James D. Watson
James Dewey Watson is an American scientist, best known as one of the four discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule.
October 2007 Times interview, after which he resigned as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory:
He says that he is “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”, and I know that this “hot potato” is going to be difficult to address. His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”. He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because “there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level”. He writes that “there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so”.
He has since offered several clarifications.
Sourced
- There is only one science, physics: everything else is social work.
- As quoted in Lifelines (1997) by Steven Rose
- No one may have the guts to say this, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?
- "Risky Genetic Fantasies" in The Los Angeles Times, p. M4 (29 July 2001)
- If we don't play God, who will?
- The Lives to Come: The Genetic Revolution and Human Possibilities (1996), New York: Simon and Schuster. See also DNA (2003) a five part series on PBS-TV
October 2007 Times interview, after which he resigned as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory:
He says that he is “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”, and I know that this “hot potato” is going to be difficult to address. His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”. He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because “there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level”. He writes that “there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so”.
He has since offered several clarifications.