When I read this very interesting article off the Drudgereport, my first thought that it would make a good debate topic. Further thought on the subject made me think the complete opposite - that there is little chance that a topic on race and intelligence can be discussed civilly. I am going against my better judgment posting this topic, but I have faith that we can debate this in an intellectual manner without the flame throwing that race issues usually get at Please prove me right.

Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than Westerners



Questions for Debate:

1) Is there a relationship between race and intelligence?

2) To counter Dr. Watson, is there a reasonable argument to be made that peoples from different geographic areas evolve equally?

3) What are the policy implications (if any) if there appears to be a strong correlation between race and intelligence?

Questions for Debate:

1) Is there a relationship between race and intelligence?

2) To counter Dr. Watson, is there a reasonable argument to be made that peoples from different geographic areas evolve equally?

3) What are the policy implications (if any) if there appears to be a strong correlation between race and intelligence?


1) Genetically, I do not think so. Invidividuals will always have some genetic variation, which we can call "talent", in all areas of life, but blacks, when not saddled with cultural baggage that creates an anti-intellectual environment, should have no trouble.

Genetic variation in many areas of life is simply not outcome determinative; it creates some kind of range or continuum of potential, but is not determinative.

2) Again, to a point, but as to blacks in the US, and with all of the intermarriage that has gone on, any differences should be negligible.

3) There is a strong correlation now, and always has been. However, recent testing has shown when certain critical factors are adjusted or accounted for, the differences are minimal. Frankly, people can accomplish much, much more when they are not limited by some artifical notion of intelligence, anyway. Diligent effort can accomplish more than simple talent.

Humans are so complex that trying to measure intelligence in any meaningful way is very difficult. Many IQ-type tests measure reading comprehension--one talent--more than, say, abstract reasoning skills or musical skills, for example. How does one define intelligence, anyway?

To me, the biggest impediment to black achievement today is cultural, not genetic; many blacks have escaped the culture of rebellion and underachievement and have done just fine.

I am not a DNA expert, so I suppose there could be a relationship between race and intelligence if the DNA suggests that there is. I personally find it hard to believe, but of course I don't have any proof that there isn't.

We kinda knew that ST. We were all sort of wondering what you thought about the DNA expert who does believe there's a relationship between race and intelligence.

It's certainly possible on the macro. In the sense that as a race Caucasians are taller than Asians. Certain intelligence markers are probably genetic to some extent. Writers verses scientists or atheletes to some extent are all from different areas of intelligence.
There is, of course, but there's something to be said for evolving differently due to locale. You learn different skill sets in tundra than you do in a swamp. Those skill sets evolve.
I suppose at some undetermined "Blade Runner" date we could find that races are forced to certain sectors of society. Something like whites write poetry and Asians do math.

**You know this sort of thing comes up every few years. Some guy is going to prove that Whites or superior or some such.

1) Is there a relationship between race and intelligence?

I have no idea. I don't think so. Science has no idea. We don't know and I think it is safe to say that we don't want to know.

Just as Dr. Watson suggests that we search for the gene to find out, the uproar begins. We have a preconcieved notion that one group is going to be superior to another but we have no data. The uproar over this will preclude anyone from doing such research to find out definitively.

2) To counter Dr. Watson, is there a reasonable argument to be made that peoples from different geographic areas evolve equally?

I don't think this question is fair. At least as far as the US goes, the population is not purely from one area of the world or another. The gene pool is very mixed regardless of whether any area evolved faster. Nobody has pure white genes or pure black genes or pure genes of any sort.

3) What are the policy implications (if any) if there appears to be a strong correlation between race and intelligence?

Why would there be any? Individuals are what we should deal with, not generalities. If Pollacks or blondes are less intelligent on average (being a Pole, I've heard plenty of dumb jokes), that says nothing at all about any individual. Add to that the notion of the mixed gene pools and you have an answer of "None".

My two cents: if there's no genetic marker for race (and according to most scientists, there isn't ), then I am hard pressed to believe that there is a link between race and intelligence.

1) Is there a relationship between race and intelligence?

Even if one could dredge up some epidemiologic research that showed an association as such (and there are some out there), one could not could not even vaguely conclude the underlying causal issue was just racial DNA since:

a... there is no such epidemiologic research that I know of that actually defines ethnicity or "race" on a thorough genetic basis when it uses it as a parameter. It is believed that there is a solid genetic milieu behind race which could affect epidemiologic outcomes, but it remains a black box parameter that is useful mainly to guide the direction of future research rather than draw a definitive conclusion about an existing result. In other words, if the parameters of the research are fuzzy, the significance of the associations will be as well. Intelligence also, is not well-defined. Two fuzzy parameters make for an even fuzzier association, and any conclusion of causality is off the table since the association is the presumed outcome of many more hidden factors which may have only indirect links to the original parameters.

b... unique factors in individual development can affect genetic expression. In other words, your accidental environment may indeed take a genetic code that has the potential for intelligence and strangle it through epigenetic regulation. Enough is known about the potential of this extra-DNA regulation mechanism to know the consequences of unique individual development can even be passed on as a quasi-genetic inheritance for a generation or two. In other words, two people with the identical DNA might develop different traits, one perhaps smart, the other not so, and this trait possibly transmitted to a subsequent generation. There are known cases of intellectual impairment pathologies linked to this phenomena, although I am just speculating whether more subtle forms of transmissable intelligence regulation may exist. There simply is not enough research to rule it out.

2) To counter Dr. Watson, is there a reasonable argument to be made that peoples from different geographic areas evolve equally?

The obvious response, which is implicit in Dr. Watson's statement itself, is that there is no reason not to assume similar evolution either, given the well-known mobility of our species. Since the heritable factors of intelligence are not known, much less proven to exist in the form he is assuming in his statement, no conclusion can yet be made. Nor can one really say whether one people's geographic isolation was so complete or had less selective pressure on their genome to create a difference in the presumed genes that allow greater intelligence. If I were to speculate, I would say the most important selective pressure on human intelligence would have been warfare, since it involves a selection process is very fast and absolute. As far as I know, all human cultures have had to deal with that since the beginning of time.

(aside: perhaps it is also no coincidence also that it was recently reported in the news that the expression of fear is processed by the brain the fastest of all expressions.)

