James Watson and the Monkey Test



I heard about the alledgedly racist comments of James Watson; I have
not read them but assume he holds the conviction "Whites" are more
intelligent than "Blacks". If that not be the case then please some
poster provide the proper context. "Racial" differences in
intelligence are largely based on IQ test. I, however, have never
found the IQ test to be sufficient in indexing such a complex trait.
Recently in the news it was mentioned young monkeys did far superior
on short memory tests than their adult human counterparts. Watson is
not unique; many scientists not to mention Whites in general consider
Blacks have lower intelligence. But just as I find the IQ test a
redundancy I find racial classification even more of a redundancy.
Biologically, it simply doesn't exist but continues to be frequently
used as a sociological concept. Perhaps biologically we are so
redundant as a species and uncomplex in our DNA that we are bound to
use simple concepts such as race as frequent sociological concepts.
Does this mean than "race" is biological? No, I think it means there
is a vast amount of knowledge we have yet to unravel and discover when
it comes to our biology.

Michael Ragland

.