Posted by DanielS on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 10:02 | #

Bear Necessity Of Facts of the Bear difference certainly does exist. As does Watson and his discovery.

The proposed Euro-DNA Nation, (clearly indebted to and respectful of James Watson) prioritizes facts over argumentation.

Of necessity, that must be the priority valuation or else…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9lCkFygaaQ

You can try to make an argument that you are one with bears but…

____________________

It is also a fact that we do not have much political power and control over land masses; the goal of rectifying that is indefinite, while encroachment and predation in our habitats increases; nevertheless, we need to organize in our defense. The Euro DNA Nation is one factual and plausible means of organizing for those concerned under the circumstances.

Posted by SAMPAN CHAKRABORTY on Mon, 01 Dec 2014 10:25 | #

Since you bring that IQ issue once again in this forum,let me add few points regarding it.

1.Watson,back in 1960’s didn’t have that research that African people tend to score low in IQ test.Perhaps he measured it based on very low level of creativity shown by African people.Even today the publications/population among African people is relatively low even compared to most of south Asia.

2.If Whites in Europe/North America tend to score around 100-105(similar to Chinese,slightly lesser than Japanese,but 10-15 points lesser than Ashkenazi Jewish,2 Brahmin community of India) then they must have avg breakthrough/publications higher than global average cause the Global avg iq is somewhere around 90’s.

3.But statistics showed that whites have far higher rate of inventions compared to African who have IQ around 70’s.But those groupslike Ashkenazi,Bengali Brahmin etc with 10-15 higher IQ points have 80 times higher rate of producing doctors,inventors compared to 100 IQ whites.How fitting is this?

Posted by Stan Hess Alert on Tue, 02 Dec 2014 06:23 | #

Awakening alert, courtesy Stan Hess

Los Angeles billboard

“Stop30Billion Billboard at Melrose and Walnut, Los Angeles

Exciting news. The Coalition to Stop 30 Billion to Israel has put up 23 billboards across Los Angeles in an awareness initiative to stop military aid to Israel. The message:

  Tell Congress: Spend Our Money at Home, Not on the Israeli Military

Millions of Americans will be exposed to these billboards every day as commuters in the country’s second largest metropolitan area are stuck in traffic on some of the most congested roads in the world. Stop30Billion Co-founder Armen Chakerian told me the campaign plans to put up additional signs in different spots in LA each month.

This is the largest advertising campaign launched by Stop30Billion thus far.  Last spring its successful campaign in Denver, Colorado, garnered lots of attention from citizens and local media.

Stop 30 Billion is a grassroots campaign with humble beginnings, funded by ordinary citizens. They got off to a rocky start when their first billboards were taken down under pressure by Lamar Outdoor Advertising after only three weeks even though they had signed a contract to run the billboards for eight weeks. The billboard company for Stop30Billion’s LA initiative is CBS Outdoor, the outdoor advertising division of media conglomerate CBS Corporation.

Due to the tremendous pressure CBS Outdoor will undoubtedly encounter in the days and weeks ahead, Stop30Billion and its partner the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation have asked us to sign a petition to thank CBS Outdoor.

In a blog post titled “Dodging the ‘Hebrew Hammer’ in the Fight for Justice,” writer Richard Edmondson traces the hurdles in Stop30Billion’s history and interviews Coalition co-founders Susan Schuurman and Armen Chakerian:

  Q: Tell us about your new ad campaign and how it differs from previous ones.

  A: Our new ad campaign features an American flag. We wanted to emphasize that our message is indeed a patriotic one in that domestic needs are being short-changed by sending billions of dollars per year to support the Israeli war machine. This message seems to be resonating even more during this current economic down-turn. We also feel that more and more Americans want politicians to focus greater attention on infrastructure, education, and healthcare needs at home……After our billboards were taken down prematurely, however, we purposefully tried to find less provocative phrasing that would have a better chance of not being suppressed by opposition pressure.

  Q: Your ads seem to have caused considerable consternation within the ranks of pro-Israel groups, but of course the real question is how much of an impact are they having with the public? Do you have any sense of public opinion about the ads and to what degree they may be influencing the way people think about the Middle East?

