Action Potential

One of potentially many updates to this story, the fallout has inevitably started. Here is a release from CSHL:

PRESS RELEASE -
Statement by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Board of Trustees and President
Bruce Stillman, Ph.D.
Regarding Dr. Watson¹s Comments in The Sunday Times on October 14, 2007.

The comments attributed to Dr. James Watson that first appeared in the October 14, 2007 edition of The Sunday Times U.K. are his own personal statements and in no way reflect the mission, goals, or principles of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's Board, administration or faculty. Dr. Watson is not the President of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and was not speaking on behalf of the institution.

The Board of Trustees, administration and faculty vehemently disagree with these statements and are bewildered and saddened if he indeed made such comments. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory does not engage in any research that could even form the basis of the statements attributed to Dr. Watson.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's renowned commitment to scientific research in the areas of cancer, neurological diseases, and plant genetics has and continues to dramatically benefit human-kind throughout the world.

Notice the statement "if he indeed made such statements." That's funny. Obviously, scientists and students at the lab have been told to forward any and all inquiries regarding this topic to the CSHL publicity department. I guess when funding dollars are at stake within this current economic climate, it is unwise to be associated with ridiculous intolerance.

Distancing themselves from Dr. Watson is the wise move for CSHL and is unlikely to have negative consequences. Does anyone think that he will maintain the same voracious fund-raising abilities after this scandal??

James Watson was recently in Boston, Mass. USA, promoting his book by means of an interview(On Point) at WBUR which is an NPR station. In this interview, Professor Watson said rather parentheticlly that he was concerned that the near term future of science research was in peril because fewer Jewish students were selecting science and math curricula in favor of economics at Harvard University. He implied that the pursuit of economic gain had displaced a dedication to scientific research in this particular ethnic group. Since I was hearing this interview by means of a podcast, I had to replay it to be sure I had heard it correctly. My first hearing was correct. Is this racists? I do not think so.
I think he really believes these controversial things he says. He has a right to free speech in the USA. Where does Professor Watson's right to free speech end and political correctness begin. Give the man a break. After all he is 79 years old, he has made significant contributions to science and he has a right to express his opinion

James Watson's statement can be reduced to three main hypotheses:

1) That sub-Saharan African nations have significantly lower average IQs than European nations.

2) That national differences in IQ have a significant causal relationship with differences in economic development.

3) That these differences have a substantial genetic component.

In fact, a popular and expanding research literature in peer-reviewed biology, psychology, and economics journals support all three conclusions. For example:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/d15x2810855wx085/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2006.11.002
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2006.02.003
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0160-2896(02)00137-X
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2005.09.006
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2006.05.005
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpsoc/bjhp/2006/00000011/00000004/art00006
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-6435.00191
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2007.0461

Watson is by no means an outlier among scientists and scholars in his belief that people of African descent average lower native intelligence.

A 1987 scientific poll published in the American Psychologist of over 1200 relevant scholars (sociologists, psychologists, and geneticists) found that 46% - a plurality of those polled - believed the evidence pointed to genetics playing a role in observed racial intelligence differences, compared to only 15% who thought genetics did not play a role.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snyderman_and_Rothman_%28study%29

And this poll was conducted before the 1990s which introduced novel cross-cultural, anatomical, and transracial adoption data. A 20 year replication of this poll is slated or sometime in the next year and will likely skew even further to the genetic position.

Watson, one of the most esteemed living biologists, was taking his statements from the science journals, not just parroting empty, discredited prejudices. His treatment has been unfair and reactionary.

I can't think of a better term for the curious position of the Science Museum in London that Watson's statements are "beyond the point ofacceptable debate"

http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3070583.ece

Is this primitive dogmatism truly representative of the spirit of the scientific community?

