The exception proves the rule, right?

A black scientist writes about James Watson, and it’s insightful. C. Brandon Ogbunu is a computational biologist, so he understands both DNA and statistics, and is in a good position to recognize abuses of both.

Black exceptionalism is a popular and complicated idea. It asserts that a monolithic “average” black identity exists, and that by transcending this average, one is exceptional. While the idea isn’t welded to black achievement, it is related. Successful members of the black community who somehow avoided the regression to the (black) mean are presented as paragons, exceptional ones of their kind. There are backhanded compliments, and then there is black exceptionalism—a racist idea lightly dressed in a pat-on-the-back.

Some of us, in a naïve or perfunctory manner, wear black exceptionalism as a badge of honor, even under the guise of progress: “I will show them what we are capable of.” Good intentions be damned, because to adopt this stance is to walk directly into a pernicious trap. The most effective racist ideas rarely deny the existence of exceptional members of the out-group to which undesirable features are attributed.

On the contrary, the most destructive ideas embrace high-performing members for statistical cover. In order to argue that the mean performance of an out-group is lower for a desirable trait, there should be some high performers. High-performing black people are essential for racism like James Watson’s, and even he might predict a statistical and genetic exceptional negro, because they can’t all be incompetent.

The problem with this argument isn’t only that it avoids critical discussions about the possible sources of group differences, but also that it uses the notion of the exceptional individual to justify racist ideas towards others in the out-group. In general, armchair appeals to statistics often conceal negative feelings that people already have, attitudes forged in the fires of fear and bias, not science.

I’ve seen that routine so often. “I know a Negro with a Ph.D. — in science — therefore I’m not racist.” “I admit that Jews are often academically gifted, therefore I don’t have a bias against them, I just know they’re evil.” “If my statistics don’t convince you that black people are less intelligent, how come they also show that Asians are better at math than white people?” It’s the contrast that is supposed to convince us that they are objectively evaluating real data.

“Intelligence” is an undefinable and complex parameter that changes depending on how you measure it. The only reasonable response to claims that one has characterized the “intelligence” of a large group of people and has some sweeping interpretations is to realize that they are simply expressing their unfounded biases in a pseudoscientific tone, and dismiss them.

I hope I live to be 90 before all of my sins catch up to me

James Watson, 90, has had all of his honors from Cold Spring Harbor revoked. It turns out that documentary on PBS had quite an impact.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) unequivocally rejects the unsubstantiated and reckless personal opinions Dr. James D. Watson expressed on the subject of ethnicity and genetics during the PBS documentary “American Masters: Decoding Watson” that aired January 2, 2019. Dr. Watson’s statements are reprehensible, unsupported by science, and in no way represent the views of CSHL, its trustees, faculty, staff, or students. The Laboratory condemns the misuse of science to justify prejudice.

When Dr. Watson expressed offensive views in 2007, CSHL’s Board of Trustees took immediate action to relieve him of all administrative duties at the Laboratory and terminated his status as Chancellor. Dr. Watson has not been involved in the leadership or management of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for more than a decade and he has no further roles or responsibilities at CSHL. In response to his most recent statements, which effectively reverse the written apology and retraction Dr. Watson made in 2007, the Laboratory has taken additional steps, including revoking his honorary titles of Chancellor Emeritus, Oliver R. Grace Professor Emeritus, and Honorary Trustee.

Lucky Jim’s luck has run out at last.

Those stupid Irish and their inferior brains

I don’t know whether this article from 1971 is aggravating or hilarious. Hans Eysenck, one of those IQ guys, tried to argue that the Irish were less brainy than the English. (I’m immediately disavowing my sliver of Irish ancestry).

His source of information is Arthur Jensen, and he makes absurd claims like, Might not American Negroes be genetically inferior because their forebears were too stupid to escape from the slave raiders? and that ghetto inhabitants may have “selected” their own environment as a consequence of genetically determined low intelligence.

I’m going to have to point out that James Watson proudly claimed Scots/Irish ancestry.

‘Watson Decoded’ didn’t do much decoding

That PBS documentary on James Watson wasn’t half bad, if you are able to abide a deep dive into the life of a man with almost Trumpian levels of self-delusion (but unlike Trump, with an actual germ of intelligence). The theme of the show, I would say, is that Watson is a man who says what he thinks, so they just let him speak.

So what does James Watson think?

He’s a scientific genius. Rosalind Franklin was an incompetent. DNA is a more important idea in biology than evolution. He’s smarter than Darwin. You are determined by your genes. No one has ever shown any evidence that environment plays a more significant role than genetics. Black people are less intelligent than white people. He regrets having to say that, but you have to speak the truth. He has black friends. He liked to surround himself with pretty girls in the lab. The stuff he said about how everyone knows black employees are inferior was said in a private conversation, and how dare that reporter publish it. His loyal wife argues that he’s not really a racist, because racists say mean things with the intent to make others miserable. Watson’s ego is immense.

