James Watson
James Watson really is bright enough to know that you should engage brain before opening your mouth. He is, after all, a Nobel Prize winner (and not one of those faux ones, Peace or Economics) for his part in the discovery of DNA. His “crime” was the following statement, that he’s gloomy about the prospects for African development 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.”
Now the thing is that what he says is in fact true. If you take a random group of Africans and a random group of Europeans or North Americans then you’ll find that their results in an IQ test are lower. There are some obvious reasons for this: malnutrition is a known cause of mental stunting, such is known to happen in Africa, not so much in the other two places. It’s also true that “g”, the thing measured by IQ tests is defined as whatever it is that makes you a high functioning individual in the societies of N. America or Europe. Which may very well be not the same as the things required to make you a high functioning individual in the largely peasant economies of much of Africa.
Now what has gained attention is the idea that he’s saying that all “blacks” are dumb for genetic reasons. Which is near insane, for there’s more genetic variation in Africa than there is in the rest of the human race put together. There is no such thing as an “African” in terms of genes, they are wildly more genetically different than Europe or even the USA. I don’t think he actually is saying that. Rather, I think he’s making a point which thoughtful economists have been trying to make for some time.
Africa (in so far as you can make generalisations about a continent) has a different culture. Within that culture are different incentives and as any and every economist will tell you, people respond to incentives. It’s not because of any difference in intelligence that our own solutions to poverty won’t work, not because of any genetics: it’s the culture that will.
Note please that this doesn’t mean that there are no solutions. just that they need to be different ones.
October 25th, 2007 at 3:02 am
I would absolutely account most or all of this difference in intelligence, especially as identified through an IQ test, as the difference in culture and environment. IQ tests, and even paper tests in general, are very much a “Western†phenomena – testing is simply ingrained in our culture. While we might test higher on a paper test, I’m guessing most Africans (especially those living outside of cities) would exhibit a much higher intelligence that we regarding survival.
As Leah, in Poisonwood Bible, said of her Congolese friend while she and her family lived in the Congo, while she and her sisters were playing games such as “Mother May I,†her African friend was playing “find food†or “build a house.â€
The idea of comparing intelligence based on paper exams here is ludicrous. There is even much controversy about measuring intelligence in this way amongst people in our country. Educators and others have long noted a cultural bias in such tests – the Neag Center for Gifted Education notes that here: http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/NRCGT/ford5.html.
Comparing and contrasting the intelligence of westerners and non-westerners would be a highly complicated task at best.
October 26th, 2007 at 6:34 am
I read more about James Watson today in the New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/science/25cnd-watson.html?em&ex=1193457600&en=dbaf904a72be118a&ei=5087%0A. According to the article, Watson was shunned and dismissed after the comments he made. He was relieved of his position as chancellor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, while a lecture he was to give at Rockefeller University (in a ceremony to honor him) was cancelled by the university.
It seems, Tim, he really should have been bright enough to think before speaking. Imagine ending a brilliant Noble Prize winning career like this.
November 4th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
It’s true that us urban types would do pretty badly on an IQ test designed by a Khoi San (what used to be called Bushmen). So I’m not all that much of a fan of the system anyway.
Plus, err, I do really badly on IQ tests so obviously they must be wrong.