  A: Combined with other communities’ campaigns, we feel that our messaging has created a safer space within which to criticize Israeli policy without being called “anti-Semitic.” In addition to being seen directly by tens of thousands of passers-by, the billboards led to media coverage both in Denver’s local Jewish community newspaper and on Denver channel 7.

Replicate this campaign in your area!

Here’s a short ‘n sweet 41 second video filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico archived by campaign co-founder Susan Schuurman on the first day the billboard campaign was launched by the Coalition to Stop 30 Billion in 2009.
- See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/stop-30-billion-campaign-plasters-los-angeles-with-billboards#sthash.kHoxvrhL.dpuf”

Posted by Predisposed on Tue, 02 Dec 2014 06:48 | #

http://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/unltoday/article/researchers-new-book-tackles-biological-underpinnings-of-politics/

UNL political scientists Kevin Smith and John Hibbing are co-authors of the new book “Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives and the Biology of Political Differences.” (Craig Chandler/University Communications)

“You can’t enlighten them, or scare them, or guilt them into changing their minds.”

Intended for popular audiences, Predisposed provides an overview of a growing research field linking political orientation to biology, genetics and psychology. Smith and his co-authors – fellow UNL political science professor John Hibbing and John R. Alford of Rice University – are nationally recognized leaders in the blossoming field.

Because political orientation is so deeply ingrained, liberals and conservatives might actually be viewed as “somewhat distinct species,” they say in their book.

“Liberals might perceive that conservatives are scared of everything, that everything is a threat,” said Hibbing. “Conservatives might say ‘that liberals just don’t get it.’”

That makes it very difficult to change minds, at least those on the extreme ends of the scale.

They say that political predispositions are strongest at either end of the spectrum.

At one end are conservatives who lean toward supporting tradition and the status quo, view outsiders with suspicion and support strong sanctions for rule breakers. At the other are liberals who lean toward experimentation and untested experiences, view outsiders with curiosity and are tolerant of rule breakers.

 

Posted by Tanalysis on Wed, 03 Dec 2014 06:49 | #

Crisp analysis by tanstaafl - Jewish denial of racial assessment of Whites

http://age-of-treason.com/2014/12/02/race-and-jews-part-7/

Posted by Morgoth on Wed, 03 Dec 2014 20:40 | #

I love to see the growing assertiveness of the Pro White movement. Libertarian Realist has made a video on Watson and challenged another popular youtube commentator, thunderfoot, to stand up for science and make a video refuting Cultural Marxist doctrine on race. The issue is that thunderfoot is a Dawkins, anti God New Atheist type who claims scientific research is beyond politics and fact is fact no matter who gets pissed off. Of course that’s all fair enough when the people who are being pissed off are Christians and or Muslims. But what about the Cultural Marxists, what will Jews have to say about it? What will the Pat Condell type civic Nationalists say about it?

Well, the challenge is thrown down. In what GW calls ‘‘The War of Discourse’’ our side is on the attack on all fronts and steadily co-opting other movements and trends who claim to speak ‘‘The Truth’’ without fear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2-7vqIL6nc

Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 03 Dec 2014 23:56 | #

Good video, Morgoth.  Thanks.  I started out in this game pushing racial difference, in the same way that Matt Nuenke started by pushing eugenics.  For me, it was about provoking attacks on ground which belonged to us.  It was childishly simple to pull the liberal arguments apart.  But it made no difference because these guys were not interested in truth of any kind, only in the supremacy of their own ideology because that gave them power and position.  It is amazing how, all these years later, they are still standing right there in the same place, unsupported by a single scientific fact, and still wholly in command of the field.

“The war of discourse” was Soren’s term, btw.

Posted by WhitesDon'tExistButAreBad on Thu, 04 Dec 2014 06:29 | #

Whiteness doesn’t exist but its bad:

http://www.libertynews.com/2014/12/kickstarter-fundraising-website-employee-admits-she-hates-white-people/

Oriental of “kickstarter” admits she hates White people

Posted by Morgoth on Thu, 04 Dec 2014 20:25 | #

There’s an article on Watson at Richard Dawkins site, his site for ‘‘Science and Reason’’ it’s a Disqus thread and is crawling with Liberals. Here is the best rated comment:

‘‘Wait… isn’t he the guy who took data from a female scientist as part of his Nobel Prize winning research on DNA and didn’t give her credit and then went on to make statements about how women and black are inferior?
Yep. He is.
Abject poverty is too good for him.’‘

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/12/03/james-watson-wants-to-sell-his-nobel-prize-if-only-he-had-some-dignity-to-add-to-the-auction-block/

Indeed, the commentary is less Race Realist than the DT commentary was. Such is the state of the ‘‘Science and Reason’’ Atheist movement.