JJC

I will hold off responding to Mr. Clinton as of now, giving him a chance to re-think his comments and whether he is willing to stand by this "most-esteemed living biologist." By the way, Mr. Clinton, strong statements of this caliber are usually made in public by those actually conducting eugenics research (which Dr. Watson is not doing, but historically-speaking, was conducted at CSHL in the 1910s and 1920s), by those who like to spin scientific findings to fit an agenda (which Dr. Watson is not doing, since he failed to cite any actual science), or by ignorant individuals who have a general disdain or respect for the spirit of tolerance, in addition to being so self-absorbed that they actually believe they cannot possibly be wrong in their opinions. I'll let the public decide in which category Dr. Watson belongs.

Speaking of eugenics, a building on CSHL campus is named after Charles Davenport, the author of Eugenics: the science of human improvement by better breeding (New York; 1910). This text, along with 2000 other items related to the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century, are on display in an online archive run by the Dolan DNA Learning Center in Cold Spring Harbor, NY. Funded by a grant from the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Research Program at the National Human Genome Institute, this uncensored look (except to protect personal privacy) at this ugly time aims to teach lessons that can and should be gleaned from our past mistakes and narrow-minded views. However, in the complete opposite spirit of what this archive was designed to expose, when an investigator at CSHL recommended that the name of the Davenport house be changed, Dr. Watson supposedly refused. After all, it was a historic place, right? This is all just from hearsay anecdotal accounts and could be apocryphal, of course, so calm down everyone.

But finally on to the update, (I promised you many...), CSHL is in complete lockdown, refusing to accept any phone calls and now demanding that their employees refrain from speaking to the press. Meanwhile, with his initial events now canceled, Dr. Watson has found himself alone in England.

To assume that IQ as a measure of whatever one defines as "intelligence" counts as empirical evidence supporting any such claims is, at best, misleading. It's far from proof, but I suspect that exploration of the social biases inherent in this antiquated metric might help to account for some or all of these purported differences. Is reliance on such a potentially poor measure truly representative of the "intelligence" of the scientific community?

Finally, it is true that Dr Watson has a right to free speech, as all do. However, the abuse of professional responsibility to the greater scientific community that he either overtly or inadvertently represents is regrettable.

As of yesterday evening, Dr. Watson was suspended from his duties at CSHL:

Statement by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Board of Trustees and President Bruce Stillman, Ph.D.
Regarding Dr. Watson’s Comments in The Sunday Times on October 14, 2007

Earlier this evening, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Board of Trustees decided to suspend the administrative responsibilities of Chancellor James D. Watson, Ph.D., pending further deliberation by the Board.

This action follows the Board’s public statement yesterday disagreeing with the comments attributed to Dr. Watson in the October 14, 2007 edition of The Sunday Times U.K.

"Give the man a break. After all he is 79 years old, he has made significant contributions to science and he has a right to express his opinion"

He most certainly is allowed to express his opinion, so long as he clearly labels it as such. However, he doesn't have the right to make such statements and then declare them to be supported by evidence that, even he now readily admits, does not exist! That is to misinform the public, and is certainly not protected by the right of free speech in this country or Britain. It is, in fact, regarded as libel.

As to the "evidence" linked by Clinton, it isn't terribly compelling for the reasons highlighted by SL above. Until we have a thorough understanding of the intricacies of human intelligence, attempts to draw comparisons between races is not only scientifically dubious, but in terms of motive, also highly suspect.

Dr. Watson's comments garner an intense amount of controversy, but the opposition has yet to illustrate a salient idea. It seems that in an effort to discredit Mr. Watson, the opposition relies on mere name-calling and inflammation, coupled with flowery exclamations with absolutely no foundation, such as: "social biases inherent in this antiquated metric." The quote refers to an opinion on the validity of the I.Q. The writer opines that the I.Q. is invalid, but provides no justification. This sort of "logical leap" rhetoric is rife throughout the opposition's contention. Buzz words such as "ignorant" and "self absorbed" are used in the face of thousands of pages of scientific evidence appearing to lend credibility to Dr. Watson's claims.

It is not clear why such a large group of people can get worked into such a fury over Dr. Watson's remarks, yet are seemingly completely unable to provide one ounce of evidence discrediting his remarks. It is completely irrelevant how I feel about his remarks or the policy and social byproducts that may or may not be produced. This is because the remarks have already been made, so the only valid course of action is to attempt to discredit them.

