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A post by Maynard

**UPDATE: A Note from Tammy at the end of the post**

Wow, it seems that James Watson, the Nobel-Prize winning discoverer of DNA, really put his foot in it when he theorized that human intellectual capacity varies with race. His lectures were halted and there was even a suggestion that he be prosecuted:

Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson’s remarks to be looked at in the context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust, a black human rights group, said: “It is astonishing that a man of such distinction should make comments that seem to perpetuate racism in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be looked at for grounds of legal complaint.”

Watson is now in full apology mode.

I’m going to mostly skip over the controversial topic itself and touch on our reactions. This flap says a lot about the state of the Western world and the political correctness that drives us.

From a Darwinist standpoint, Watson’s comments are perfectly logical:

“There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically,” he writes. “Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.”

The concept of all men being created equal is fundamentally religious. It’s not a notion we apply to the animal kingdom. We are not shunned for observing that tortoise-shell cats are willful, or suggesting a boy cat will make a better pet than a girl cat. If humans are just another animal, then why should we be any different?

It’s obvious that the instantaneous crusade against Watson is dogmatic rather than reasoned. And it’s ironic that the dogma of political correctness is often promoted by the same ideologues that mock the dogma of religion.

As far as intelligence itself goes…well, I’m not quite sure exactly what it is. Am I (Maynard) smart? I know I can be pretty smart in some ways and unbelievably stupid in others (trust me on this). There are many flavors of intelligence, and they only become meaningful in a greater context. A lot of my personal efforts go to putting myself in a place where my strengths are valuable and my weaknesses are irrelevant. I think we’ve all got a niche where we can be useful…if only we’re willing to seek it.

The point is that intellect is not valuable in itself. “Smart” people can be ineffective or even evil. Adolf Hitler was a genius, and we know how he applied his intellect.

So raw intellect is just another tool, one of many, to be applied or mis-applied or discarded. To the extent that it’s inherited (and that’s the old “nature versus nurture” argument)…well, maybe inherited intellect is something like inherited wealth. Is it good to be born to wealth? You would think so, but we find no shortage of counterexamples. The pathetic antics of the rich and famous make it clear enough that wealth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The backlash against Watson merely illuminates our modern cultural obsession with race. Am I supposed to be pleased with Watson’s ideas because I’m a person of paleness, and thus presumed to be intellectually advantaged? Why can’t I just think of myself as an individual? And I know there are individuals of all races who are a lot smarter than I am. I’m grateful to live in a world where smart people have figured out a lot of stuff, and their discoveries have been passed along, and now I benefit from them. I’m lucky! We’re all lucky! Does the skin pigmentation of the people who have given me so much really matter? Do I get points based on the number of explorers and inventors who are “my people”?

Back in the bad old days, Galileo offended the dogma of the Church when he advanced his theory of heliocentrism. He was forced to recant this heresy, and spent his latter years under house arrest on orders of the Inquisition. We tell ourselves we’ve passed beyond the era of dogma into an enlightened age. But this isn’t entirely so.

To be fair, it’s important to remember that the idea Watson expressed could be picked up by old-style racists. This is a very legitimate concern. But are we doomed to be caught between the today’s racial obsessions and yesterday’s racial obsessions? Does this crazy ideological battle justify silencing valid inquiry?

An analogous question was addressed a few years ago in the movie Gattaca. This postulated a future society in which the “clean gene” people were at the top of the heap. It tells the tale of an ordinary man who aspired to join the ranks of the genetically pure. It promotes the notion that the spirit can rise above the flesh. Maybe it’s Hollywood silliness, but I applaud the concept. If we’re going to get dogmatic, then this is the dogma I prefer.

A Note from Tammy:

Maynard is right about one thing this controversy has indeed brought to our attention: how political correctness keeps us from addressing, and therefore vanquishing, questions centered around complexion and intellect. It very well could be argued that it is the racism of the Western World (and the need for certain Victimologists of Color) who are invested in the ‘question’ never being excised. We can only do that by seriously contemplating, as an example, Watson’s assertion.

We then have these issues to address: Are people with a pale complexion actually ‘better and smarter’ than those with darker ones, or did the empire building of ancient Greece and Rome, and their subsequent consuming of the Middle East and Africa, begin a pattern of events that kept certain people from reaching their full potential? Are Jews smarter than everyone else (as their contributions to society seem to indicate) or is it their millennia-old commitment to eduction the reason such a small minority of people have accomplished so much?

Does Africa indeed still struggle, not only because of ancient ravages, but the world’s colonizing and oppression of its people for the past several hundred years? Educating the “natives” certainly was not part of the English or Spanish or Dutch Master Plan. And while under the boot of ‘conquerers’ indigenous people are going to be a bit more focused on survival than on an education in the arts and science, whatever its cultural foundation.

The same could be argued for the Middle East, where its own commitment to broader, more expansive education was overwhelmed by religious fervor, which allowed Muslim nations to compete militarily with the Western, Christian, world. A population (especially women) seriously educated always poses a threat to the existing power structure, undermining tyranny and despotism. Today’s existing tyrants in the Middle East and Africa, while their complexions mostly match those oppressed, are also deeply invested in the maintaining the ignorant status quo which served European colonizers so well.

We are, though, not allowed to have this discussion because it is too politically incorrect. Why? because we must start with the premise that there are undeniable differences in the world.

And one last point–I find it fascinating the world seems just fine with embracing Holocaust-denying Jew-hater Ahmadinejad, with even American institutions of the mind that his ‘ideas’, which contradict known fact, are worth debating. Yet, when a world-renowned scientist simply brings up the obvious disparity on accomplishments via continents and the issue of race, it causes a worldwide uproar of shock and unqualified rejection. One more bit of evidence of how ignorance and the investment in the status quo by the the world’s Elite (Jew-hating and maintaining the ‘question’ of African/black potential) still menacingly prevails.