I guess ‘Watson’ is out as a name for the unit of biological mass with James’ comments that people of African decent are intellectually inferior to people of European decent. It always amazes me exactly how idiotic smart people can be. Pride is the devil’s favorite sin and it is my suspicion that people like James Watson and the old president of Harvard Larry Summers are guilty of it. It seems that they believe since they got where they were first, as old white men, that other people are somehow inferior.
What’s worse is that if James Watson can make such a mistake, I shudder to think how many others make it and how many others will use these comments to propagate messages of hate.
For the record this is one type of thing that I am trying to head off with my recent writings. If you understand that evolution is relative then you won’t use biology as a reason to claim superiority. You just can’t do it without contradicting relativistic principles. (update: I think an ethics paper is in my future to flesh this out a tad)
And these comments, if anything, just go to show how stupid old white men can be.
