10.18.2007

Stop Worshipping the Brain

James Watson is a bright guy. He helped unravel the DNA code, or something. And I'll bet he got straight A's in high school and even college. So what? And yes, of course, there is that Nobel Prize. Still, so what?

He comes out with some racist blather this week about intelligence and race and the whole world gets upset. OK, he can figure out some weird science stuff that none of us could get. Fine. But that doesn't make him a prophet or seer. That doesn't give him leadership abilities, and God knows it doesn't give him political ones.

People are looking to intelligent people for answers that they can't give. James Watson is a homophobic, racist jerk. There's a lot of them out there.

The problem is with us. We expect that he has some Universal Truth instead of being really good in a narrow field. The relevance in James Watson's beliefs is in looking at how few blacks there are in major research institutions.

He may be smart, but he's also an idiot.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So where's your evidence that all ethnic groups have the same intelligence? I mean, you're not in any doubt that they do, right?

Anonymous said...

I haven't seen his studies. He probably knew before he said it that his opinion would be reviled, so he must've thought long and hard before saying it out loud, huh?

Econo-Girl said...

Typical response from an egghead. No, he wouldn't think long and hard about it. He wouldn't think of the political ramifications. He's good at science. That's all. You can't impute the ability to every skill in life.