He was further quoted as saying that his hope was that everyone was equal but that "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true". The scientist has since said that the way the words were presented did not reflect properly his position and he’s offered an unreserved apology. Apology or not Dr. Watson’s statement has caused a firestorm in academia and a number of booked lecture appearances have been cancelled as institutions of higher learning in Europe and America express shock and consternation at his comments while stopping short of calling them racist.
Dr. Watson’s comments are in sync with the conclusions reached in a published work of pseudo-science on Black inferiority and intellectual limitations called The Bell Curve (1994). This book and its authors received wide publicity and criticism. It was written by Americans Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein. While Dr. Watson made no reference to the Bell Curve his statement is laden and dripping with the white chauvinism of barely disguised eugenics. And no apology from an educated, rational and reasoned internationally acknowledged intellectual can change his suppressed racism.
The striking similarities between the arguments presented by Murray and Hernstein in The Bell Curve and Dr. Watson’s juxtaposition of intelligence as the defining marker for European, and therefore white superiority, over Blacks and therefore Africans is most revealing.
A précis of the Bell Curve starts with the issue of IQ Tests and the fact that Murray and Hernstein claimed that this test measures an essential human quality – general intelligence. They then postulate that advances in the “civilized, developed world(s)” during the 20th century created the conditions for this quality to assume overriding importance. Over a period of time, they argue, intelligence has been acted upon by the transformation of society and the class system to realize a concentration at the top of business, government and the professions.
Since Africa in particular (and by inference Third World nations in general) did not go through this developmental transformation then by this natural selective process of human and social development then “general intelligence” in Africa was thus stunted, undeveloped and underdeveloped as a consequence. Therefore, Africans are thus inferior to white people – through no fault of their own - based on “this science and a process of natural development.”
Dr. Watson’s inference to "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true" – Blacks not on par with whites when it comes to intelligence - is again like a page straight out of the Bell Curve. Both points of view suggest that Blacks are overrepresented among the unintelligent because of their life station(s) and their lagging behind whites in human and social developments.
While Dr. Watson did not go as far as the over 850-page book, the conclusions are inescapable. Socially, any programs or efforts by governments (in majority white countries like the United States and Great Britain) to improve the socio-economic lives of poor Black people will fail because poverty is a natural station and outcome of the unintelligent. Superior intelligence is as much the product of selective breeding, social advancement and yes, skin color, they argue.
The racist and dehumanizing result is that for Black people the best that can be done for them is to create a unique world of simple, decent “honorable toil” for them. It is a work version of the old slavery justification of “keeping the Nigger in his place because he’s 2/3 of a man” and the best than can be done is to accustom him to simple menial labor that requires little intelligence.
Of course, this civilizing mission was “good for the savage” and as a number of people like Right-winger David Horowitz have said Black people should be grateful for slavery since without it “Black people would never have know civilization.” Such utter ignorance and abysmal understanding of history from a man who holds both Bachelors and Masters Degrees is most revealing about the lack of basic intelligence.
As Dr. Watson and the Bell Curve tell it this rise of the so-called “cognitive elite” perpetuates the process of selective breeding in a way that helps to pass on superior intelligence via the DNA. These racists forget that this elite that today run large law-firms, investment banks etc. did not get there through some superior intelligence but because of their fortunate circumstance of birth, opportunities opened only to them and closed to others, access to the political and financial power elite, and their privileged status in oppressive society.
"Skin color as a surrogate for race is a social concept not a scientific one," Dr. Craig Venter a scientist who led the way to decoding the human DNA said. "There is no basis in scientific fact or in the human genetic code for the notion that skin color will be predictive of intelligence."
In short, we’ve heard this crap over and over again. I do not believe that Dr. Watson is a closet racist but I believe that because of his class upbringing and education he’s embraced some very racist positions. This is by no means an isolated phenomenon since academia is littered with social and other scientists whose positions and statements are way off the mark.
The immediate outpouring of criticisms and anger (not in the United States) over Dr. Watson’s comments is indicative of the fact that these are not popular sentiments and that they rub a number of educated, and yes, intelligent people the wrong way. I believe that intelligence is a relative thing and while a child in Africa might not be exposed to the sophistication of British or European society, with computerized work loads, nippy technological gadgetry and the like, this same well-bred, worldly, sophisticated and computer literate boy or girl would be seen as a blundering buffoon in a harsh climate, devoid of the modern trappings of western societies.
And finally, it is unfair to try and measure Black intelligence using the yardstick of white social gains, statutes, programs and other measurements in a society where the dominant class and race is white. That carries with it a natural race bias. Underlying the human trait of intelligence – its ordinariness or superiority – are social, economic and political considerations. The life experiences that contribute to intelligence of a Black child living in a ghettoized section of the inner city in America would be far different to that of a New England white kid born to money and privilege.
But it is this diversity of experiences and varying levels of intelligence that makes a society grow and develop. Once we get presumably intelligent people seeking to claim that one race is superior to another then they do the Human Race a grave disservice. Such tomes, articles, statements and beliefs should be put where they belong – on the garbage heap of history.