3) What are the policy implications (if any) if there appears to be a strong correlation between race and intelligence?

None, other than more research. A strong correlation between two poorly understood parameters can not identify causal factors, it only tells you such factors may have strong ties to whatever else is associated with race and intelligence. It could be a simple relationship, or it could be complex. Only more research can tell.

And btw, just because a parameter is poorly defined, like race, does not mean it should not be used at all. Racial associations with specific pathologies such as sickle cell anemia and metabolic disorders are well known to exist and although don't alter treatment, still provide clues to the direction of future research.

I agree. And also, as some others have stated, what is intelligence, anyway? An African Bushman would probably be unable to solve any complex mathematical equations. An American math teacher would likely die of hunger/thirst in the Bushman's environment. We are all products of the environment in which we are raised. Really there is no such thing as intelligence in a universal sense. There are adaptive behaviors and thought processes that depend hugely on our environments; that depend on the optimal way to thrive or at least survive in a given context.

To be "intelligent" in a highly technical society like hours requires a broad knowledge of math, science, grammar. To be "intelligent" in an Amazonian tribe requires a broad knowledge of the flora and fauna, processes of producing goods for survival, etc. Intelligences can be so different from each other. Biologists say whales are extremely intelligent. But it's hard to measure, because all we have is our own measuring stick.

Good catch. Isn't race a modern social construct?

Now I remember Watson from my biology book. Watson and Francis Crick took credit for the discovery of DNA without acknowledging Rosalind Franklin, who was responsible for mapping its structure with x-ray crystallographic pictures. In fact, when Crick met Rosalind he thought she was his personal secretary, not his colleague. I'm surprised Watson doesn't say men are smarter. The XY chromosome is easy enough to trace.

You don't need a genetic marker for race to make the conclusion that white people are more intelligent than blacks. You only need to know that familes pass down genes. That black families/cultures have, over time rewarded stupidty where as white families/cultures have rewarded intelligence, or cunning, or diabolical political intrigue. Thats if you accept Watsons argument.


1) Is there a relationship between race and intelligence?

This I can't answer, but it would explain a lot if there were.

The question kinda reminds me of when people make generalizations against Jews. They run all the banks, the film industry, Jews are smarter, all that sort of thing. You're not supposed to say it, but then you keep notincing all these Jewish names at the end of American films, so you start to wonder. You find out that lots of scientists are/were Jewish and you read that Jews have traditionally been middle men/money lenders between Europe and the Middle East. You start to get a picture of this subversive group of people and the next thing you know you've formed a prejudice (either for or against).

So it seems to be with racial issues like this one. The big question of the modern era is why did tiny Europe succeed when Africa, so big and rich in resources and cultures, right next door, fail so miserably. Its really easy to believe that Africans are hampered by stupidty when you look at how badly the place is and always has been.

(I'm not saying thats what I believe. I'm stubbornly sticking to my ignorance where its safer, I'm just pointing out how seductive the race/ntelligence idea is)


2) To counter Dr. Watson, is there a reasonable argument to be made that peoples from different geographic areas evolve equally?

Not sure I understand what you mean.

I don't think so. Geography (and more importantly climate) is uneven all over the world. I don't think Africans have had such an advantage as Europeans when it comes to climate.


3) What are the policy implications (if any) if there appears to be a strong correlation between race and intelligence?

This is the horrible bit. I can just imagine how easily people are going to slip into the superiority groove if this notions gets so much as a hint of scientific approval. The thing is, how can you even tell what a gene does? I never uuderstood how this bit works. Its not like the gene's have readable code.

I've just read a book called 'The Wealth and Poverty of Nations' which went to great lengths to define why Europe was so successful without mentioning race. No doubt the author knew that if he so much as hinted at race being a factor (if he even believed it at all) then his book would be shot down in flames. If there appears to be a strong correlation between race and intelligence then I can easily see this starting an ideological battle where the very nature of intelligence becomes politically incorrect (just what the world needs).


(edited to add. I know there's alot of spelling errors. Bear with me please, its 4.30 am here)

There are two points I want to address here, as I have labeled in the quote. Point 1: I disagree. If we cannot determine what a "race" is, then how can we determine if one race is "smarter" than another? If race is not linked to genetics, then how can Watson claim that there's a genetic basis that links intelligence and race? Additionally, as others have pointed out, how does one define "intelligence"? The article mentions that Watson claims that Africans do worse on "tests", but the article does not mention what kind of tests. Do we really expect a Berber nomad to understand our cultural norms?

Also, culture is not the same as race.

Point 2: There are so many other factors that play into why Africa has not succeeded as well as Europe, and it might be easy to point to race, but only if you want to ignore the myriad of other factors that better explain Africa's problems (in my opinion). Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel does an excellent job of detailing how environment heavily influences the success of a particular region. Africa may have abundant resources, but those resources aren't going to feed people. As you noted, much of Africa's climate isn't conducive to growing food (or domesticating animals). What are Africans going to do with oil and diamonds? Eat them? It's only within the past few centuries that oil and diamonds have become a valuable resources...But what about before that?

Not to mention the recent years of colonization that have a lasting influence on African nations...

1) Is there a relationship between race and intelligence?

From what I've read, the data say yes. But race is as much a cultural category as a genetic one, and "racial" differences can often be explained by environmental and cultural factors. That's not true of all racial differences; some differences are genetic, skin color being the obvious example. If I'd grown up in Kampala and spent ten hours a day tanning, I still wouldn't be as dark as Don Cheadle.

kimpossible suggested that "race is not linked to genetics." It's true that there's no single genetic marker for race, but multi-locus genetic tests generally come up with the same racial or ethnic groupings that people do. That's not to say there's an essential difference between Black and White, just that there are populations that hadn't mixed much (genetically) in a few thousand years. Differences accumulate, sometimes surprisingly quickly. We're starting to see how, with some of the HapMap analyses, which can find sections of the genome that show signs of recent selection pressure.

