Nick Fesenko, your recent Wespeak defending James Watson’s pessimistic beliefs about the intelligence of African people is at best open-mindedness to unpleasant ideas and at worst offering deference to bigotry.
While your rather naive idea of science and politics being separated would be great if true, a mere crude knowledge of the history of science and of modern scientific practice contradicts it. For instance, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many prominent evolutionary biologists held pseudoscientific racial theories that are easily disprovable today, but had tremendous impact at the time.
Perhaps the most eminent biologist of his day, Thomas Henry Huxley, or “Darwin’s Bulldog”, once wrote: “The highest places in the hierarchy of civilization will assuredly not be within the reach of our dusky cousins.” Out of such thinking the practice of eugenics was born, a subject not foreign to Watson. Illegitimate as it was, it was not only justified by elite scientists, but also substantiated by credulous politicians and laypeople. While I am sure that both of us would disagree with Huxley’s claim, I should note that it is not on the grounds of political correctness, but on the falseness of the statement.
If James Watson had come to his conclusions using the scientific method, I would support him expressing any opinions he wished and perhaps even agree with some of his ideas. However, when a person of such influence as he makes unfounded controversial claims, it legitimizes negative stereotypes that politicians and other people in power may hold. If the history of science has taught us anything, it is that nonscientists must be scientifically literate in order to discriminate between good science and crap.
You failed to mention what Watson said as he elaborated about his opinions on the subject of intellectual parity, namely: “People who have to deal with black employees find this is not true.” Such a blatantly unscientific statement made by such a great scientist betrays the nature of the statement and should discourage us from endorsing it in any way.
We should certainly not ignore or refute any ideas whatsoever on the grounds of political correctness, but when ideas are asserted that lack any evidence to support them, we can dismiss them just as easily as they were asserted.
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