Aside from getting really upset or sad or whatever, why doesn't someone actually try to cite a study that can actually quantitatively preclude the validity of Dr. Watson's comments? I don't want to hear any B.S., or whining, or attempts to earn credibility by using large words...I just want to see some actual facts to back up your claims.

With all respect, the initial comment(s) claimed absolutely no authority.

It's no better or worse than the claim of "thousands of pages of scientific evidence" with no proof. That's why this discussion is relegated (sorry, contained) within the comments of a blog post.

As always, this comment and all others reflect simply the OPINION of one individual. Do not put any more into it than that. Call it names as Mike S. seems apt to do, but anyone who believes things will be conclusively proven lives in a world far more binary than the one I experience. Real data from real science is often much more difficult to parse and interpret.

Finally, as always, I encourage anyone who is truly interested in the merits of any argument to carefully weigh the
data available (far beyond a few lines in a blog post, minded) and make up his own damn mind.

By the way, are you sure you used the word "preclude" correctly?

Mike, what the heck are you talking about?? Watson himself admits that there is no firm scientific evidence to back up the claims that he made. You better go back and check his apology... Also, those "thousands of pages" you mentioned are mostly all in books representing hypotheses of the writers.

Feel free to provide YOUR evidence for the counter argument. But please, make sure that the tests to which you refer are free from the confounding factor of cultural bias within the test itself, before you inquire.

I want to make it clear I am not taking a side here before I say anything else.

The issue, as I see it, is that Dr. Watson's initial comments were inspired by studies he reviewed believing to indicate blacks possessed inferior intelligence. I have seen these studies, though I have not carefully reviewed them myself. I can only say that they do exist, and appear to be from, at least, semi credible and credentialed authorities.

The other side, however, does not seem to present anything substantial. For example:

"Watson himself admits that there is no firm scientific evidence to back up the claims that he made."

Assuming his recent statements can be interpreted to discount any of the supposed studies he casually referenced previously, how can the same people who fiercely opposed him earlier, now embrace him for merely changing his story? The other side, just earlier in this blog, attempted to discredit Dr. Watson as they believed his statements were incorrect. As I have made clear, they seemingly made these accusations without any evidence to back them up. Yet the moment he recants his previous statements and in one sentence purports to discredit an entire body of scientific research, the opposition embraces these statements as truth. They do this, mind you, while ignoring the fact that Dr. Watson was undoubtedly influenced by an intense backlash and was speaking under duress.

I, personally, place little emphasis on his apology and attempt at reconciliation. He was obviously trying to regain ground with society. The two sets of statements contradict each other. The first set was made prior to scrutiny, the second was made after. From that, I assume he was disingenuous on the latter.

I want to make it clear that I do not embrace Dr. Watson's statements, however, I cannot ignore the fact that he is a highly respected member of the scientific community who was speaking on a subject not completely unrelated to his field of study. For that, some latitude needs to be granted, and before one tries to dispute his claims, they should at least present some evidence to the contrary.

Regarding the evidence for Dr. Watson's claim, there's the old chestnut "The Bell Curve," in addition to all the peer reviewed research cited in the blog post above. I'm afraid I can't isolate "cultural bias," however, the entire purpose of scientific inquiry is to find objective answers. It is my contention that those of you relying on knee jerk rhetoric to discount Dr. Watson are employing far more "cultural bias" than any contrary scientific study relying primarily on statistical data. If, however, you believe any of the studies in the spirit of Dr. Watson's remarks are flawed due to cultural bias, please expand on this idea.

Regarding the cultural bias of intelligence tests, they seem to be good enough for Nature Neuroscience:

Neural mechanisms of general fluid intelligence

The association between brain volume and intelligence is of genetic origin

And from a review in Nature Reviews Neuroscience:

The key dilemma is how to preserve freedom of scientific inquiry while upholding the highest standards of ethical conduct; neither can be compromised. We are not seeking to stimulate research on potential race differences in intelligence. Nor can we advocate censorship...In our view, a study of race differences in intelligence that does not meet the following criteria is ethically dubious

The cultural bias that I referred to was socioeconomic in nature, so I'm not sure what "culture" you meant when citing 2 NN papers that examine the connections between a loosely defined term, fluid intelligence, and anatomy/genetics. In no way was race a part of either study.