Several skin pigmentation genes have recently been found to be under selection pressure in European populations. The way they test for selection pressure is by looking at "haplotypes" -- strings of several genes located next to each other on a chromosome. Each new generation gets a shuffled copy of their parents' genomes, but it's a coarse shuffle. Genes tend to stick together in haplotypes for quite a few generations before crossover finally breaks them up. In every generation there's a small chance that crossover will break up a haplotype, so over many generations, intact haplotypes get shorter and shorter. A long haplotype that's found in 60% of the population is a signal of something interesting. The haplotype probably appeared on the scene recently (since it hasn't had time to be broken up by genetic crossover), and it's probably adaptive (or how did it end up in 60% of the population so quickly?).

Another example is adult lactose tolerance. Most mammals lose the ability to digest milk when they become adults, but there have been several occasions in the last few thousand years when a mutation has appeared that preserved lactase production into adulthood. We know it's happened several times because there are several different population groups (in Northern Europe, Africa, and India, I believe) where different lactose-tolerance alleles have gone to fixation.

2) To counter Dr. Watson, is there a reasonable argument to be made that peoples from different geographic areas evolve equally?

Steven Jay Gould argued that human equality is a contingent fact of history: all humans share a common ancestor so recently that there hasn't been time for significant differences to accumulate. It's true that anatomically modern man didn't walk out of Africa until about 100,000 years ago. That's about 5,000 generations. Is that enough time for significant differences to accumulate?

That's ultimately an empirical question. Skin color can obviously change in that time, but pale skin is a result of "loss of function" alleles. They don't produce melanin as well as the original African variant, but that's an advantage when you live in higher latitudes and need to produce more vitamin D. (The sun acts as a selection force for skin color: too pale = skin cancer; too dark = birth defects.)

Genes that make people smarter would have to have a more subtle and complex action than a gene that reduced melanin production. We may have found a genetic region that makes people smarter than chimps, but we haven't found one that makes white people smarter than black people. Some people are looking, though, and every year or two (accelerating as new genome sequences come on line), there's a new candidate like FOXP2 or MCPH1 that influences brain development and has different allele frequencies in different populations. I expect Watson is right that we'll know within 10 years or so whether there are specific genes or gene complexes that cause some of the observed racial differences in intelligence tests.

3) What are the policy implications (if any) if there appears to be a strong correlation between race and intelligence?

None, I think. All people should have freedom, dignity, and equal protection under the law.

Dr Watson told The Sunday Times 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". He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true"

In 1997, he told a British newspaper that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual. He later insisted he was talking about a "hypothetical" choice which could never be applied. He has also suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, positing the theory that black people have higher libidos, and argued in favour of genetic screening and engineering on the basis that " stupidity" could one day be cured. He has claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying: "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great." link

Why is it no one has asked what research did Dr. Watson engage in to form his hypothesis? Or is simply that because someone is a genius in one scientific discipline they should be extended the benefit of the doubt when they explore other areas outside their expertise?

Watson is merely engaging in one of the world's most ancient forms of mental masturbation: seeking a scientific justification for racism.

MATTHEW FRYE JACOBSON (Yale University): We have come to think of race in this country almost entirely in binary terms of black and white. But at the turn of the century there were upwards of 36 in some schemes, 75 in other schemes, races, and the largest difference being the divisions within what we now think of being one white race.

BEN WATTENBERG: One scientist named William Ripley, believe it or not, identified a hierarchy of three fundamental white racial types in Europe by measuring head shape: the long-headed blond Teutonic type, the short-headed brunette Alpine, and the long-headed dark Mediterranean -- the Jews, Italians, Slavs and Greeks. Surprise, the new immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe were ranked at the bottom of the scale.

LEE D. BAKER (Duke University): This was the age of science, and science in this time, and social science as well as physical science, measuring everything from heads to leg length to nose size was used to bolster discrimination.

BEN WATTENBERG: Improving the American breeding stock was the goal of a Chicago biologist named Charles Davenport. In 1910, with a grant from of all places the Carnegie Foundation, he established the Eugenics Records Office.

CHARLES DAVENPORT (1911): "The population of the United States will, on account of the great influx of blood from Southeastern Europe, rapidly become darker in pigmentation, smaller in stature, more given to crimes of larceny, kidnapping, assault, murder, rape and sex immorality. And the ratio of insanity in the population will rapidly increase." Charles Davenport, 1911.

BEN WATTENBERG: For eugenicists like Davenport, race and character were fixed and immutable. Biology was destiny. link 2

Watson is shilling a book and like most books that are destined to gather dust, he has chosen to exploit the most inflammatory passages to generate a buzz. I look forward to the day when some quack theorizes if the superior intelligence of Whites and Asians is a compensation for their smaller sized penises.

This toxic ploy to marketing is also nothing more but scientific racism in its most virulent form from another true believer in racial eugenics . Only like-minded fools and bigots will find his unsubstantiated and untested claims worth consideration.

There's a hundred Rules safe ways to go with this post of yours. Maybe more. I'm thinking this blog needs a feature called Squelch.

Please bear in mind when reading my response that I am essentially playing the devils advocate here. I do not subscribe to Watson's theory. I merely entertain the notion that it may have a grain of truth to it for the sake of debate. My own opinion is one of ignorance as to whether or not genes play a part in 'racial intelligence'.

We can determine race, just not by a single genetic marker. There is no 'Black gene' but there are a long host of genetic traits which belong to 'black people' just as there are genetic lines which are found in all groups. Its is these genes which determine what we look like, the shape of our bodies and the various illnesses we have a disposition towards.

The problem with genes is, they spread and intermingle easily, thus cross breeding gives rise to a multitude of examples which defy easy racial identification. Look at Cuba for example. What are those people? I bet they have every gene under the sun on Cuba.

If however, you are making a generalization about large groups of people, 'Black/Africa' 'White/European', 'Asian', as Watson appears to be doing, then your talking about the genetic identity of large groups of people who already share similar body shapes, colours and other such characteristics so there is no reason not to suppose that intelligence is not equally determined by ones genes.


Indeed it isn't, but culture is formed, first and foremost by geography and any group of people who have lived together for thousands of years prior to interracial breeding are considered racial groups. Africans, as in black Africans who's fore mothers walked in Africa for thousands of years before any European ever returned there share a great many genetic traits that have been passed down over the course of generations.

