James Watson: Scientific Racism Rears Its Ugly Head

This is Not the Raving of a Deluded Old Man by Nirpal Dhaliwal;  Here We Go Again, by Cameron Duodu; A shameful History by Johnjoe McFadden

This is Not the Raving of a Deluded Old Man by Nirpal Dhaliwal 

Genius and malign idiocy often inhabit the psychology of a great man. Dr James Watson is one such individual. One of the outstanding scientists in history, his contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA won him the Nobel Prize and created the science of genetics that will influence our destiny as a species. But, last week, he was barred from speaking at London's Science Museum after claiming that black people are naturally less intelligent than whites. Like Winston Churchill (who regarded Indians as inherently incapable of self-rule, declaring, "They are a beastly people with a beastly religion"), Watson's limitations as a man are revealed by his attitude to race.

The 79-year-old 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 issued an apology and admitted that his views had "no scientific basis" after public outrage curtailed the promotion of his latest book, and he has now been suspended as the chancellor of a prestigious US research institute.

But his remarks can't be dismissed as the rantings of a destabilised old man, being consistent with a series of prejudicial statements he's made: that women should be allowed to abort homosexual babies; that poverty is the result of stupidity; and that women should be genetically designed to be more beautiful. The only people he doesn't regard as being in need of improvement are privileged, affluent, heterosexual white males.

Questioning the intelligence of a race is to dispute whether those people are fully human and worthy of basic rights, compassion and humane treatment. The pseudo-scientific libelling of Africans was a 19th century justification for slavery, its proponents arguing that black people were uniquely suited for it because of their "primitive psychological organization".

A leading physician of the antebellum South, Samuel A Cartwright, even diagnosed runaway slaves as suffering from a mental illness, drapetomia, the onset of which revealed itself in their being "sulky and dissatisfied" – unsurprising sentiments in a slave, you might think. The treatment he proposed for slaves displaying such symptoms was, "whipping the devil out of them". Cartwright also diagnosed dysaethesia aethiopica, a theory of negro laziness, characterised by an insensitivity of the skin. His prescription was to anoint the toil-shy black "all over in oil, and to slap the oil in with a broad leather strap; then to put the patient to some hard kind of work in the sunshine". Flogging was the cost-effective remedy offered by scientists for the exhaustion, rage and desire for freedom of the enslaved.

James Watson's defamatory remarks have put him in the unique position of being a man who shares a podium with the titans of science – such as Darwin, Oppenheimer and Bohr – while having one foot on a soap-box with Cartwright and other distasteful cranks. His assertion that genetics, rather than political and economic conditions, is the cause of Africa's malady was a glib, inhumane refusal to recognise the historical context of Africa's condition and the responsibility the world has towards it.

Africa's plight isn't unique, and has nothing to do with race. More people live in poverty in India than in Africa; 40 per cent of India is illiterate, and the subcontinent is home to almost half of the world's malnourished children. But India has had 60 years of relative political stability, without external interference, enabling the emergence of a strengthening economy that is now in the grip of a technology boom. How would Watson account for the disparity between the Bangalore whizz kids who manage the computer system of the New York Stock Exchange and the famished, empty-eyed rural millions who live in conditions identical to those associated with sub-Saharan Africa? Would race explain that too? And how would he account for the hugely different conditions in which the people of South Korea live compared with their former compatriots in the North? Is it DNA, or is it the political situation in which they live?

Politics underlies the problems of the developing world, both the internal political systems of developing nations and their power relations with richer ones. In the middle of the 20th century, most of India's and China's populations lived in a state of pre-industrial subsistence, and both countries experienced famine until the 1960s. But both are organic nation states, whose territorial boundaries cohere with their historic ethnic groupings.

While both have suffered enormous upheavals, they have managed to arrive at stability because neither country inherited the post-colonial turmoil that Africa did, with different, often historically opposed ethnic groups forced to live within artificial borders drawn by imperial masters. African tribes were split between colonial powers or crowded into states, where, as in Rwanda, one tribe was privileged over another, causing resentment and hostility that has escalated into conflict to the present day.

