James Watson's Nobel Prize Medal Will Be Returned to Him | Hacker News Reader

James Watson's Nobel Prize Medal Will Be Returned to Him

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65 pointsanalogj62 comments

This is quite depressing.

There isn't anything special about Watson. Like all scientific discoveries, he was in the right place at the right time, and depending on how you look at it was sufficiently ruthless/ambitious to claim his place in history. But so what? If not him, someone else would have worked it out, just like the people that almost discovered calculus or the Higgs boson. If you want to honour science, then give 5 million dollars to someone who is actually still interested in doing research. He's had his day, and has received all the accolades he deserves, if not more.

I thought he sold it because he wanted money and art.

"Mr Watson told the Financial Times he had become an “unperson” after he “was outed as believing in IQ” in 2007 and said he would like to use money from the sale to buy a David Hockney painting."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11261872/James-Watso...

For anyone who isn't familiar with the backstory, Watson didn't become an unperson for believing in IQ, he claimed in an interview with the Sunday Times Magazine that testing proved that black Africans aren’t as smart as white people, then followed it up with the sentiment that ideally one should think that all people are equal, but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true."

http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1673952,0...

http://www.wired.com/2007/10/more-on-james-b/

You forgot the detail which massively complicates this : James Watson' claim about the test scores is true [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence

Note the first paragraph in the Wikipedia article : "The connection between race and intelligence has been ... It is still not resolved what relation, if any, there is between group differences in IQ and race."

Currently we have about 104 years of data, which shows, to put it mildly, a clear pattern of racial differences in intelligence (and pretty much every other metric. Size. Weight. Speed. Color. Body temperature...). Worse, they also show a clear difference in intelligence between different ideological groups (e.g. religion) (again, and they also show a large difference in other metrics).

To some extent Watson, in his first claim, has a point that we seem to be unwilling to make. There is a clear conclusion to be drawn here :

Different races are different. In pretty much any metric you can come up with.

Furthermore, if you look at the effect of average differences in a certain metric to examples in individuals, you get an even more politically incorrect result, based on pure math. If you take 2 groups, who differ by x percentage points in "blueness". Then if you take a random individual from group 1, and a random one from group 2, what are the chances that the first individual is more blue ?

x = 1% => p =~ 76%

x = 2% => p =~ 92%

x = 3% => p =~ 98%

So this means that if blue humans are 1% taller than green humans, then if you meet a blue and a green human on the street, the chance is about 76% that the blue human will win (be taller) than the green.

(Only intelligence scores vary more than 1 standard deviation. The largest difference is between 2.5 and 3 standard deviations (and does not involve either a white ethnic or a black ethnic group))

Could the downvoters give a response? - I presume you are downvoting because you disagree with wasps - I'd like to see your argument. Thanks.

I didn't down vote, but the inherent bias in the test is a possible reason but even with that factored out, the relevance is a more reasonable objection. We're not talking the difference in between being able to grock quantum physics or not, we're talking a few questions on the exam. And IQ happens to be a pretty sweet bell curve, so if you're an average white guy, then you're still dumber than 49% of the black guys out there, and dumber than 54% of Chinese guys.

So we should give up on Africa because the average black guy didn't answer the 2 train question correctly? Should we also give up on Europe and North America because the white guys didn't answer that correctly either?

The use of this stat, were it even possible to be accurate, really only serves racists. No meaningful outcome could result from the number.

> And IQ happens to be a pretty sweet bell curve, so if you're an average white guy, then you're still dumber than 49% of the black guys out there, and dumber than 54% of Chinese guys.

Those numbers are not accurate given the data on the wikipedia page. The first number is about double the real value, the second needs about 6 percentage points added to it for it to be accurate.

I was making the numbers up, because we cannot exclude and accurately asses racial and other socioeconomic conditions. So the numbers on Wikipedia do not tell any more truth than me making them up. The point, is that whatever the numbers are, they're irrelevant as nothing useful can be done with the data.