Unless you utterly discount the theory of social evolution, then any culture spread over thousands of years would form people's genetic signiture. I believe this is what Watson is saying. That over the course of thousands of years, European culture promoted certain behavioural patterns which led to greater intelligence than those promoted by African culture.

As nighttimer points out, Africans got bigger penis's. Why?

If Watson (and Jared Diamond too for that matter) is correct, then culture, as formed by geography explains why. Africans live in a warmer climate than Asians or Europeans thus they traditionally wear less clothing, grow bigger extremities in general and have a cultures which idolises the human body.

Europeans living in a cooler environment are far less likely to throw off their clothes and dance to attrcat a woman, thus they have different body shapes. Inuit in Greenland are the ultimate expression fo what the cold does to the human form over time. Greenlanders are specialists, adapted to the cold, they fare badly when removed from this environment or when outside influences upset the balance betweent heir bodies and nature (for example alcohol).


Thankfully I have read both 'Guns, Germs and Steel' and 'Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive', so I can follow your point very well. What your failing to take into account however is the environment in Europe which was not always the bread basket of the middle ages. Up until about 1,500 years ago, Europe was largely an inaccessable region of sturdy forests and swampy bits with hostile coasts and a great mountain chain cutting it in half. You only have to read Tacitus or Julius Caesar to realise just how difficult a place Northern Europe was to live in. Archeological finds in Denmark paint a very dark picture of what life was like here up to the middle ages.

Consider also the size of Africa. It has all the various types of geographical environment and a whole range of climates, and yet none of these ever gave rise to the invenition and resourcfulness of the latter day Europeans. Then there is the fact of the Arabs who'se lands spanned the entire middle eastern region giving them access to all the fruits and knowledge of Asia and yet they never built upon these things. Again, it was the Europeans who spread out and explored, who built upon their knowledge and who created the modern world. The Indians, the Chinese, the Muslims, the Africans, which ever generalized group you care to compare, all were content to putter along slowly. As David Landes describes in 'The Wealth and Poverty of Nations', through out all history, the Europeans have been that group which have expressed the greatest curiosity in other peoples and cultures. Europeans have been that group which have showne themselves willing and able to adopt and learn and build upon the creativity of other groups.

This is hardly a secret. Look at the world and how it is divided between rich and poor today. Look at how China fell behind because of complacency, how India has never been able to move past its own internal divisions, how Black people have been screwed every where they live by other groups (not just the whites).

You can't always explain the world through extenuating circumstances. Something made the Africans the losers and if Watson is correct then it is as simple as their genetic heritage.

Personally I agree with you (and Diamond) that environment is the true culprit of why people are the way they are, but you have to then at least consider Watsons notion that the environment could just as easily have influenced African genes to the point where they developed in another direction than Europeans, one which has left them at a distinct disadvantage.

I love early morning hypocrisy. This is a man being a racist, followed by another making just as ignorant comments. Good job NT.

Maybe intelligence has little bearing on performance. The US and British military have done millions of tests on the bodies and minds of soldiers, and it has never really come to any mental conclusions worth regurgitating (but did learn tons about striated muscle and non-striated muscle, etc).

This is a great quote:


I believe that in our world, we often mistake culture and values for intelligence. I do have to say that Africa has seen woes and perpetuated cyclical mistakes that no other continent really has experienced. I can't say I'm an expert on why. I think about a million reasons really. Maybe because Africa has forced itself into a culture of violence for centuries basically? I'm really not sure. I do think that it has to be blamed on the African people, but the source is a mystery in my opinion.

Furthermore, if dark colored skin is an indication of poor intelligence, why did the Egyptians accomplish so much with so little?

However- in the US, is poor performance cultural? Societal? Probably a combination there of I'd presume.



I don't know much about this scientists methodology, but I'd have to assume that there is some backing, whether flawed or not.

I don't understand why some people will fight for junk science (global warming, the big bang theory) to the death, but in other cases flippantly dismiss the case.

Maybe he has a case, maybe not. I think that even if there are a number of loci that determine race, in the US particularly, who is full blooded anything? I'd have to assume that the vast majority of white and black people in the US are a jumbled up mixture of "whatever". Since when is someone "white" or "black" exclusively? Why do Black people in the US look different than Africans? Why do I not look European at all? Easy answer.

So, in conclusion, I believe that this science or lack there of wouldn't even have any real bearing on the US anyway. I'd be willing to gamble this month's salary that you could take 10 white people and 10 black people you'd find a number of genetic similarities and differences among both groups as well as within the groups.

I did not mean to imply that I thought you held these notions, but as you are one of the people who brought them up, I am responding accordingly. I realize that you never said outright that you believe Watson's ideas, but does that mean I can't respond to them?

Additionally, yes, there are several loci that determine phenotypes...This is exactly why there is no such thing as race. Because different people can carry different genotypes, and display different phenotypes, and can be considered to be part of the one "race", while others may display the same phenotypes yet be considered part of a different "race" entirely, we cannot conclude with any certainty that race is genetically determined. In the link I provided earlier:





Also, Im sure most people on the board are familiar with the saying that there are more genetic similarities between Africans and Europeans than there are between African populations. If someone really wants me to source that quote I will, but for now, I am going to hope we've all heard it and accept it. If that's true, then it would also be strong evidence that race is merely a social construct.



But bigger penises aren't only found in Africans.

And I don't think that culture is a "genetic signature." I hardly think that Europeans promoted behavior patterns that allowed them to be smarter. Sorry, Im just not buying it. What makes Europeans smarter? Because most of Europe is considered "first world"? Is electricity, vast amounts of waste, and cars what makes an entire people "smarter"?

And as I noted earlier, there's actually more genetic diversity between Africans than there is between Africans and Europeans. And because I've mentioned it a second time, Ill just provide a source for this: More diversity between Africans



Hmm...Interesting...If there's more diversity between Africans, than between Europeans and Africans, that would suggest that culture has nothing to do with genetics. Furthermore, if there's more similarities between Europeans and Africans, that also makes it difficult to determine where intelligence lies.



Uh...Are you kidding? England used to be temperate enough to grow wine. And the Ancient Greeks never idolized the human body!? Or the Romans for that matter. Hmm...