I remember watching a talk with Hitchens, Daniel Dennatt, Sam Harris and Dawkins. They were slapping themselves on the back on how fearless they were in debunking Religion, until Hitchens asked whether the Bell Curve should be supported if proven to be scientifically correct. Total silence ensued.

It’s quite possible that the New Atheist movemrnt is the most spineless and gutless and hypocritical of all the intellectual movements of the moment.

Posted by Bob in DC on Sat, 13 Dec 2014 16:59 | #

Acknowledged atheists are always at risk
of being pawns in some kikejew scheme.

Posted by Cromwell the destroyer on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 01:46 | #

Thomas Cromwell was the Islamic State of his day

Forget Wolf Hall: this pathologically ambitious “ruffian” sent hundreds to the chopping block and destroyed England’s religious and artistic heritage

By Dominic Selwood

7:30AM GMT 22 Jan 2015

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/11361080/Thomas-Cromwell-was-the-Islamic-State-of-his-day.html

On July 24, 2014, worshippers in Mosul were asked to leave one of the city’s most historic and famous buildings — an ancient Nestorian-Assyrian church that had long ago been converted into the Mosque of the Prophet Younis (biblical Jonah). The Islamic State then rigged the entire building with explosives, and blew it into oblivion. Tragically, it was a Shia mosque - one of many that have suffered the same fate.

The UK’s current primetime TV fantasy blockbuster du jour is Wolf Hall. Everyone loves a costume drama, but there is a world of difference between fictional history and historical fiction. One dramatizes real people and events. The other is an entirely made-up story set in the past. The current tendency is to blur the two, which Wolf Hall does spectacularly.

Thomas Cromwell, whose life it chronicles, comes across as a plucky, self-made Englishman, whose quiet reserve suggests inner strength and personal nobility. Back in the real world, Cromwell was a “ruffian” (in his own words) turned sectarian extremist, whose religious vandalism bears striking comparison with the iconoclasm of Islamic State or the Afghani Taliban.

Thanks to Wolf Hall, more people have now heard of Thomas Cromwell, and this is a good thing. But underneath its fictionalized portrayal of Henry VIII’s chief enforcer, there is a historical man, and he is one whose record for murder, looting, and destruction ought to have us apoplectic with rage, not reaching for the popcorn.

Historians rarely agree on details, so a lot about Cromwell’s inner life is still up for debate. But it is a truly tough job finding anything heroic in the man’s legacy of brutality and naked ambition.

Against a backdrop of Henry VIII’s marital strife, the pathologically ambitious Cromwell single-handedly masterminded the break with Rome in order to hand Henry the Church, with its all-important control of divorce and marriage. There were, to be sure, small pockets of Protestantism in England at the time, but any attempt to cast Cromwell’s despotic actions as sincere theological reform are hopeless. Cromwell himself had minimal truck with religious belief. He loved politics, money, and power, and the reformers could give them to him.

Flushed with the success of engineering Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and his marriage to Anne Boleyn, Cromwell moved on to confiscating the Church’s money. Before long, he was dissolving monasteries as fast as he could, which meant seizing anything that was not nailed down and keeping it for himself, for Henry, and for their circle of friends. It was the biggest land-grab and asset-strip in English history, and Cromwell sat at the centre of the operation, at the heart of a widely-loathed, absolutist, and tyrannical regime. When Anne Boleyn pointed out that the money should be going to charity or good works, he fitted her up on charges of adultery, and watched as she was beheaded.