Poetic justice also works in positive ways. It's nice to read something uplifting once in a while, though finding a Russian oligarch in such a story feels strange.

    > It's nice to read something uplifting once in a while

Poetic justice?

Dr Watson said: he is "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" but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".

He sold the medal because he wanted the money to acquire an expensive painting.

My guess is a rich Russian won't shy away from issues regarding politically correctness the same way a rich american would.

According to BBC News, in the interview with The Sunday Times, Watson said 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." He went on to say he hoped everyone was equal but that "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true."

Sounds more like racism than political correctness.

What he said is racist but it's still true - IQ in most countries in Africa is abysmally low. Problem is that saying it loud today in US produces the same effect on your career as saying that communism is not the true path to future would have produced in USSR.

It's worse than that. The higher up you go, the more bound to standard social-justice tropes you must adhere to or risk losing everything. In that sense, America isn't that different from other countries like China or the former USSR. Dissent from The Party is punished severely, and loyalty is rewarded.

Or for suggesting that capitalism isn't all the bee's knees in 1950s America. How quickly we forget.

>whereas all the testing says not really."

sounds like his statement is based on facts known to him (and being Nobel winning scientist he probably has good skills at understanding and analyzing facts)

>Sounds more like racism

Either you're trying to say what his statement wasn't based on his knowledge and analysis of facts or you're introducing a concept of "racism rooted in facts"

I wonder though whether the Watson will accept the medal back from Usmanov's hands.

    > > whereas all the testing says not really.
    
    > sounds like his statement is based on facts known to him

Really? He follows it up by saying "people who have to deal with black employees" will "know" that it's true.

My understanding is that IQ correlates to socio-economic background, but once that's adjusted for, all race considerations fall away. If you've got a credible source that says something else, I'm sure we'd find it interesting.

> My understanding is that IQ correlates to socio-economic background, but once that's adjusted for, all race considerations fall away

Unfortunately, that's not true, but it's a common myth that's repeated. Poor whites do nearly as well as rich blacks, on average. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_achievement_gap_in_the_U...

We're still searching for something that would correct for racial differences in testing, but socio-economic background does not correct for it. And even supposing it did, it doesn't directly refute the premise, because it conflates cause/effect, which is why sociologists are searching for other explanations (other than the obvious one, of course, because it goes against our societal values).

    > Poor whites do nearly as well as rich blacks, on
    > average.

Help me out here, I couldn't find that in link you provided, or in fact any evidence at all that there might be a genetic component to racial differences in intelligence?

Someone linked it below.

Do you think Aborigines in Australia have the same IQ as the Japanese? Or Pygmies? Part of accepting diversity is accepting that diversity is very real. But we want it both ways.

Yes, I do. It's biologically implausible that race has a significant impact on intelligence. If you think that socio-cultural factors don't have a massive impact on IQ scores, then look at what has happened to the IQ scores of women in the last century, and not surprisingly, that this varies between countries [1].

[1] http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/beautiful-minds/201207/men...

> Yes, I do. It's biologically implausible that race has a significant impact on intelligence.

Surely you would agree we're smarter than Gorillas. Given that, how long as human intelligence been fixed? How long has it not been a selective force in evolution for humans? Does evolution not apply to the human brain?

What's your point? Your contention that race influences intelligence isn't proven, so how does invoking an evolutionary framework help?

Evolution is a great idea, but the evolutionary history of humans is of course almost entirely speculative. I'm not an evolutionary biologist, but I think there is enough trouble explaining why we walk up right or have smaller jaws than neanderthals let alone explaining how we evolved current levels of intelligence.

Why not? (Assuming you meant "genetically inherited intelligence" when you said IQ. Most will agree that Japanese schoolchildren get better education than Australian Aborigines on average.)

Japan was in stone age as late as 2000 years ago, which is ~2500 years after the Pyramid of Giza was built. Yet we don't see a wave of genius Egyptians now. Where are they?