Hardly inaccessible if large populations flourished. According to this article life in the Middle Ages isn't as gloomy as you make it out to be:



And according to this website, the climate was fairly warm during the Middle Ages



Indeed, the warm climate and the abundance of easy to harvest grains is why Europe succeeded more than Africa. That is the whole premise of Diamond's book. Obviously, there is a wide range of landscapes and climates in Africa, but the vegetation in Africa was not as easy to harvest as that of Europe. Hence, African societies developed along a different path; one that did not always allow for settling land. This has nothing to do with intelligence.



Again, if most European genes are found in their African brethren, then it would ignorant to assume that genetics plays any role at all in the cultural and social success of any group. Genetics vary because they are adapting to the external environment, but there's an infinite number of ways that a culture can adapt to genetics. That's why in Africa (and Europe, and anywhere), thousands upon thousands of different cultures exist

1) Is there a relationship between race and intelligence?

The longer I live, the more I see no relationship between humans and intelligence.

What separates the races? Silly little details like skin color, hair color, eye color, certain physical features. Yep. And what separates dog breeds?

Uh-huh, you get it, don't you. When a population develops on its own, no outside genes contributed, the members of the population tend to become more similar. Voilà! A race. But no, not really, just a particular breed. Dogs of different breeds can procreate, and so do people.

The healthiest breed of dog is a mutt. Same with people, so go out there and mix it up! It's for the good of humankind. If humans finally find some relationship with intelligence as a result, we just might survive as a species. Otherwise, we're dumber than granite. Looks like in geological time, our species is going to be one of the shortest lived of them all.

That ain't smart. It's an evolutionary dead end.

2) To counter Dr. Watson, is there a reasonable argument to be made that peoples from different geographic areas evolve equally?

Oh sure. How long has homo sapien sapien been in existence? Merely a blink of a geological moment. Humans have not had enough time to evolve, obviously. We're still hung up on looks. We still give in to the lizard brain. Shiny things attract us, so we're a lot like crows. And we still believe in some of the most outrageous things, like the weather being controlled by spirits. Well, some of us anyway. Too many.

3) What are the policy implications (if any) if there appears to be a strong correlation between race and intelligence?

None, as there is no correlation. We're all as dumb as granite; however, it'd be richly ironic if the good doctor discovers that blond-haired, blue-eyed Whites are slightly dumber.

Then what?

It might stop foolish scientific studies meant to promote being thick as a brick of granite.

Seriously though, humans have to evolve or die out, swamped in our own filth. I suppose it would be more honorable to be taken out by a big meteor. Then future truly smart types won't be making stupid human jokes.

Thank you. We aim to please.

I gave a moment's thought (hard to do when you're genetically inferior as Doc Watson suggests) that the suitable counter to this latest entry in the ongoing series of threads questioning the mental fitness and very humanity of Black people might be a thread entitled, "Black Studs and the White Women that Love Them: Has your woman ever had the Jungle Fever?"

On further consideration though, I realized that such a thread was manipulative, lurid, exploitative, and catering to the worst of racial stereotypes. Just like this thread is.

Here we have a quack shilling a book who has suggested in the past babies should be aborted if it is predetermined they will be gay, girls should be genetically manipulated to ensure they will be "pretty," Blacks are oversexed due to their higher libidos (and presumably lower intelligence) and "stupidity" can be eliminated through genetics. If Dr. Watson were just some schlub sitting on a bar stool spewing this crap within shouting distance of everyone, the correct response would be to either move to another part of the bar out of earshot or suggest to the bartender to cut him off and throw him out on his ear.

But is that what Aevans176 think is the proper way to handle such shrieking stupidity? Oh no.



I DO admire a man who takes a firm and unequivocal stance. Is it kind of shaky on that tower of Jell-O you're standing on AE176? A little more John Wayne and a lot less Woody Allen there, partner.

It shouldn't come as a shock how people will give the benefit of the doubt to any scientist or politician or any other moron in authority no matter how ridiculous the remarks are. The need by White men like Watson to assert their natural superiority over non-Whites runs strong and deep. Scratch the surface of a supporter of eugenics and the little swastika shows up.

Sieg heil, Herr Watson. Adolf would be proud.

The fact is that what I'm saying is that this scientist doesn't have any less science, presumably, behind him than other "junk science" notions. Chances are that in many cases, people can find some scientific backing for absurd thought processes, whether they're pertinent or accurate is a completely different story.

At least some of us don't resort to talking about reproductive parts in order to stake our claims.

I'm not pretending to be an expert on genetics, and even in my post stated that there's a good chance that this is bologna. However, just like homosexuality or other things that I feel like people haven't figured out, intelligence seems to follow the same line. How do we know what drives intelligence? Sure- good training, smart parents, etc seem to be a good recipe. However, it doesn't seem (according to what I've read) that there's a certain "intelligent" gene. Not that I know of. I didn't read this scientist's data, and really don't think it would matter. I don't think that there is any really homogeneous race in the US and I personally believe that it doesn't matter in either case. I think intelligence is only a fraction of the recipe for successful people.

Go ahead and keep putting me into the white man holding a brova' down bubble NT. It makes for good fuel for the swastika crowd's fire.

I'm not convince that a sample size of 30 individuals could tell us much about the global population of 6 billion. Those researchers were convinced that the sample size "fit their needs", but we should be careful.


You do realize that Watson is the former head of the Human Genome project? His comments about homosexuality were really in support of abortion on demand and most men do wish all girls were pretty.

Yes, I can see where he has eugenic leanings--he has said that stupidity is a disease that can be cured. If he believes it is genetic, that would be eugenic.

Watson is also an atheist and a human secularist, so his belief in dry science concepts should not surprise anyone. Eugenics (or "human guided evolution") is only curbed by moralistic unscientific throwbacks. If there is no God, why shouldn't we improve the human race via cloning or genetic selection or whatever?

But to say that Watson is automatically wrong (there is no evidence either way) or that we shouldn't investigate whether or not his argument has merits (because it is beyond the point of acceptable debate according to the British Science Museum) is just as unscientific.

Besides Watson has apologized. He says he never said what he is quoted as saying.



Too late to come out from under the bus as his bosses have distanced themselves from Watson.