As an adviser to Henry, Cromwell could have attempted to guide the hot-headed king, to tame his wilder ambitions, counsel him in patience, uphold the many freedoms enjoyed by his subjects. But Cromwell had no interest in moderation. He made all Henry’s dreams come true, riding roughshod over the law of the land and whoever got in his way. For instance, we are hearing a lot about Magna Carta this year, but Cromwell had no time for tedious trials and judgement by peers. With lazy strokes of his pen, he condemned royalty, nobles, peasants, nuns, and monks to horrific summary executions. We are not talking half a dozen. He dispatched hundreds under his highly politicised “treason” laws. (When his own time came and the tables had turned, he pleaded to Henry: “Most gracyous prynce I crye for mercye mercye mercye.” But he was given all the mercy he had shown others.)

And then there is his impact on this country’s artistic and intellectual heritage. No one can be sure of the exact figure, but it is estimated that the destruction started and legalised by Cromwell amounted to 97% of the English art then in existence. Statues were hacked down. Frescoes were smashed to bits. Mosaics were pulverized. Illuminated manuscripts were shredded. Wooden carvings were burned. Precious metalwork was melted down. Shrines were reduced to rubble. This vandalism went way beyond a religious reform. It was a frenzy, obliterating the artistic patrimony of centuries of indigenous craftsmanship with an intensity of hatred for imagery and depicting the divine that has strong and resonant parallels today.

It can only be a good thing that people are again thinking about Cromwell. Because as we look to the east, to the fanaticism that is sacking the cultural and artistic heritage of other ancient societies, we can all draw the same, inevitable conclusions about religious extremism in any age, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or Buddhist. None of it is pretty. All of it is real. And we, in England, are not in some way removed from it. We only have to survey the smashed up medieval buildings the length and breadth of the country, or contemplate Cromwell’s record of public beheadings and other barbarous executions.

It is plain that extremists come in all shapes and sizes.

Posted by Behavioral Genetics on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 09:01 | #

Behavioral Genetics - Robert Plomin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1422327029&v=TUCkylLAxK0&x-yt-cl=84838260#t=859

Of particular interest is the finding that heritable intelligence is significantly more manifest in middle aged people.

Therefore, given the later maturity of Whites, their advantages and more admirable distinctions can be subverted by compelling what is for them premature competition with non-Whites.

Posted by Great Significance in Small DNA Differences on Sat, 06 Jun 2015 23:42 | #

How Small Genetic Differences Give Rise to Racial Diversity

John Bean

3,775 words

This article is based on an older work published in the October 2005 issue of Identity. It has been developed further by input from Roger Pearson, a Professor of Anthropology, particularly in the section on the origins of European man.

When the Human Genome Project was completed in 2000, it was widely touted that its result showed no genetic basis for race. In fact some scientists of the liberal-left consensus went so far as to dub race a “biological fiction.” I argue that developments since then have clearly demonstrated that quite small genetic differences can produce disproportionate results that substantiate the fact that racial differences are a reality and that they are more complex than just differences in skin color and hair texture.

When we are told that as the difference in DNA between peoples from different parts of the globe is so small therefore there is really no such thing as “race,” let us first remember that the difference between humans and chimpanzees is only just over one percent. Yet despite sharing 99 per cent of the same DNA, how is it that we are so different in appearance, behaviour and, above all, in mental abilities? Our pet dogs and cats also share around 80 per cent of our DNA. Approximately 75 per cent of mouse genes so far identified have a firm counterpart in the human genome.

Furthermore, according to Prof. Stylianos Antonarakis of the University of Geneva Medical School and Dr. Ewen Kirkness of the Institute of Genomic Research, Maryland, latest DNA research shows that some DNA regions of humans, dogs, and species as distant as elephant and wallaby are nearly identical.[1] Importantly, they also found that huge tracts of human DNA, previously written off as meaningless junk, have been found to contain a hitherto unrecognised “genetic grammar,” making the language of our genes much more complex than previously thought. More on the importance of this DNA junk in producing group, or racial, differences later. But for the moment let it be noted that small though DNA differences may be the effects they can have are considerable.

It Starts in Your Genes

We appreciate that some readers fully understand the fundamentals of genetics outlined in the next few paragraphs. For those who have not really bothered about “genes,” “chromosomes,” and DNA, the following is a basic guide suitable for anyone with O level Science.

