively complicates this : James Watson' claim about the test scores is true [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence Note the first paragraph in the Wikipedia article : "The connection between race and intelligence has been ... It is still not resolved what relation, if any, there is between group differences in IQ and race." Currently we have about 104 years of data, which shows, to put it mildly, a clear pattern of racial differences in intelligence (and pretty much every other metric. Size. Weight. Speed. Color. Body temperature...). Worse, they also show a clear difference in intelligence between different ideological groups (e.g. religion) (again, and they also show a large difference in other metrics). To some extent Watson, in his first claim, has a point that we seem to be unwilling to make. There is a clear conclusion to be drawn here : Different races are different. In pretty much any metric you can come up with. Furthermore, if you look at the effect of average differences in a certain metric to examples in individuals, you get an even more politically incorrect result, based on pure math. If you take 2 groups, who differ by x percentage points in "blueness". Then if you take a random individual from group 1, and a random one from group 2, what are the chances that the first individual is more blue ? x = 1% => p =~ 76% x = 2% => p =~ 92% x = 3% => p =~ 98% So this means that if blue humans are 1% taller than green humans, then if you meet a blue and a green human on the street, the chance is about 76% that the blue human will win (be taller) than the green. (Only intelligence scores vary more than 1 standard deviation. The largest difference is between 2.5 and 3 standard deviations (and does not involve either a white ethnic or a black ethnic group))

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago

Should have given it to the family of Rosalind Franklin.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

frontsideair 12y ago

I'm very split on this topic. I read this on The Verge[1] and I know they're pretty left-leaning. But to my experience they rarely lie and they made many criticisms I find valid. On the other hand, marginalization is another big problem of our age. Let me elaborate. First of all, him stealing research from Rosalind Franklin comment is a bit of a hyperbole. Sure, not asking for her permission before using data and not crediting her at all are major dick moves, but I'm pretty sure he was a brilliant scientist. The quotes from his book The Double Helix don't really help here, they are extremely misogynistic. But The Verge does not mention that in the epilogue of the same book, he said he was usually wrong about Franklin and he acknowledges the hardships she endured as a woman in science.[2] This is just the part about Franklin. The rest of The Verge article mentions about him being a generally horrible person and does not even quote the parts about obese people and genetic screening, so bonus points for them. But one thing we need to consider is that he is old. Really, he is 86. Of course this shouldn't shield him from criticism, but he was born and lived in a different world than ours. Bad behavior should be called out and shunned, but there's a fine line between this and marginalization. We should all be responsible about it. The last thing I want to add is how everyone thinks if you made one great achievement you win all the points. This reminds me a lot about what's going on with Linus Pauling.[3] He did awesome things, yes, but at some point he stopped being a pioneer in science and bullishly promoted benefits of vitamin C even though scientific community was mostly united against it. People want to see them as authority figures even after they age and lose their touch. This is sad, really. But continuing taking them seriously is usually more harm than silently ignoring them. I'm sorry no one takes him seriously anymore. But I understand universities not considering working with him anymore. I understand press not caring about what he says anymore. They all have good reasons. But that's where my pity ends. Him deciding to sell his Nobel medal makes him look like a victim, but as far as I know he didn't do it because he was poor or anything. He wanted to buy a painting, which I'm perfectly fine with. And maybe he wanted a little attention? People get old and sad, which is depressing, but there's not much we can do about it. Sorry for the long comment. [1]: http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/9/7363969/dna-pioneer-james-watson-nobel-returned-richest-man-in-russia http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/9/7363969/dna-pioneer-james-... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Use_of_King.27s_College_results http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Use_of_King.27s_Co... [3]: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitamin-myth-why-we-think-we-need-supplements/277947/?single_page=true http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitami...

Gatsky 12y ago

This is quite depressing. There isn't anything special about Watson. Like all scientific discoveries, he was in the right place at the right time, and depending on how you look at it was sufficiently ruthless/ambitious to claim his place in history. But so what? If not him, someone else would have worked it out, just like the people that almost discovered calculus or the Higgs boson. If you want to honour science, then give 5 million dollars to someone who is actually still interested in doing research. He's had his day, and has received all the accolades he deserves, if not more.

FD3SA 12y ago

A fascinating controversy in all respects. I find it difficult to argue with the conclusions in this article as an empiricist, but it does provoke some very troubling considerations about our future as a global species: http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/10/james-watson-tells-inconvenient-truth_296.php http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/10/james-watson-tells-inconven...

seekingtruth 12y ago
Prepare to have this comment flagkilled within the hour by the less empirically inclined. It happened to me when I posted this same article the last time a Watson thread appeared here.
- FD3SA 12y ago
  Hence my fascination with the human mind and its inherent demons and nuanced machinations. The concept of IQ is fascinating, not least because it causes a fierce ideological firestorm almost instantaneously upon its mentioning. However, mentioning that athletic ability is genetically determined gets a heartfelt, "really, ya think??!" Alas, we are but a bunch of hominids scrambling in the dark in fear of the world in which we find ourselves. If we get too close to an idea that can burn us, most of us scurry away back to the comfortable dark. That is except for a few insane pioneers, who embrace the flames even at the cost of their own safety...

klenwell 12y ago

The level of unconscious racism in this thread is amazing. Whenever the subject of race comes up and someone sites a statistic purporting to demonstrate "African" or "black" intellectual inferiority, I suggest he imagine a seismologist who stated, "Black earthquakes are inherently inferior to white earthquakes." "I don't get it." "Exactly. Why the hell would any reputable seismologist care about white or black earthquakes?"

seekingtruth 12y ago
Seriously. I like the example of bears, since it allows us to remain in the realm of biology. I mean, does any reputable biologist posit meaningful differences between polar bears & black bears? It's absurd. One bear is black and the other is white. What else does that possibly tell us about their behavior or other attributes?
throwaway451 12y ago
It's not unconscious. I find frank discussion refreshing if terrifying thus the throwaway. Nobody used the word inferior or superior except you. No value judgements were added but your own.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]