It will be interesting to sort our what Watson DID say (or mean) by his statements.

It would be interesting indeed. But, consider that the man is 79 years old. There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacity of a person 79 years old is reliable. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason to one so likely encountering senility will not be enough to make it so.

1) Is there a relationship between race and intelligence?

No. Or let's put it this way, if there is a relationship between intelligence and race, then there is a relationship between all sorts of aptitudes and race, as well as personalities and race. So....who believes that one race is more likely to be evil? That theory should be a real hit with the ‘kill the Jews’ crowd.

The fittest species survive. Human beings have survived because of our intellectual capability, not our claws and teeth. Tell me who will survive longer in this scenario…a Westerner (white, black, whatever) placed in the outback and expected to do what an African person can do, or a person from sub-Saharan Africa placed in front of a television here and expected to do what we can do. I’m betting on the African.

2) To counter Dr. Watson, is there a reasonable argument to be made that peoples from different geographic areas evolve equally?

If humans haven't evolved ‘equally’ than I’m hard pressed to understand why someone living in New Zealand would have the same rate of evolution as a person in Ethiopia, as a person in Zimbabwe, as a person in Somalia (insert other remote location thousands of miles travel from other location for darker-skinned people here). Whereas somehow all remote locations containing “white” skinned people evolved at the same rates based on skin color. Irish (apparently) are just as intelligent as Norwegians who are just as intelligent as Russians. Add some skin pigment (of course we all have the same number of melanocytes, but nevermind) and it all just falls apart….

Please, by all means feel free to respond!

I agree, which is why I made the point about making generalizations. I believe, and have for a long time that race is a defunct term used only by people who think in racist terms. I usually think of groups of people in terms of culture or nationality and here the whole gene/intelligence thing makes less sense than before (to me) since I would suppose that intelligence was caused by nurture rather than nature.

What do I know?


Well, I'd say that what ever caused this evolution, happened long before electricity came into the picture.

That essentially what happened is that Northern Europeans went through a long period of hardship whilst Southern Europeans went through a long period of gowth into the so called classical civilisations. That things changed rapidly when Northern Europe became temperate and the balance of power in Europe shifted from south of the Alps to North of the Alps. From that point onwards, things really took off, but any evolution of intelligence had to come from before this period, from the time when Northern Europe was a harder place to live in.

This is of course providing we buy the whole concept of intelligence being something so easily defined that it can be caused by genes.


Only if you believe diversity breeds intelligence. This argument appears to be saying the opposite.


Remember we are dealing with generalizations. Individual cases like the Greeks, or the Romans are speed bumps when you consider the 10,000 years of European history prior to these relatively short lived civilisations.


I said up to the middle ages. You've misunderstood me. I'm saying the Middle Ages was a boom time for Europe, one that spawned all of what Europe is today. A temperate time with lots of room to expand (the plague kept reducing the population) so there was plenty of food to go around and lots of land to be inherited. If it hadn't been for the religious hysteria and the wars these gave rise to, the European Middle Ages would have been paradise on Earth.
Its the period prior to the Middle Ages which were hard. The period when the Romans were expanding north of the Alps and finding one great big forest full of tribes like the Marcomani, the Aedui and the Sequani, that period and the 10,000 years before it, right back to the ice age. Life in Europe, especially Northern Europe has been good, but only for the last 1,500 years. Prior to that, prior to the Medieval period, it was a hard place to survive and one region which did not support a large population.

It could just be that the temperate period was just what the doctor ordered and this boom time is what gave rise to the 'Super Euro's' who then spread out to explore all the world, colonise everything in sight, exploit the hell out of every one else, then settle down to be the fat cats we see today. People are so obsessed with racism that they don't stop to consider that racism is both universal, and for the most part (as horrible as it is) a really good idea if your in competetion with other people for finite resources.

The way the world is today, the Europeans won and that didn't happen by accident or because Europe was temperate for a few centuries (don't forget the Medieval Warm Period was followed the by the 'Little Ice Age'). As I said before, something gave the Europeans a distinct advantage over the rest of the globes population and it wasn't invention either since most of the big inventions came from Asia and the Europeans merely built upon pre existing knowledge.

Landes would have us believe that the Europeans secret for success was/is their curiosity in other peoples and cultures. There willingness to adopt other people's art, languages, math, science, food, habits, &tc. If thats true, and it sounds plausible given how the Europeans differed from the people's they met, then where did that curiosity come from if not the culture of Europe?


Africa has regions where the conditions are ripe for growth. Further more it has always had easier access to Asia and Asian knowledge. I don't see how you can argue that curiosity in other regions is a European trait simply because Europe had a temperate climate in the Middle Ages.


Surely most European genes are found in Africans because Europeans once came from Africa also....?

And haven't you just agreed with me? Genetics vary because they are adapting to the external environment... If the environment encourages adaptation then it is not outside the realms of possibility that intelligence is a by product of that adaptation.



Mrs Pigpen.


If you stack the odds against some one like that then your going to get the desired out come you seek.

Place both people out on the northern tundra and then see what happens.

The thing is, you can't measure intelligence by who survives any way because you might just find that ten days into your experiment your African subject is killed by a lion (they do actually kill and eat native Africans) where as the European turns out to be an outdoor freak who has spent his whole life camping in the great outdoors and actually thrives in Africa (I know several of these). Like wise an Africa let loose on the tundra might survive by fishing where as the European starves to death.


naw....

Questions for Debate:

1) Is there a relationship between race and intelligence?
What do you mean by race and intelligence? Presumably certain genetic pools accumulated with respect to certain stable populations in particular regions and the folks there were selected for their physical and psychological adaptations to their surrounding environment.

2) To counter Dr. Watson, is there a reasonable argument to be made that peoples from different geographic areas evolve equally?
Evolve equally? What does that mean? We all came out of Africa about 60,000 years ago and traveled to different lands and genetically made the slight adaptations that facilitated our success in those unique environments. I don't see any particular place for shoving in the notion of general intelligence. We all evolved the quality of intelligence that allowed us to adapt. A Kalahari intelligence would be slightly different from an arctic circle intelligence. There is no need for a "greater" or "lessor."