The characteristics you inherit from your parents and their ancestors are in your inherited genes. This genetic information forms part of the chromosomes which are composed of DNA, which is the chemical deoxyribonucleic acid. The chromosomes, which exist in pairs, are threadlike structures, usually found in the cell nucleus of animals and plants carrying the genes. The DNA molecule takes the structure of a double helix, i.e. a pair of parallel helixes with a common axis, and it exists in the nucleus of every living cell. This was the revolutionary discovery made by the British scientists James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, including the fact that the two strands were complementary. The complete DNA sequence housed in a cell of an organism is known as its genome.

DNA consists of long sequences of four chemical ‘letters’ – C,T,G, and A – strung together in different combinations like different colored beads on a necklace.[2] The information of DNA is encoded in the precise order of these four chemicals; like writing but using fewer symbols.

Genes are the smallest element of DNA and are the basis of heredity. There are around 600 genes that create each chromosome. In the human body there are 23 pairs of chromosomes containing 46 chromosomes altogether. They are sections of data that are received from our parents; one chromosome from each parent, and they combine in the embryo to create a set. It was originally thought that the genetic message comes equally from each parent, but it now seems that some children might end up with three, four, or even more copies of a gene from one parent. Although one can often see that offspring are related, even with large families each child, unless an identical twin, will be different in varying degrees. This is because the number of different offspring a pair of human parents could produce are two to the power of 47 (remember there are 46 chromosomes that can be shuffled about) or 140,000,000,000,000. Furthermore, this figure does not include genetic crossover, which results in an even higher figure.

Mitochondrial DNA

It is the nuclear DNA that really makes us what we are. It consists of around 25,000 genes, compared with a paltry 37 that our mothers pass to us in mitochondria.

Mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell. They consume the sugars that our bodies have converted from food and in return produce electricity with which to power the cell But it is considered to be separate from the cell, because it has its own DNA, and this DNA is unaffected by other genetic exchanges.

Although you may have inherited all manner of characteristics through your nuclear DNA from parents, grandparents and back many generations, there is one factor that remains constant: the mitochondrial DNA hasn’t altered at all. It remains intact through the female line. Male sperm contains only enough mitochondria to power the sperm to the surface of the egg – it does not enter the egg. The egg, however, contains mitochondria that have been passed from mother to children for countless generations. The only way for mitochondrial DNA to alter is by natural mutations, which occur very slowly when compared with the almost frantic gene mixing we and our parents take part in. Importantly, according to Adrian Woolfson[3] and also Sarich and Miele[4] even the smallest DNA changes can result in significant changes to the structure and function of a living creature. In fact minute changes can have disproportionate results.

It is the natural mutation of nuclear DNA occurring just occasionally over countless generations that has led to group differences and thereby the establishment of separate human races.

....relatively small variation in the number of genes between two species has the potential to generate a tremendous difference in biological complexity.

The Evidence

Several laboratory investigations carried out…

See full article at Counter-Currents

Posted by censoring perception on Sun, 27 Dec 2015 23:02 | #

A recent news story concerning the censorship of sense perception..

Huffpost college, ‘Colorado College Suspends Student For 6 Months Over Yik Yak Post’ 21 Dec 2015:

Colorado College, a well-ranked liberal arts school in Colorado Springs, suspended a student for six months over a single anonymous comment he made on Yik Yak.

Thaddeus Pryor, a junior at the college, was removed from campus on Nov. 20 because a remark he made on Yik Yak violated the college’s policies against “Abusive Behavior” and “Disruption of College Activities.” His offense, which he admitted to, was replying to a post tagged “#blackwomenmatter” with, “They matter, they’re just not hot.”

Initially, Pryor was booted off campus for 21 months, but the suspension was reduced on appeal this month, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette.

“The 6 word comment I admitted to writing then deleting shortly after was mean, hurtful, and neither reflective of my character, nor my actual beliefs,” Pryor wrote in his appeal. “That being said, I still made the comment, and am deeply sorry for it.”

...brings to mind Rodney Figueroa’s remark and censure earlier this year:

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/s/univision-fires-rodner-figueroa-michelle-obama-182010184.html

Talk show host Rodner Figueroa was fired from Univision after saying that Michelle Obama looks like someone from the cast of “Planet of the Apes.”

