JACQUELINE ORTEGA | staff writer

Scientist makes false claim that African descendents are less intelligent by nature.

Geneticist Dr. James Watson recently made a controversial claim in the British medical journal “The Independent.” Watson, a man already known throughout the medical world for constantly sounding the horn of controversy in the name of “enlightened thought,” stunned the field of genetics with a seemingly unsupported claim that Africans are genetically predisposed to being less intelligent than westerners.

It is truly mind-boggling how a person who took part in the unraveling of DNA and its complex nature could make such a seemingly unscientific and unnecessary remark.

The 79-year-old Nobel Prize winner said in the Sunday Times that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says ‘not really’”.

In his recently published book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science, Watson asserts that “there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of people geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically.”

He makes the claim that there is no reason people of genetically different backgrounds could evolve at the same pace as each other. He believes that Africans have not evolved in intellect as rapidly as other genetic groups.

Statistics, polls, and research are like the curse that is the cure, giving us valuable insight on subjects that may otherwise be lost to false bias.

But they also provide an avenue for skewed evidence and false “facts.” As a society, how do we defend ourselves against the fallacies of human thought when this so called scientific evidence is supposed to be the base of new world understanding?

We should respond to research like this not only with scrutiny but by weighing its overall importance.

“Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so,” Watson said.

When I think about intelligence I often wonder who and what is the deciding factor in what makes someone an intelligent person. Is it a degree? Is it grades? Is it status? Is it a person’s accomplishments?

Maybe, but intelligence might not be measurable by one single factor. Perhaps intelligence is a combination of our collective experiences, cultural values, and individual life experiences.

I think about my parents who do not have degrees. Does that mean they aren’t intelligent? No, they are some of the most intelligent people I know. My dad can build anything. From houses to furniture, you name it and he can do it and he doesn’t have a degree in architecture or engineering. My mom is an amazing photographer and can develop her own film, do her own matting, and take beautiful pictures, but she doesn’t have an art degree.

Intelligence can be seen in many different forms that do not just follow that of earning of a degree or getting good grades or winning a Nobel Prize.

As a society, we need to be able to decide when research is scientifically valid and when it is merely a support mechanism for an opinion.

There are millions of intelligent people of African decent just like there are millions of intelligent Caucasians, Asians, and Hispanics. I find it hard to believe that a person such as Dr. Condoleezza Rice or General Colin Powell is genetically predisposed to being less intelligent than the same person whose ancestors originated in Europe.

Watson’s theory of Africans being less intelligent than Caucasians is completely ridiculous. When research like this surfaces in society, we need to make sure that we can differentiate between validity and motive before we take the research as truth. It is important to question statistics, polls, and research not only to benefit ourselves individually, but to benefit society as a whole.