3) What are the policy implications (if any) if there appears to be a strong correlation between race and intelligence?
The question implies a hierarchy of race and intelligence which is descriptively unnecessary and mischievious. If the helper is simply trying to impose his model on the helped then I wouldn't expect much success. Generally a previous history of exploitive colonialism by the helpers is central to their problem. They don't need any more of that kind of "help."

As say in Africa any international help should be directed at facilitating the Africans working out their own solution and as such should foster an independent rather than a dependent relationship to the outside.

Okay, I concede you're right for my scenario. My main point stands, though. Human societies have survived the past thousands of years by adapting and survival favors those individuals able to adapt. In human populations that means the "smartest" tend to survive...regardless of whether they evolved in the North, South, East or West.

Are you saying then that all survivors are intelligent?

It seems to me that the survivor is merely the one best suited to survive, and this has little to do with intelligence and a lot to do with behavioural patterns. In other words, long term survival is possible by adapting to the environment and a certain conservative unwillingness to push the envolope may be a better survival trait than jumping on a ship and trying to see whats over the horizon. Ever since the (afore mentioned) Medieval Warm Period, Europeans have sought ever outwards in search of novelty and growth. If one can conclude anything about Europe, it is, the people here have been out of tune with Mother Nature for a very long time. I am sensible to the possibility that what we consider intelligence is in fact nothing of the sort, we could utimately be suffering from that self destructive curiosity that slays felines.

On the other hand, there is the question of morality (and I don't see any one debating this aspect of intelligence much). What is morality? Is there such a thing as universal morality or is all morality a cultural construct? The Old School Europeans were habitual war mongers. War fuelled, and still fuels nearly all technological progress, and yet these most war like of people's ultimately created the most far reaching set of moral codes. I'm going off on a tangent now, but I think there is more to all this than just a simple matter of whether intelligence is caused by nature or nuture. One of my biggest mental confusions stems from the question of why people so readily go to war. Is killing other people really bad and if so why are so many people prepared to do this? I simply don't buy the argument that killing is caused by fear of the other. It seems to me that killing, like racism is a means to an end and the end is survival. That like racism, killing is actually a useful means to ensure personal gain and only morality prevents it.

We humans impose morality upon ourselves, and yet we do not all share the same morality. When measuring intelligence, don't we have to accept that different types of morality indicate different types of reasoning? And if so, doesn't that imply that it is also 'intelligent' to kill other people for your own gain?

Evolution by means of natural selection as the premier mechanism for biodiversity only lends support to that which can survive. Typically this is reflected by adaptations such as the immune system. Beyond that its pretty much all one should need to say, natural selection means environment, or ecology.

Intelligence has many different facets and collectively does not have a concise definition overall. It would be easy to assume intelligence has a basis in something like genetics from the reality of various handicaps a person can have, but biology by in large is a large field in which genetics is but one part of the whole. The other reality is that environment and an organism and thoroughly entwined to a very high degree. Typically its close to impossible to separate the reality of an organism and its environment from any angle you would wish to do such from, example being genetic.

I don’t really want to say much more on the science tip of it all simply because it seems rather missing in all of the debate. I would like to point out though that ultimately the most intelligent decision overall is the one that leads to prolonged survival. ON that note though such can mean extermination of nearly all life including ones own species, such intelligent decisions could also take on another form in which it does not mean any of that. Basically what I think people are looking for in this debate is simple means of understanding such as gravity requires escape velocity to be reached before you can leave the earth, life though is not so typical and or simple. Case point, a very stupid person can win the lottery and have more success in that regard then a person with a phd from Harvard...

Also it would seem that our society going along with the lacking definition of intelligence does not find it fit to try to elect the most intelligent people in the world either, and that you can be struck by a lighting bolt or a drunk driver, or have a tree fall on you.

Pretty much science is slowly solving the reality of life, but one of the truths about this is the black and white factual or empirical realities is that how evolution works does not support the concept of perfect carbon copies in a giving specie. That being said the other reality is what we view as successful today could be what failure is tomorrow.

Overall its hard to put what is books of data into a post, but the reality is human intelligence for the most part is not simply just a product of genes. You can have “perfect” or healthy genes and still be dumb as a rock, which again is purely relative to the environment to a large degree.

The elderly Dr. Watson apologized today "unreservedly", so apparently his doddering lucidity had a moment of clarity. There really never was a real debate, as much of what he previously said was so devoid of normal insight into the true scope of the ambiguity of the underlying processes being discussed.

This would make an interesting topic in and of itself...probably an interesting thesis paper. From my perspective, morality differs from place to place because of environment, not the other way around (though I do believe in a type of 'universal morality', I'll skip that for this thread). Humans are so dependent on society you can't extricate and analyze an individual without analyzing the society they came from. We have a few examples of people who received no social stimulus from birth and they are always severely and irreparably mentally impaired.

Most every significant advance in Europe was made possible post-gunpowder discovery. It blasted through hundreds of feudal kingdoms and created nations. It led to the conditions that permitted intellectual persuits and innovation. Consider if you were a peasant toiling in the field, dependant on your own personal crop of potatoes to feed your family. How much innovation would be possible for you? Would you have time to think of grand ideas? Would you take the risk of trying some new farming technique that might endanger the whole crop resulting in the starvation of not only you but your family, and perhaps the entire village? Under those types of conditions, innovations are not only not possible, but heavily resisted by social forces. Just like the life of 'Flick', in 'bug's life'...the village doesn't want to die, so it encourages conformity and discourages innovation when at that stage of development. In Bug's Life, Flick won, everyone ate somehow and he was a genius hero. In real life that doesn't happen for a third-world developing village. In real life, the 'genius' who innovates has 999 failures per success...possible to absorb that loss in a first world country, impossible to absorb in the third world.

My point being, the person living in third world conditions is going to make entirely different decisions for entirely different reasons than the person living in the first world. That is true for everyone, regardless of his/her race. The impact isn't from the evolution of individual races of people, it's social evolution. And even when you look at society honestly today (I'm speaking of American society, I can't vouch for another), people are treated differently. Social encounters and nurture have a vast impact on the developing child's mind. If he/she receives messages that he/she is inferior, that will absolutely effect them in life. Those messages don't have to be vocalized...society sends messages all of the time through body language alone, through its treatment of individuals, by expectations, ect. It's like that cartoon of three fish, the largest has its mouth open eating the one in the middle and there is a bubble over its head with the thought 'the world is just'. The middle fish is going to be eaten by the larger one in back, but his mouth is open eating the middle one so his thought bubble says, 'sometimes the world is just'. The smallest fish is about to get engulfed by the middle one and he isn't eating anything so the bubble reads 'the world is not just'.