Figueroa, who’s known for his biting fashion commentary, made his remarks during a live segment of the show “El Gordo y la Flaca” in which the hosts were commenting on a viral video that shows a makeup artist transforming himself into different celebrities, including Michelle Obama.

“Well, watch out, you know that Michelle Obama looks like she’s from the cast of ‘Planet of the Apes,’ the movie.”

                       

                 

Posted by Apologies for toasting Watson on Wed, 16 May 2018 10:19 | #

Geneticist Eric Lander apologizes on his Twitter account for toasting James Watson, discoverer of the helical structure of DNA.

Posted by James Watson on Tue, 01 Jan 2019 23:05 | #

New York Times, “James Watson Won’t Stop Talking About Race”, 1 Jan 2019:

The Nobel-winning biologist has drawn global criticism with unfounded pronouncements on genetics, race and intelligence. He still thinks he’s right, a new documentary finds.

“Decoding Watson,” a new film about Dr. James D. Watson explores the gulf between his scientific brilliance and his views on race.

It has been more than a decade since James D. Watson, a founder of modern genetics, landed in a kind of professional exile by suggesting that black people are intrinsically less intelligent than whites.

In 2007, Dr. Watson, who shared a 1962 Nobel Prize for describing the double-helix structure of DNA, told a British journalist that 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.”

Moreover, he added, although he wished everyone were equal, “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.”

Dr. Watson’s comments reverberated around the world, and he was forced to retire from his job as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, although he retains an office there.

He apologized publicly and “unreservedly,’’ and in later interviews he sometimes suggested that he had been playing the provocateur — his trademark role — or had not understood that his comments would be made public.

Ever since, Dr. Watson, 90, has been largely absent from the public eye. His speaking invitations evaporated. In 2014, he became the first living Nobelist to sell his medal, citing a depleted income from having been designated a “nonperson.’’

But his remarks have lingered. They have been invoked to support white supremacist views, and scientists routinely excoriate Dr. Watson when his name surfaces on social media.

Eric Lander, the director of the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, elicited an outcry last spring with a toast he made to Dr. Watson’s involvement in the early days of the Human Genome Project. Dr. Lander quickly apologized.

“I reject his views as despicable,” Dr. Lander wrote to Broad scientists. “They have no place in science, which must welcome everyone. I was wrong to toast, and I’m sorry.’’

And yet, offered the chance recently to recast a tarnished legacy, Dr. Watson has chosen to reaffirm it, this time on camera. In a new documentary, “American Masters: Decoding Watson,’’ to be broadcast on P.B.S. on Wednesday night, he is asked whether his views about the relationship between race and intelligence have changed.

“No,’’ Dr. Watson said. “Not at all. I would like for them to have changed, that there be new knowledge that says that your nurture is much more important than nature. But I haven’t seen any knowledge. And there’s a difference on the average between blacks and whites on I.Q. tests. I would say the difference is, it’s genetic.’’

Dr. Watson adds that he takes no pleasure in “the difference between blacks and whites’’ and wishes it didn’t exist. “It’s awful, just like it’s awful for schizophrenics,’’ he says. (His son Rufus was diagnosed in his teens with schizophrenia.) Dr. Watson continues: “If the difference exists, we have to ask ourselves, how can we try and make it better?”

Dr. Watson’s remarks may well ignite another firestorm of criticism. At the very least, they will pose a challenge for historians when they take the measure of the man: How should such fundamentally unsound views be weighed against his extraordinary scientific contributions?

In response to questions from The Times, Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, said that most experts on intelligence “consider any black-white differences in I.Q. testing to arise primarily from environmental, not genetic, differences.”

Dr. Collins said he was unaware of any credible research on which Dr. Watson’s “profoundly unfortunate’’ statement would be based.

“It is disappointing that someone who made such groundbreaking contributions to science,’’ Dr. Collins added, “is perpetuating such scientifically unsupported and hurtful beliefs.’’

Dr. Watson is unable to respond, according to family members. He made his latest remarks last June, during the last of six interviews with Mark Mannucci, the film’s producer and director.

But in October Dr. Watson was hospitalized following a car accident, and he has not been able to leave medical care.

