
DNA scientist James Watson stripped of honors over views on race - milkcircle
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/james-watson-scientist-honors-stripped-reprehensible-race-comments
======
didgeoridoo
Is there a reason, in principle, why it is unlikely or impossible for average
IQ to be related to “race” (however that concept is defined)?

Maybe because IQ is the result of a huge number of interacting genetic
factors, and is thus unlikely to experience substantial drift over the
existence of the human species? That would differentiate it from e.g. melanin
production or lactose tolerance, which are heavily determined by only a few
genes, and thus more likely to respond to selective pressure.

~~~
FakeComments
We know that intelligence has a strong genetic component, though. [0]

It seems strange to me to suppose a strongly heritable trait would be
uncorrelated by “race” — while numerous other traits are. It’s certainly
possible, but I haven’t seen anything to support that conjecture, which
certainly isn’t the minimal assumption. The minimal assumption would be
heritable traits have a racial correlation — since that’s generally what we
find to be the case.

Further, there seems to be an incredibly strong resistance to studying the
topic, likely because it conflicts with ideological (rather than scientific)
positions.

(As an aside, “race” isn’t necessarily well defined — but we have a good
enough idea to, eg, discuss lactose tolerance or certain disease prevalence.)

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ)

~~~
eesmith
The assumption for more than a century was that intelligence has a racial
correlation.

This research failed to show that a correlation between those two. Quoting
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_\(human_categorization\))
:

> By the 1970s, it had become clear that (1) most human differences were
> cultural; (2) what was not cultural was principally polymorphic – that is to
> say, found in diverse groups of people at different frequencies; (3) what
> was not cultural or polymorphic was principally clinal – that is to say,
> gradually variable over geography; and (4) what was left – the component of
> human diversity that was not cultural, polymorphic, or clinal -was very
> small.

> A consensus consequently developed among anthropologists and geneticists
> that race as the previous generation had known it – as largely discrete,
> geographically distinct, gene pools – did not exist.

That is, not only was no correlation found, but the environmental effects (at
the presumed racial level) were found to be much stronger than any genetic
effects - eg, see the Flynn effect -, and it was found that there is no
genetic basis for the racial classifications that have long dominated both
culture and (culturally influenced) research.

Hence, the reason why there is "incredibly strong resistance to studying" your
hypothesis is that scientific research has long since shown that it isn't
valid.

~~~
FakeComments
From the same Wiki:

> In his 2003 paper, "Human Genetic Diversity: Lewontin's Fallacy", A. W. F.
> Edwards argued that rather than using a locus-by-locus analysis of variation
> to derive taxonomy, it is possible to construct a human classification
> system based on characteristic genetic patterns, or clusters inferred from
> multilocus genetic data.[97][98] Geographically based human studies since
> have shown that such genetic clusters can be derived from analyzing of a
> large number of loci which can assort individuals sampled into groups
> analogous to traditional continental racial groups.[99] Joanna Mountain and
> Neil Risch cautioned that while genetic clusters may one day be shown to
> correspond to phenotypic variations between groups, such assumptions were
> premature as the relationship between genes and complex traits remains
> poorly understood.[100] However, Risch denied such limitations render the
> analysis useless: "Perhaps just using someone's actual birth year is not a
> very good way of measuring age. Does that mean we should throw it out? ...
> Any category you come up with is going to be imperfect, but that doesn't
> preclude you from using it or the fact that it has utility."[101]

Race is a fuzzy concept, not inherently related to skin color, not highly
predictive for an individual, and perhaps disappearing with increased
migration and interbreeding.

However, there are clusters of human genetic trends, and there’s every reason
to believe that these clusters can be associated with things like intelligence
in addition to, say, thigh bone length or melanin production or muscle
density.

~~~
eesmith
How are "characteristic genetic patterns" related to race, in the way that
people like Watson talk about race?