Edited to add: And what I said above about social conditions in third world countries applies to conditions in different social stradas within the first world countries too. A child raised within an impoverished ghetto will encounter and entirely different set of social conditions, and those conditions will impact his development on every level.

The feral children make for an interesting aspect of this debate. I believe they add weight to the notion that intelligence is a product of nurture rather than nature.

With regards to morality being the product of environment, it can't be ignored that three of the big four world religions (if you can actually count Judaism as such) came from the same environment. That Christianity underwent a serious redefinition when it was adopted by the Europeans and become something wholly different to what was practiced in the Middle East. I'm also reminded of many similarities between social democracy and the protestant variant of Christianity


I disagree slightly. It was not gunpowder that enabled the advances to which you refer, it was the application of gun powder as a weapon. Remember that other civilisations, most notably the Chinese had had gun powder for a very long time, but did not develop the same advances. Quite the opposite. The Chinese actually stagnated and eventually forgot how to make and use gn powder weapons and their culture derived no advances from its application as a weapon. The difference between how gun powder caused further technological advances in Europe but not in China can only be rooted in culture, and if culture is a product of environment and circumstance, and intelligence is a by product of survival, then I have to wonder why Europe's environment can produce such spectacular results as opposed to China. Frankly, it doesn't make sense to me. What was/is so different about Europe that can't be found else where?

Further more, the Islamic countries also failed to build upon the innovations offered by gun powder. Not only did the Muslims have access to gun powder before Europe, but once Europe adopted gun powder and began to develop it, the Muslims became dependent clients of the European gun smiths. The Ottoman Turks in particular were notable for their innovative use of cannon, but they bought/received their cannons from Hungary, France and Britain. Like wise the Muslims today buy their weaponry because they have never developed the skills and ability to build their own. Iran loves to boast about its technological abilities but a close look at their 'new weapons' proves the bluster for what it is. All of Iran's innovation is really foreign bought/acquired and European/American in origin. Why is this? What makes Muslims so bad at building the weapory they obviously require? Intelligence? Culture?

Having said all that, I'd say the real culprit was not gun powder, but actually an abundence of good food brought about by the temperate period and the plague cutting away the population to allow for increasing growth without over population pressure. Starting in the European Middle Ages, there seems to be a sudden rise in European exploration and gun powder is merely one aspect of this. Protestantism is another. Movable type printing, universities and innovations in wood cutting techniques (Wind and water power in Holland in particular) allowing for bigger and sturdier ships are all aspects of this rapid increase in technological progress. None of those things could have happened without a well fed population which suddenly didn't have to worry about surviving the winter though.


Your jumping from the specific to the general here. Individuals from different social forms can still come to the same conclusioons...

What I'm wondering here, is what powers social evolution? If its the envionrment as I'm sure we can agree on, then whats to stop the environment also forming intelligence in groups of people living in isolation of each other?


I agree.

1) Is there a relationship between race and intelligence?

Firstly, it is not possible to directly measure intelligence, because it is an applied skill. It isn't like height - how tall you are doesn't change dependent on the circumstances. A tall person can't be unintentionally short because they weren't concentrating, whereas even the smartest person can occasionally do or say something stupid. I know I do

We normally measure applied intelligence, through methods like IQ tests or academic examination results. Most applications only try to standardise themselves (e.g. in an IQ test, people taking the test at the same time get asked the same questions; in academic tests, everyone either has to rely on memory or on the same set of textbooks to give answers to the same questions, and everyone is tested at the same time in conditions that can be more or less replicated in different locations).

Here is an example of racially-analysed examination results from British schools (GSCE results from 1999) (Link to source

As you can see, there is some variation between races, but there is no link between "brown-ness" and "intelligence" (if skin colour is any indicator of racial origin and all races are "pure", AND if GCSE results have any relationship with intelligence, applied or otherwise).

On the face of it maybe Indians and "Orientals" may well be the intellectual giants of the world, and as such white people shouldn't be allowed to beocme rocket scientists (or should be placed into NASA through affirmative action programs). But that makes no sense, because Indians do comparatively well while Pakistanis (racially more or less identical - until 1947 they WERE Indians) do comparatively badly. So even if race plays a part, it can't be the dominant factor in determining intelligence and cultural and/or economic factors, for good or ill, will dominate any racial factors.

There appears to be a pretty consistent and significant gap between boys and girls or all races of between 10-15%, to the benefit of girls. This doesn't really mean females are more intelligent than males across the board under all circumstances, but it certainly speaks of a real difference in performance in GCSE performance in the UK among 15 and 16 year olds (the age of the vast majority taking these exams).

We shouldn't set policy on education on the assumption that men are stupider and therefore shouldn't be allowed to do jobs requiring intelligence, because we know from other evidence that simply isn't true (prior to the introduction of GCSEs, where results are based mostly on long-term coursework projects, and minimally on one-off, pass-or-fail examinations, the gender balance was more or less reversed; teenaged boys do better in one-off exams than girls do, while the reverse seems to be true for long-term coursework).

We also know that, looking at the distribution of intelligence (using a consistent measure), males of all ages show a wider distribution about an almost identical mean i.e. it is more likely that the individuals with the highest and lowest intelligence in a population will both be male, while females will be more predictable similar in intelligence levels (an oversimplification).

We all know, in our bones, that almost all of these differences can be explained not in simplistic "women/men are stupid, while men/women are smart" terms, because we all know, or know of, at least one person in the supposedly smart group that is stupid, and we all know of at least one person in the supposedly stupid group that is smart.

So, rightly, any sensible arguments about how to improve education among boys focuses on teaching and assessment methods, and also touches on cultural and parental expectations of boys, and men generally.

So why am I talking about gender differences in a thread about race? Well, in genetic differences between gender, we're talking about a who