Some scientists said that Dr. Watson’s recent remarks are noteworthy less because they are his than because they signify misconceptions that may be on the rise, even among scientists, as ingrained racial biases collide with powerful advances in genetics that are enabling researchers to better explore the genetic underpinnings of behavior and cognition.

“It’s not an old story of an old guy with old views,’’ said Andrea Morris, the director of career development at Rockefeller University, who served as a scientific consultant for the film. Dr. Morris said that, as an African-American scientist, “I would like to think that he has the minority view on who can do science and what a scientist should look like. But to me, it feels very current.’’

David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard, has argued that new techniques for studying DNA show that some human populations were geographically separated for long enough that they plausibly could have evolved average genetic differences in cognition and behavior.

But in his recent book, “Who We Are and How We Got Here,’’ he explicitly repudiates Dr. Watson’s presumption that such differences would “correspond to longstanding popular stereotypes’’ as “essentially guaranteed to be wrong.’’

Even Robert Plomin, a prominent behavioral geneticist who argues that nature decisively trumps nurture when it comes to individuals, rejects speculation about average racial differences.

“There are powerful methods for studying the genetic and environmental origins of individual differences, but not for studying the causes of average differences between groups,” Dr. Plomin he writes in an afterword to be published this spring in the paperback edition of his book, “Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are.”

Whether Dr. Watson was aware of any of this science is unclear. In the film, he appears to have grown increasingly isolated. He mentions missing Francis Crick, his collaborator in the race to decipher the structure of DNA.

“We liked each other,’’ Dr. Watson says of Dr. Crick. “I couldn’t get enough of him.’’

As history now knows, the duo was able to solve the puzzle in 1953, with their hallmark models of cardboard and metal only with the help of another scientist, Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray photograph of the DNA molecule was shown to Dr. Watson without her permission.

The tools of molecular biology unlocked by their discovery have since been used to trace humanity’s prehistory, devise lifesaving therapies, and develop Crispr, a gene-editing technology that was used recently, and unethically, to alter the DNA of twin human embryos.

And Dr. Watson became perhaps the most influential biologist of the second half of the 20th century. His textbook, “Molecular Biology of the Gene,’’ helped define the new field. First in a laboratory at Harvard and then at Cold Spring Harbor, he trained a new generation of molecular biologists and used his star power to champion such projects as the first sequencing of the human genome.

“You knew when you heard him that you were at the start of a revolution in understanding,’’ Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studied with Dr. Watson in the 1960s, says in “Decoding Watson.’’

“You felt as if you were part of this tiny group of people who had seen the light.’’

Mr. Mannucci, the director and producer, was drawn to his subject by a certain similarity to “the King Lear story’,’ he said — “that this man was at the height of his powers and, through his own character flaws, was brought down.” The film highlights Dr. Watson’s penchant for provocation, exemplified by his candid 1968 memoir, “The Double Helix,” of the race to decipher DNA’s structure.

In later years, even before his 2007 comments, Dr. Watson began making offensive statements about groups of people, suggesting, among other things, that exposure to sunlight in equatorial regions increases sexual urges and that fat people are less ambitious than others.

“He was a semiprofessional loose cannon,’’ said Nathaniel Comfort, a science historian at Johns Hopkins University. “We become prisoners of our own personas.” In the film, Dr. Comfort also suggests that Dr. Watson’s views on race are the result of the genetic filter he applies to the world: “There’s a risk to thinking about genes all the time.”

But Mary-Claire King, a leading geneticist at the University of Washington who knows Dr. Watson well and is not in the film, suggested that the racially homogeneous culture of science also played a role in shaping Dr. Watson’s misconceptions.

“If he knew African-Americans as colleagues at all levels, his present view would be impossible to sustain,’’ Dr. King said.

If that is the case, it may not bode well for combating prejudice in biomedical research, where African-Americans represent just 1.5 percent of grant applications to the N.I.H. Biases in hiring by medical school science departments are well documented.

“It’s easy to say, ‘I’m not Watson,’’’ said Kenneth Gibbs, a researcher at the N.I.H. who studies racial disparities in science. “But one should really be asking himself or herself, ‘What am I doing to ensure our campus environments are supporting scientists from backgrounds that are not there?’’’