The only mention of race in your quoted text is "into groups analogous to
traditional continental racial groups", citing reference 99. So I looked at
the four publications for [99]. (Italics mine.)

The first, to Cavalli-Sforza et al., is a book I cannot easily access. The
"lay summary" at the NYT says "[Cavalli-Sforza] says more about the related
question of human races. One misinterpretation of a human evolutionary tree
would be that it shows the branching off of distinct races, with separate
histories. _A major achievement of human genetics has been exploding the
theory that races are genetically distinct. They are genetically only skin-
deep: races do differ in a small number of genes that influence superficial
features like skin color. But the great majority of our genes are a mish-mash
and do not fall into any discrete subcategories of human being._ Cavalli-
Sforza shows that the European population is the most genetically mixed-up on
earth, being a mix of genes from Asia and Africa. He uses this to poke fun at
Arthur de Gobineau, the 19th-century French author of the ''Essay on the
Inequality of Human Races,'' which helped inspire German racism. De Gobineau,
he says, ''would die of rage and shame at this suggestion since he believed
that Europeans . . . were the most genetically pure race, the most
intellectually gifted and the least weakened by racial mixing.''

The second, Bamstad et al., is pay-walled at
[https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg1401](https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg1401)
. Note that Bamstad and Olson wrote an article titled "Does Race Exist?" for
Scientific American, available at
[http://www.ucd.ie/artspgs/langevo/race.pdf](http://www.ucd.ie/artspgs/langevo/race.pdf)
. The intro answers the question: " _If races are defined as genetically
discrete groups, no._ But researchers can use some genetic information to
group individuals into clusters with medical relevance."

The 'clusters with medical relevance' is no big surprise, eg, sickle cell
mutation and malaria.

The third, Tang et al. (2004), does not link to a full citation. I assume it's
for the 2005 publication at
[https://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(07)62578-6](https://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297\(07\)62578-6)
. This is the one which mentions "Numerous recent studies using a variety of
genetic markers have shown that, for example, individuals sampled worldwide
fall into clusters that roughly correspond to continental lines, as well as to
the commonly used self-identifying racial groups: Africans, European/West
Asians, East Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans (Bowcock et al.
1994; Calafell et al. 1998; Rosenberg et al. 2002)." I don't follow what the
point of the paper is.

The last is to Rosenberg et al. (the same Rosenberg that Tang just cited) at
[https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/jo...](https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.0010070)

> _Our evidence for clustering should not be taken as evidence of our support
> of any particular concept of “biological race.”_ In general, representations
> of human genetic diversity are evaluated based on their ability to
> facilitate further research into such topics as human evolutionary history
> and the identification of medically important genotypes that vary in
> frequency across populations. Both clines and clusters are among the
> constructs that meet this standard of usefulness: for example, clines of
> allele frequency variation have proven important for inference about the
> genetic history of Europe [15], and clusters have been shown to be valuable
> for avoidance of the false positive associations that result from population
> structure in genetic association studies [16]. _The arguments about the
> existence or nonexistence of “biological races” in the absence of a specific
> context are largely orthogonal to the question of scientific utility, and
> they should not obscure the fact that, ultimately, the primary goals for
> studies of genetic variation in humans are to make inferences about human
> evolutionary history, human biology, and the genetic causes of disease._

Of the three papers I understood, all concur that biological race - the topic
at issue here - does not have a genetic basis. Which is what I wrote earlier.