I wonder if there is a large enough cohort of black kids adopted into white families? That would provide a control for extra upbringing variables, those not tied to wealth.

>My understanding is that IQ correlates to socio-economic background, but once that's adjusted for, all race considerations fall away. If you've got a credible source that says something else, I'm sure we'd find it interesting.

be my guest, the first simple Google search immediately brings it :

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2964318/

"Our primary finding is that when compared to Caucasians, an African-American cohort exhibited smaller cerebral volumes but larger absolute left OFC volumes. Additionally, the OFC and amygdala appear to occupy a significantly greater proportion of the total cerebral volume in the African-American cohort. [...] Our findings are generally concordant with recent work that brain structure may vary significantly across populations of different racial or ethnic backgrounds [5]."

I think you may have meant to link to a different paper? The one you've linked to is a meta-study on people with mental health problems, and says variously:

    * "Conclusions: The biological implications of our findings are unclear as we do not know what factors may be contributing to these observed differences"

    * "This study was a secondary data analysis examining volumetric MRI data gathered from healthy control subjects participating in a study of bipolar disorder"(!)

    * "the parent study was not designed to examine ethnic or racial differences"

And then goes on to say nothing at all about intelligence.

Income does not really explain white-black gap in IQ. Blacks from families with >$200k/year income do about as well as whites from families with income <$20k/year. SAT test is not IQ test but it's probably highly correlated.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2014/03/2008-sat-scores-by-race-b...

Did you read the article you linked to? It suggested that socio-economic background is more important than just looking at the income.

Article speculates about it and does not provide any data. Anyway, it's difficult to argue that kids in black families with 200k+ income have less access to resources than kids in white families living below poverty line.

Besides it does not really matter - the fact is that blacks in Africa have much lower average IQ than average in most other countries. It could explain lack of positive examples of countries in Africa developing as fast as China, SKorea or many other countries in other part of the world.

Just because a smart person claims something as fact doesn't mean it is. Scientist or not, he's still probably a racist.

"racism rooted in facts" would still be racism.

Depends if you're basing decisions on the ethnicity or on the facts.

I am not sure I understand the point you are making or what you mean by "the facts". If hypothetically one ethnicity really were inferior and proven inferior, discrimination based against that ethnicity would be rooted in fact, but would still be racism.

I disagree.

Take a hypothetical, but concrete, situation : blue people are less "bulky" than green humans, and thus can't carry as heavy loads.

Then, if the situation is a fire department hiring, there's 2 ways to go about this :

1) you don't invite blue humans, only green ones -> discrimination.

2) you invite both, test them, and all the blue applicants happen to get disqualified during some test, this is not racism (the odds are very good this will happen if you try it, sadly, but that's not the fault of any fire department. Nor are the resulting ethnic imbalances in companies indications of racism)

Then there are the difficult cases. Like for a fireman interview not inviting anyone under 70 kg because it's just not going to happen ...

(This is the current European legal standard for discrimination. Where racial/sexual/religious/ethnic/... differences directly conflict with tasks to be carried out, like in the case of a fire department it is OK to refuse based on those criteria, provided you give individuals a chance. E.g. there was a European-level case of a muslim who was refused as a fireman because he refused to carry women, that was not considered discrimination. They actually hired a muslim doctor, and then fired him because he refused to operate on a woman, while he was on call, at 3am. That too was considered not discrimination, nor was a certain reluctance to hire this guy (any doctor would of course have been fired for refusing to operate on anyone))

I think we agree on what we mean by discrimination in this context, but perhaps not what we mean by "rooted in facts". I think that not inviting blue people because you know that they are less likely to meet your criteria is "rooted in fact". We both agree that this is discrimination.

Let me give an example where I think this kind of discrimination rooted in fact is acceptable. A company trying to hire a software engineer might only interview people with CS degrees. There is a factual basis that people with CS degrees are more likely to be qualified for the job, although there certainly are qualified people without degrees. Refusing to test those degree-less candidates is discrimination based on education.