And unlike the fractured mini-states of Africa, the vast size of India and China gives them the economies of scale attractive to inward foreign investment and the power to deter Western bullying. India and China run a massive trade surplus with the West, exporting consumer goods or providing an outsourced back-office for multinationals. But the West doesn't dare punish them for it, let alone force them into the unfair trade agreements – such as in agriculture – that it applies to disunited, disorganised and easily manipulated Africa. The West invests billions each year in Indian and Chinese capital and infrastructural projects, while its relationship with Africa is solely as an exporter of primary resources. Indians and the Chinese increasingly work in factories and offices built with Western money, but Africans continue to toil in mines and farming crops.

James Watson stupidly stated that the West's social policies in Africa fail because Africans have a low intelligence. But the only social policy the West has is indifference or the exploitation of the continent's weaknesses. Watson's remarks have attracted scorn for their racism, but they should also have reignited discussion about the real reasons why the dysfunctions of Africa have proven so intractable. But the causes are too complex and guilt-inducing for the likes of Watson to address, and the media fell into apathetic Africa fatigue long ago.

The West owes Africa a huge moral debt: its political chaos, and the corruption and economic uncertainty that arise from such chaos, has its roots in the greedy, reckless colonial scramble that carved up the continent more than a century ago. The West will probably never make good on that debt, but the very least it can do is treat the continent with some fairness and decency, and never blame its problems on any deficiency in its people.

From The Independent 

Here we go again, by Cameron Duodu...

James Watson's views on the intelligence of black people are old hat, to say the least. Tiresome though it is, let's remind him why he is wrong.

The front page of the Independent on Wednesday (October 17) was dominated by a story in which Professor James Watson claimed that Africans are less "intelligent" than westerners.

I do not intend to go into the reasons why the paper chose to give such prominence to a story reporting a line of thinking that is - to be charitable - old hat. I shall only draw attention to the fact that one of its own readers wrote to it on October 18 to complain that:

"The front-page headline 'Africans are less intelligent than Westerners, says DNA pioneer' (17 October) is extremely irresponsible. Whether intended or not, it foments and reinforces racism. Some people who read it may not even read the article inside and it will fan their racist views, while others of African origin will be angered and alienated.

Gerald Henderson, Liverpool"

I do not know whether the writer of the article, Cahal Milmo, realises how insulting many Africans have found his piece, but I can tell that him that he has not endeared himself to the participants in several of the African internet forums I visit. What they are most offended by is that in emphasising Professor James Watson's proficiency with regard to DNA research, without making it sufficiently clear that his work on DNA does not necessarily make him an expert in the determination of human intelligence, Milmo elevated Watson's racist rant into the semblance of authoritative scientific opinion. The Independent has thus disappointed its many African readers, who regard it as one of the few media organs in Britain that give Africans a fair hearing.

Tiresome though it is, I shall now try to outline the arguments against views such as those held by Watson. The main point to be made is that there is nothing like universal human intelligence. Intelligence comes with territory: what seems like intelligent behaviour to an Eskimo living in an environment in which he is surrounded by ice, will be suicidal behaviour for someone who lives in the tropics. Let us look at just one example - the preservation of meat. An Eskimo can dig a hole in the ice and put his meat there until he needs it. In tropical Africa, if someone did that, his meat would go bad in a few hours and kill him if he ate it.

In other words, each society evolves techniques for survival in its own environment, and it is utterly stupid to transpose techniques developed in one environment on another, completely opposite environment and expect them to operate efficaciously there also.

If one lives in an extended family in a village of 1,000 people in Africa, one makes farms that produce enough food for one's family and maybe a little surplus, which one might swap for salt or something else that one lacks. You do not need a high "IQ" - such as found in tests devised by westerners - to be able to do that.