If we reject "(biological) race" and instead use "clusters of human genetic
trends", then there are a few problems: 1) most clustering algorithms let you
choose cut-offs for what defines a "cluster", which is a problem since - as
the Rosenberg paper discusses - both clines and clusters are important, 2) if
there are hundreds or thousands of clusters then there's a high chance of
false correlations (see "p-hacking")

Finally, as I quoted before, multiple lines of research concluded that if
there are genetic differences in intelligence, those differences are "very
small". Thus, the base position is that there are no large differences. Your
statement "there’s every reason to believe that these clusters can be
associated with things like intelligence" may be therefore true, but
effectively irrelevant. For example, the average intelligence between groups X
and Y may differ by 1 unit, and that value is robust, but the standard
deviation is 100 units, making it a useless predictor of individual
performance.

~~~
FakeComments
You appear to be making an ideological argument — I have no interest in
engaging with that.

It seems deeply hung up on one particular and erroneous conception of race,
while ignoring that there is an extant broad scale trend into clusters that
roughly correspond to the groupings people had naively assumed. Historical
conceptions of race were completely incorrect about the mechanics — but that’s
different from there being no underlying phenomenon.

So the conclusion seems to be that racial essentialism is dumb (and I’ve said
as much in every post), but that there are real biological trends and
groupings that correlate to sets of features.

Absolutely none of your replies have addressed the question of if traits like
intelligence are correlated to clusters that roughly correspond to the
traditional conception.

Instead you’ve picked semantic nits with strawmen.

~~~
eesmith
You write: "Absolutely none of your replies have addressed the question of if
traits like intelligence are correlated to clusters that roughly correspond to
the traditional conception."

Since the last paragraph of my previous comment addressed that question, I
will assume that you didn't read what I wrote.

As I pointed out, researchers have long established that there is no
meaningful correlation of "intelligence" with the "clusters that roughly
correspond to the groupings people had naively assumed". That is, they started
with exactly the assumption you thought they should, then found that it was
not supported by the evidence.

Hence, why I wrote that the reason why there is "incredibly strong resistance
to studying the topic" is because scientific research has long since shown
that it isn't valid.

Where is the strawman?

------
pmdulaney
Would he have had his honors stripped if he had claimed that women have better
verbal skills than men?

~~~
eesmith
This sounds like axe grinding rather than any serious commentary.

I mean, I can think many other things you could have mentioned: would he have
had his honors stripped if he had a long record of drunk-driving? If he were a
pedophile? If his secret espionage for the Soviets was finally revealed? And
so on.

Addressing your topic point on, Watson has a decades long history of making
racist, sexist, misogynist, and similar comments - and often justified by
pseudo-science. When it was mostly white men who dominated the field, it was
regarded as "that's just Jim being Jim."

In 2007 he apologized for his behavior and retracted his statements like 'He
also said that while he wished the races were equal, “people who have to deal
with black employees find this not true.”' His recent statements on PBS
effectively cancel that retraction.

By comparison, if his _only_ comment along these lines had been that men have
better verbal skills than women, then it's extremely unlikely he would have
had his honors stripped. Which means I also think that if he had claimed the
opposite - that women have better verbal skills than men - then I also doubt
that he would have had his honors stripped.

Do you know of any similar case where a man was stripped of honors solely
because he said that he thought men have better verbal skills than women? Or
that he thought men had better physical perception than women? Off-hand I
can't think of any, so I can't see why the reverse would be any different.

~~~
pmdulaney
Well, I don't think that anyone believes that men, in general, have better
verbal skills than women. But there was a guy at Google who got in trouble for
saying that men, in general, have better STEM skills than women.

Axe grinding? I suppose. But I too hold Watson's views to be highly
distasteful. But I think it is important to balance that sense of repugnance
with two principles: 1) Free speech; and 2) the idea that if something is
actually true -- and I'm not asserting that Watson has captured the truth here
-- then there must not be a penalty for saying it, if it is said in a non-
inflammatory way.

