DNA discoverer a bigot?

[sorrowmonkey]

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/10/19/uk.race/

Apparently, Nobel-winning biologist James Watson has said some things that got people worked up. Some of them look pretty damning, but others look a little less like morality questions than actual scientific questions.

Clearly, making disparaging comments about black employees is over the line. Endorsing abortions based on the sexual orientation of the fetus? That's going to spark anger and debate, at least.

However, some of the other statements (all paraphrased by the reporter):

• Stupidity is a genetic disease that should be treated.
  
• There might be links between skin color and sexual prowess and between a person's weight and their level of ambition.
  
• There was no reason to believe different races separated by geography should have evolved identically.
  
  
  Are these really that controversial?

Comments

[raeclairmont.livejournal.com]

He's old. All of the old people I know seem to be somewhat more racist than society wants to account for.

And I agree that stupidity is a disease that needs to be treated - preferably through some form of sterilization so they can't breed. Or maybe just being able to shoot them when they block the drive-through or let their offspring run wild...

Apparently James Watson has never been to Michigan, he might change his mind about black people being less intelligent than white people...

[nrawling.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was listening to a completed unrelated podcast this morning, and the host was talking about racism. I had to completely disagree with him on some generalizations he made about perceptions of other people.

When I think of a stupid person, a slacker, a criminal, or just someone who's wasting their live away, I'm always thinking of someone I know personally. By circumstance, I guess, they are all white. I have the highest respect for the legal immigrants, blacks, Hispanics, and Jews that I know. I'm sure they have their bad apples, but I know plenty of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant screw-ups.

Frankly, I think for own grandparents to be more racist than we are is a product of their environment. The thing that concerns me about some of them is that they seem more racist to me today than they were five years ago. Something to watch out for as we age, I guess.