Even in the west, to compare the IQ score of a child raised in an inner city ghetto, whose parents are preoccupied with finding food and shelter, and who are bombarded daily by the blandishments of crack pushers, with the IQ score of an affluent child who spends his time thinking about how his PlayStation could be made more exciting, is farcical. In other words, if you want to determine intelligence levels, you must operate on a level playing field. Whoever devises the IQ test comes out of it best, for you cannot go outside your personal knowledge to expropriate knowledge that is applicable to all humans.

Let me illustrate this with a real-life experience. During my childhood in Ghana, I had two elder half-brothers, one of whom went to a British-type school, while the other did not go to school at all. The "uneducated" one, however, refused to be intimidated and never stopped challenging the other over who was the cleverer of the two.

One day, my father stepped into the fray and posed a question to the two of them: "Given either a bowl of fufu [pounded yam, cassava, plantain or cocoyam] and one of soup [with meat or fish in it] which one would you choose?"

Quick as a flash the "educated" boy said: "I'd take the fufu!"

The "uneducated" one said: "I'd take the soup!"

My father asked the "educated" one: "Why would you choose the fufu?"

"Because it is more filling," the boy replied.

"And you - why would you take the soup?" he asked the other one.

"Because you can eat the soup by itself, whereas you cannot eat the fufu without soup. If you did that, it would stick in your throat."

We waited for my father's judgment. He said, "You who would take the soup are the wiser person. You are quite right: you can eat soup by itself and though it may not be as filling as the fufu, it will at least lessen your hunger. But the fufu without soup will be completely useless to whoever took it and most probably choke him if he tried to eat it."

Then, turning to the rest of us, my father said, "You must learn from this that there is a difference between the knowledge that you obtain from books and the wisdom you gather from observing life and learning from it."

Yes, Africa may look dismal today to the likes of Professor James Watson. But it's not because its people are less intelligent than westerners. It is just simply that the western way of life has been imposed on Africans, and their techniques for operating subsistence economies no longer have the capability to serve the needs that the western production paradigm, into which Africa has been inserted, has brought in its wake.

Of course, Africans are steadily learning to cope with the socio-economic ramifications of the imported "nation state", but it cannot be done in a hurry. Indeed it is quite stupid to expect total efficiency from a people who are being torn in two directions at the same time - between an inherited, ancient culture, and a modern, imported one. If truth be told, the whole of Africa should be clinically schizophrenic. The slave trade alone could have resulted in that. Colonialism and its aftermath definitely did not help.

Under these circumstances, for a westerner to look at the African people and say: "You haven't mastered everything we've been trying to teach you so you are unintelligent," is to demonstrate the westerner's own lack of intelligence and analytical ability. Africans use their best land not to produce the food they eat, but things like coffee and cocoa, to titillate the palates of westerners. They receive a pittance carrying out this mode of production and should, if they could, stop it. But colonialism has bequeathed them modern states - including armies - to run. This must be done with the meagre foreign exchange earned from cocoa and coffee. You do not run an exchequer dependent on fluctuating commodity prices, and at the same time save enough money to enable you to shoot off into space in a rocket.

The malignant racism of Professor James Watson is exposed by his statement that people who have to deal with black employees should not promote them "when they haven't succeeded at the lower level". Why should this apply only to blacks? Why are prospective employees asked to supply CVs? For this to come from an American, who should be aware of the arduous struggles black people have had to wage in his country merely to be allowed a foot in the door, is scandalous and an idea totally unworthy of propagation by papers such as the Sunday Times and the Independent.

I see that another blogger on Cif, Sue Blackmore, thinks that Watson has been hard done by, having been banned from speaking at the Science Museum. Tough. Just as Watson is entitled to his views (the Sunday Times and the Independent didn't exactly "censor" his opinions) so is the Science Museum entitled to its own view on what sort of events will or will not enhance the objectives it seeks to pursue. "Science is above all a search for truth over expediency," Blackmore writes. No one doubts that. But when a man makes remarks that, if taken at their face value, could deny opportunities for job advancement to people like Condoleezza Rice or Barack Obama, then I suggest to Ms Blackmore that he is not pursuing "truth" but peddling prejudice. And that coming from a guy who hails from the land of "Jim Crow" cannot, and should not, be simply tossed aside.