Racist or not, he is still a pioneer in biology and should keep his award for his contributions. I certainly don't agree with Watson's remarks, but I think it was an admirable thing that Usmanov did here.

    > Racist or not, he is still a pioneer in biology and
    > should keep his award for his contributions

He wasn't stripped of it.

He chose to sell it because he wanted to buy an expensive piece of art.

> He chose to sell it because he wanted to buy an expensive piece of art.

So? Usmanov decided he would rather make a charitable contribution to Watson in a symbolic manner. Does not change the fact that i was an admirable thing to do (it was, after all, $4.7 million of his own money)

If Watson is racist, does that make helping Watson racist? In my opinion, no, it may be politically incorrect, which is what I was talking about.

Handing back a prize to a Nobel winning scientist? $4.7 million. Keeping your wealth safe from Western governments? Priceless.

"Usmanov hailed Watson one of the greatest biologists in the history of mankind."

Does anyone have a link to a longer statement from Usmanov?

So, sell it again for more charity?

I'm very split on this topic. I read this on The Verge[1] and I know they're pretty left-leaning. But to my experience they rarely lie and they made many criticisms I find valid. On the other hand, marginalization is another big problem of our age. Let me elaborate.

First of all, him stealing research from Rosalind Franklin comment is a bit of a hyperbole. Sure, not asking for her permission before using data and not crediting her at all are major dick moves, but I'm pretty sure he was a brilliant scientist. The quotes from his book The Double Helix don't really help here, they are extremely misogynistic. But The Verge does not mention that in the epilogue of the same book, he said he was usually wrong about Franklin and he acknowledges the hardships she endured as a woman in science.[2] This is just the part about Franklin.

The rest of The Verge article mentions about him being a generally horrible person and does not even quote the parts about obese people and genetic screening, so bonus points for them. But one thing we need to consider is that he is old. Really, he is 86. Of course this shouldn't shield him from criticism, but he was born and lived in a different world than ours. Bad behavior should be called out and shunned, but there's a fine line between this and marginalization. We should all be responsible about it.

The last thing I want to add is how everyone thinks if you made one great achievement you win all the points. This reminds me a lot about what's going on with Linus Pauling.[3] He did awesome things, yes, but at some point he stopped being a pioneer in science and bullishly promoted benefits of vitamin C even though scientific community was mostly united against it. People want to see them as authority figures even after they age and lose their touch. This is sad, really. But continuing taking them seriously is usually more harm than silently ignoring them.

I'm sorry no one takes him seriously anymore. But I understand universities not considering working with him anymore. I understand press not caring about what he says anymore. They all have good reasons. But that's where my pity ends. Him deciding to sell his Nobel medal makes him look like a victim, but as far as I know he didn't do it because he was poor or anything. He wanted to buy a painting, which I'm perfectly fine with. And maybe he wanted a little attention? People get old and sad, which is depressing, but there's not much we can do about it.

Sorry for the long comment.

[1]: http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/9/7363969/dna-pioneer-james-... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Use_of_King.27s_Co... [3]: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitami...

I worked with two people that were at the MRC when the discovery was made. I'd always ask them for stories about the discovery, great stuff!

Crick was the true genius or at least the best crystallographer in the bunch as it took him only a couple of moments after seeing the image to know the structure.

A little time later, Crick is working in the wet lab, which was very unusual for him.

Asked 'what are you working on?' and he replied with 'wouldn't you like to know' with a smile.

Soon after he determined that proteins and the number of amino acids that were being derived from DNA, which I would argue probably deserved another Nobel Prize.