And you do raise an excellent question: Would Watson's honors have been
stripped if it were proved that he had been a Soviet spy?

~~~
eesmith
The "guy at Google" 1) didn't have any honors stripped, and 2) said far more
than simply "men, in general, have better STEM skills than women". Surely to a
degree far more than you posited in your original statement.

How is this a free speech issue? Watson continues to have his full free speech
rights, yes? How is he being censored?

This looks much more like it's a right of free association issue. Cold Spring
Harbor Labs has broad rights to associate - or disassociate - with whomever
they wish.

Since so many people want to place free speech on some sort of pedestal, and
claim that it's of overriding importance, I'll quote John Stuart Mill's "On
Liberty", chapter IV, "Of the Limits to the Authority of Society Over the
Individual", which seems appropriate here:

> We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion
> of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise
> of ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right
> to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to
> choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our
> duty, to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation
> likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates. We may
> give others a preference over him in optional good offices, except those
> which tend to his improvement. In these various modes a person may suffer
> very severe penalties at the hands of others, for faults which directly
> concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so far as they
> are the natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous consequences of the faults
> themselves, not because they are purposely inflicted on him for the sake of
> punishment.

The people of CSHL are exercising their liberty by choosing the society most
acceptable to them.

I don't understand the relevancy of your point 2. All research points out that
Watson is in the wrong.

I also caution that "non-inflammatory speech" is tricky. Who gets to decide?
In general, those in power are those who want to maintain status quo and are
also those who get to decide what 'inflammatory' means. On topic, we see that
100 years ago CSHL was one of many organizations in the American Eugenics
movement, which tended to favor the "Nordic, Germanic and Anglo-Saxon
peoples". Somehow their calls for sterilization and even eradicatation of
large numbers of the poor and powerless wasn't seen as inflammatory, while the
speech of black people who called for equal treatment was seen as
inflammatory, and could even be grounds for lynching.

------
eorge_g
He relies on IQ tests for the basis of his beliefs and I have to side with
Taleb on that one: [https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-
pseudoscientific-...](https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-
pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39)

~~~
FakeComments
That essay argues that IQ isn’t a measure because it doesn’t predict life
success, only lack of success.

That is nonsense equivalent to arguing height isn’t a measure because it
doesn’t predict NBA success, only lack of success.

IQ seems to be one of the best psychological measures we have, and Mr Taleb
himself verifies that — if it weren’t, it wouldn’t exclude so strongly at the
low end.

~~~
lordnacho
I think he's got a point, actually.

If someone is short, they are very, very unlikely to join an NBA team. But if
they're tall, you don't know much.

All this is saying is that if someone is missing a necessary ingredient to do
something, they can't do it. If they have it, some other ingredient becomes
limiting. Or noise drowns out any predictive signal.

It connects nicely with the threshold theory of IQ, basically if you're above
some baseline, that's opens up certain possibilities for you. But having loads
and loads of IQ doesn't help much.

This is probably a mechanic that works in many areas. Some test will exclude
people very well, but not choose "the good ones" well at all.

~~~
FakeComments
That has nothing to do with a measure: whether or not IQ accurately measures
intelligence is independent of whether it’s predictive of success.

We all know NBA success requires more than height, however, height is still a
measurement — not of total value in a person (even in regards to just
basketball), but still of a real and objective difference between people.

Similarly, IQ doesn’t predict success, but is measuring a real and objective
difference between people. Mr Taleb seems to confuse “cant predict a multi-
factor outcome alone” with “isn’t measuring anything objective”. Again, IQ
isn’t a measure of a persons value (or success) — just of a genuine variance
in people’s mental abilities.

Mr Taleb unfortunately tries to extend the point that there’s more to success
than raw intelligence to some kind of misplaced attack on the notion of
measuring intelligence. That argument is as nonsense as insisting I can’t
measure height, because not every tall person plays in the NBA.

------
someone454
Prove him wrong, doing it this way only proves that people are irrational in
the face of criticism

~~~
13415
“Dr Watson’s statements are reprehensible, unsupported by science, and in no
way represent the views of CSHL, its trustees, faculty, staff, or students.
The laboratory condemns the misuse of science to justify prejudice.”

Basically, the whole faculty thinks he's wrong, and Watson has presented no
evidence for his claims. He's not even an expert on the subject matter.