“Decoding Watson’’ marks the first time Dr. Watson and his wife, Liz, have spoken publicly at length about finding out that Rufus, their older son, has schizophrenia. Rufus and his brother, Duncan, also appear in the film, but Mr. Mannucci said that other people close to Dr. Watson declined to participate.

In interviews with The Times, some said they believed that Dr. Watson was ill served by speaking publicly at this point in his life.

Still, Mr. Mannucci said that he had asked Dr. Watson about race and intelligence several times over the course of making the film in order to ascertain his real views. “I didn’t want to feel that it was a product of age or having caught him in a moment, trying to get a rise out of someone,’’ he said.

In the film, Dr. Watson sometimes seems to be grasping for explanations for his own views on race and intelligence. He mentions that he is a “product of the Roosevelt era,’’ and that he has always believed genes are important.

“To the extent that I’ve hurt people,’’ he said, “of course I regret it.”

Amy Harmon is a national correspondent, covering the intersection of science and society. She has won two Pulitzer Prizes, for her series “The DNA Age”, and as part of a team for the series “How Race Is Lived in America.”

Posted by James Watson stripped of last titles on Tue, 15 Jan 2019 02:00 | #

Daily Mail, 13 Jan 2019:

DNA pioneer James Watson, 90, is stripped of the last of his honorary titles after doubling down on his ‘reprehensible’ views that genes cause a difference between black people and white people on IQ tests

- James Watson shared 1962 Nobel Prize for discovering DNA was double helix
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in New York, stripped Mr Watson, 90, of titles
- Scientist said genes cause a difference between blacks and whites on IQ tests
- Mr Watson had been the director, president and chancellor at the American lab

A Noble prize-winning scientist has been stripped of his honorary titles at a lab after doubling down on his ‘reprehensible’ views on intelligence and race.

James Watson, 90, who shared a 1962 Nobel Prize for discovering that DNA was a double helix, lost his job in 2007 for expressing racist views.

On Friday January 11 he was stripped of several honorary titles by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in New York, which he once headed.

The lab said it was reacting to Mr Watson’s remarks in a television documentary aired earlier this month.

James Watson, 90, has had his honorary titles at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in New York, stripped after he made comments about race and intelligence on a documentary.

In the film, Watson said his views about intelligence and race had not changed since 2007, when he told a magazine that 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 - where all the testing says not really.’

In the 2007 interview, Watson said that while he hopes everyone is equal, ‘people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true.’

In this month’s documentary, he said genes cause a difference on average between black people and white people on IQ tests.

The laboratory, calling the latest remarks ‘reprehensible’ and ‘unsupported by science,’ said they effectively reversed Mr Watson’s 2007 written apology and retraction.

It said it had revoked three honorary titles, including chancellor emeritus and honorary trustee.

Mr Watson had long been associated with the lab, becoming its director in 1968, its president in 1994 and its chancellor 10 years later. A school at the lab is named after him.

James Watson shared a 1962 Nobel Prize with collaborator Francis Crick and scientist Maurice Wilkins for discovering in 1953 that DNA was a double helix.

In a documentary aired earlier this month Mr Watson, pictured left in 1971 and right in 2009, said genes cause a difference on average between blacks and whites on IQ tests

Mr Watson’s son Rufus said Friday in a telephone interview that his father, who’s 90, was in a nursing home following a car crash in October, and that his awareness of his surroundings is ‘very minimal.’

‘My dad’s statements might make him out to be a bigot and discriminatory,’ he said, but that’s not true. ‘They just represent his rather narrow interpretation of genetic destiny.’

He said: ‘My dad had made the lab his life, and yet now the lab considers him a liability.’

James Watson shared a 1962 Nobel Prize with collaborator Francis Crick and scientist Maurice Wilkins for discovering in 1953 that DNA was a double helix, shaped like a long, gently twisting ladder. The breakthrough was key to determining how genetic material works.

The double helix became a widely recognized symbol of science, and Watson himself became famous far beyond scientific circles.

Posted by Weinstein on Mon, 24 Jun 2019 02:20 | #

Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Artificial Intelligence Podcast

...interesting that he says that “James Watson’s legacy is too important to leave to James Watson.”

...“he was one hell of a writer before he became an ass.”