Regarding the review article, the authors have this to say about the environmental influences on IQ:

If environments are not randomly assigned to each individual but are, in part, individually selected on the basis of genetically influenced preferences, it becomes impossible to discern which genetic effects act directly on intellectual function and which result from the action of environmental variation that is causally linked to genetic differences.

Therefore, you can imagine what a confounding effect socioeconomic status and culture can have on intelligence. Based on this, as well as the criteria to which you refer (and yes, I read through them), there are exactly zero studies that have been conducted while maintaining the highest scientific and ethical standards suggested by these authors.

P-ter, you are very interested in seeing these experiments carried out. Although it is easy to use the "because it is there" type of attitude for motivation, I was simply wondering what good could ever come from a study of this nature? Why do we need this information?

I'm just thankful that within 15 or so generations, this debate will be all but irrelevant, as our continued mixing takes us closer and closer to an inevitable state of becoming one single race, comprised of a little bit of every race (un chin de todo, as they say in the Dominican Republic). The ultimate globalization, eh?

Evolutionarily speaking, this will be the best strategy for the maintenance and survival of our species anyway. And yes, somewhere, Darwin is smiling.

P-ter, you are very interested in seeing these experiments carried out

why do you assume that?

the "why do we need this information" objection is moot--within a decade or so, there will be at least a rudimentary understanding of the genetics of intelligence and freely-available databases of genomes from people around the world. anyone will be able to ask whatever question they want about connecting the two.

I should be clear about what I mean with the above: once people start finding SNPs associated with intelligence (a small-scale such study is here) and are able to look up the frequencies of those variants in different populations in publicly available databases, there may (or may not) be awkward questions (go ahead, look up the frequencies of the variants in the paper cited above in the HapMap.

That information might be exploited by people with racist agendas, but it will definitely, definitely be exploited by people with racist agendas if the questions are forcefully removed from scientific discourse. The message people should start pounding is that political equality of groups is absolutely not dependent of biological identity, nor has it ever been. There's no reason to give racists the "Galileo" card.

This is what I was looking for. I personally feel that regardless of whether or not there is a relationship between I.Q. and race, it will largely diminish over time. If by "mixing," you mean various different groups procreating with one another to the point that racial differences fade away, then I'm dubious of that hypothesis. While mass transportation and communication has reached a level not seen in history, I'm hesitant to take from that everyone will just breed indiscriminately. I believe that I.Q. is heavily, though by no means completely, influenced by socioeconomic variables and once various class structures start to erode, the division in I.Q. between the various races will erode as well.

To that end, I don't see a need to focus on isolating the race/intelligence variable and discussing it at length. As Noah said, what is there really to gain from this information? When implemented in the past to justify social policy initiatives, it had disastrous consequences. So, regardless of any validity, I personally think it best to let this one alone.

It should be determined whether or not an IQ test is an appropriate and accurate method of measuring intelligence.

My Mother disagrees with using IQ tests to measure intelligence and I agree with my Mother. Who is she anyway?

She is extremely smart. She has her B.A. and her D.C. but her abilities are beyond average scholastic performance. She makes cross-connections in literature that average people do not make. Her Graduate Professors have encouraged her to publish her research, but she has not done so.

I have no idea what her IQ is but I don't really care and neither does she. What needs to be looked at are the Different Forms of Intelligence. My theory is that the differences in intelligence appear to be due to race, but they are really connected to Environmental Factors.

If you raise European babies in a Sub-Saharan African Environment how would their IQ's differ from European babies raised in a Western Environment? Of course, we don't experiment with little babies, but these are the sort of questions we need to ask ourselves before concluding that differences in intellect are linked to race.

Rachel Eagle Reiter