There does seem to be a movement to purge anyone with unpopular opinions from the public sphere, regardless of the context in which they developed their beliefs and how irrelevant their beliefs are to the work for which they earned fame. That it's now largely coming from the left wing, which suffered great marginalization during the Red Scare and McCarthyism, is ironic (and depressing as someone who used to identify as a liberal)

I understand your concern, but I personally think we're not there yet. What troubles me most is the sensationalist and preaching-to-the-choir nature of all media. The reason is probably the nature of the internet and benefits of clickbait journalism. If they love you, you win. If they hate you, they'll get you traffic, you win. It's not an easy problem to solve, we'll see how it ends.

On the other hand I'm not concerned that left is becoming the new right. Not right now. People get alarmed when scales are tipped and change is afoot, but as long as there's a clear inequality -be it in skin color, gender or orientation- the complaints will sound ridiculous like 'reverse racism/sexism'. If and when there's no longer a gap in equality and people start to oppress today's oppressors; that will be the time to stop. Until then my complaints will be minor.

There is a difference between unpopular and factually, demonstrably wrong. There is a difference between threatening violence, prison or worse and social shunning.

If you advocate for things that are actively harmful to society (like racism and misogyny), then you do deserve to be shunned.

Aha. News to me, really.

That seems more like a popular right-wing conspiracy theory than anything that’s actually happening.

I think the resignation of Brendan Eich actually happened, not a conspiracy.

And? I don’t really see the connection. CEOs are public faces of their companies. As such, all their publicly expressed opinions are quite relevant, especially if they are threatening to their employees. End of story, really.

This is the mildest form of "purge" imaginable.

>But one thing we need to consider is that he is old. Really, he is 86. Of course this shouldn't shield him from criticism, but he was born and lived in a different world than ours. Bad behavior should be called out and shunned, but there's a fine line between this and marginalization. We should all be responsible about it.

Some might call this marginalization, but you could equally consider Watson's comments to be indicative that the grand old man of genetics is no longer really doing modern, functional science, and it's not the business of Cold Spring Harbor, or any other research lab, to subsidize someone making non-scientific and inflammatory comments because they were once good researchers.

I don't think it's marginalization. I completely agree with you on this, but my comment probably sounded like I wouldn't, since I was covering both sides.

In the biology community he was basically regarded as a laughingstock / bully who was able to get away with it because of the DNA thing of which many people consider Crick to have been the major genius behind.

A fascinating controversy in all respects. I find it difficult to argue with the conclusions in this article as an empiricist, but it does provoke some very troubling considerations about our future as a global species:

http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/10/james-watson-tells-inconven...

Prepare to have this comment flagkilled within the hour by the less empirically inclined. It happened to me when I posted this same article the last time a Watson thread appeared here.

Hence my fascination with the human mind and its inherent demons and nuanced machinations. The concept of IQ is fascinating, not least because it causes a fierce ideological firestorm almost instantaneously upon its mentioning. However, mentioning that athletic ability is genetically determined gets a heartfelt, "really, ya think??!"

Alas, we are but a bunch of hominids scrambling in the dark in fear of the world in which we find ourselves. If we get too close to an idea that can burn us, most of us scurry away back to the comfortable dark.

That is except for a few insane pioneers, who embrace the flames even at the cost of their own safety...

Should have given it to the family of Rosalind Franklin.

The level of unconscious racism in this thread is amazing. Whenever the subject of race comes up and someone sites a statistic purporting to demonstrate "African" or "black" intellectual inferiority, I suggest he imagine a seismologist who stated, "Black earthquakes are inherently inferior to white earthquakes."

"I don't get it."

"Exactly. Why the hell would any reputable seismologist care about white or black earthquakes?"

Seriously. I like the example of bears, since it allows us to remain in the realm of biology. I mean, does any reputable biologist posit meaningful differences between polar bears & black bears? It's absurd. One bear is black and the other is white. What else does that possibly tell us about their behavior or other attributes?

It's not unconscious. I find frank discussion refreshing if terrifying thus the throwaway. Nobody used the word inferior or superior except you. No value judgements were added but your own.

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