Sue Blackmore can cry her heart out - this subject, as far as black people are concerned, is of the utmost seriousness. Has she read the literature that apartheid supporters used to churn out? Does she think Hitler and the Nazis committed their racist atrocities out of the blue, without being propped up by all manner of "scientists" and academics? Has she ever read of an important politician in Great Britain demanding that all the black people in the country be sent back to "Bongo-bongo-land"?

As for the "evidence" about differences in the relative abilities of people of different colours, and the scientific "tests" that, supposedly, have established the presence of those differences, I think I have proved, above, that as the computer geeks would put it, "garbage in, garbage out". Methinks Ms Blackmore doth protest too much. If she thinks this is an issue on which she can imagine herself standing on the side of the underdog, she is wrong. Pleading not to be metaphorically spat at won't save her from that fate, I am afraid. 

Cameron Duodu is columnist for New African Magazine 

From The Guardian 

A shameful history by Johnjoe McFadden

Like the eugenicists of the early 20th century, James Watson betrays his fear of a changing world

Despite his frantic backtracking, James Watson's statement that Africans are less intelligent than Europeans follows a long and dubious tradition of geneticists claiming that supposed racial differences have a genetic basis. The idea goes back to the birth of the science of evolutionary genetics and its bastard sibling: eugenics.

After the death of his young daughter, Charles Darwin lamented natural selection's "clumsy, wasteful, blundering and horribly cruel action"; but perhaps man could do better. Darwin did not suggest this step himself, but in the 1930s six of his family were members of the British Eugenics Society, and his son was president from 1911 to 1928. The Galton laboratory at the University of London is named after Darwin's cousin, the geneticist Francis Galton, who coined the term eugenics and advocated perfecting the human race by breeding "those only of the best stock" so that the "feeble nations" could give way before the "nobler varieties of mankind".

Eugenics societies sprang up at the beginning of the 20th century in most western countries to promote breeding programmes, but the movement was not confined to scientists. Browse through the Eugenics Society's membership list and you find lords, ladies, bishops, academics, writers, doctors, artists and politicians from all sides. In November 1913 the Oxford Union carried a motion approving the principles of eugenics. As a cabinet minister, the young Winston Churchill advocated compulsory sterilisation of "the feeble-minded and insane classes". George Bernard Shaw and HG Wells were profoundly influenced by Darwin. The contraception pioneer Marie Stopes campaigned to pass laws to enable sterilisation of the "hopelessly rotten and racially diseased".

But the writings of literary eugenicists betray their real roots: fear. In 1915 Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary: "On the towpath we met and had to pass a long line of imbeciles. It was perfectly horrible. They should certainly be killed." HG Wells openly advocated the killing of the weak by the strong, insisting that "those swarms of blacks, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people ... will have to go".

Popular support for eugenics among the west European and US intelligentsia had very little to do with its dubious scientific credentials. Its wellsprings were linked to middle- and upper-class anxiety concerning burgeoning populations of the poor and waves of immigration.

Fear was translated into action in many European countries and US states that adopted eugenicist sterilisation policies. In liberal Sweden, more than 62,000 people (mostly women) with physical or mental disabilities or considered to be socially "undesirable", were sterilised against their will, and the policy continued well into the 1970s. The full horror of eugenics was realised in the 1934 German "racial hygiene" laws, which led to the enforced sterilisation of more than 80,000 individuals.

Hitler's enthusiastic support of its principles established eugenics as the pariah of postwar science. But many geneticists continued to investigate the genetic basis of intelligence, creativity, sexuality and criminality.

Recent controversial (and often disputed) evidence that genes may indeed be linked to these traits has not come as a surprise to sociobiologists, such as Edward O Wilson, who have long argued that mankind cannot, uniquely, escape its genetic inheritance. But the debate that must follow has nothing to do with the ill-considered remarks of Watson. Like his predecessors, Watson betrays fears and suspicions: this time of white privileged Americans of a world that is slipping beyond their control.

Johnjoe McFadden is professor of genetics at the University of Surrey

From The Guardian