I also learned a few things I didn’t know before.

His wife was an 18 year old undergraduate 20 years his junior, working in his office, when he started courting her (this would be considered a serious ethical problem now, but as we are reminded several times, the old boy network was strong.) I’ve met his wife, she was very nice, but seemed a bit frazzled by her efforts to moderate Watson’s comments when they veered off into apologetics for eugenics, as they seemed to do. He has a son with serious mental health issues and a history of behavioral problems…and Watson cared for and loved him very much, which was the one redeeming feature I took away from the show. He also has a lot of former students and colleagues who practically idolize him, but even they think he’s wrong in his genetics mania.

The way it portrayed Maurice Wilkins made him out to be a petty, spiteful little shit. How did Watson and Crick get Franklin’s crucial data? Because Wilkins was resentful of this woman working in his division, and just handed it over. Her data, not his. I guess you can get a Nobel prize for backstabbing.

There were some omissions. The program didn’t say much about his sexism — it shied away from giving any details of the objectionable lectures he was giving that led to his downfall. I would have used more quotes from The Double Helix. Those were his own words, he’s clearly proud of the book, but the way he demeaned Rosalind Franklin was blatant and deplorable. There’s a bit of that, but I would guess they were minimized because the details would have made the show too much of a hatchet job.

‘Watson Decoded’ was good journalism, just presenting the facts and letting Watson hang himself with his own words, but I worry about how some people will twist the facts. Here’s a SUPER-GENIUS who thinks BLACK GENES ARE INFERIOR, and rather than recognizing that he’s a flawed person with deep biases, as the program demonstrates, they’ll see it as a validation of racist ideas. But then, you can’t do much about people with willful, hateful prejudices, and they could have just put up a big black screen with blinking letters saying “HE’S WRONG” (as Nancy Hopkins plainly says), and those people would just ignore it anyway.

Geneticists have the right answer. Now they just need to work harder to disseminate it.

In the past, I’ve been the recipient of floods of angry messages from racists who claim that their beliefs are “scientific”, that by rejecting their defense of “white genocide” I am denying Darwin, that evolution says that white people are distinct and special. I’ve had Jim Watson personally try to convince me that his racism was rational.

They’re all full of shit.

Now, as reported by the NY Times, the American Society of Human Genetics has denounced their ideas. Of course, being the NY Times means that the sensible text is surrounded by alt-right racist memes — lots of them, all blinking and flashing, loaded with false claims about genetics. I almost closed the window to the article because at a glance it looks like it’s promoting pseudo-scientific racism.

Here’s ASHG’s official position:

  • Genetics demonstrates that humans cannot be divided into biologically distinct subcategories. Although there are clear observable correlations between variation in the human genome and how individuals identify by race, the study of human genetics challenges the traditional concept of different races of humans as biologically separate and distinct. This is validated by many decades of research, including recent examples.
  • Most human genetic variation is distributed as a gradient, so distinct boundaries between population groups cannot be accurately assigned. There is considerable genetic overlap among members of different populations. Such patterns of genome variation are explained by patterns of migration and mixing of different populations throughout human history. In this way, genetics exposes the concept of ‘‘racial purity’’ as scientifically meaningless.
  • It follows that there can be no genetics-based support for claiming one group as superior to another. Although a person’s genetics influences their phenotypic characteristics, and self-identified race might be influenced by physical appearance, race itself is a social construct. Any attempt to use genetics to rank populations demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of genetics.
  • The past decade has seen the emergence of strategies for assessing an individual’s genetic ancestry. Such analyses are providing increasingly accurate ways of helping to define individuals’ ancestral origins and enabling new ways to explore and discuss ancestries that move us beyond blunt definitions of self-identified race.

Or you can read this summary at BigThink.

The society, which is the largest professional organization of scientists who work in human genetics, has about 8,000 members. Its statement calls the ideas of white supremacists about genetics “bogus,” “discredited” and “distorted”. The ASHG also makes a clear point that as far as the scientists are concerned, the age-old concept of race is wrong and humans cannot be split into subcategories that would be biologically different from each other.
The reason there is no race purity is due to the genetic intermixing of populations that results from constant migrations which have taken place all throughout human history. The constant movement of people resulted in very blurry genetic lines between groups.

And if you’re wondering whether this is something controversial in the scientific community, the statement goes on to say that the fact that there are no completely separate races is supported by decades of research, including six recent studies like the 2017 paper from the Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health, directly titled “Human ancestry correlates with language and reveals that race is not an objective genomic classifier”.

It’s a good statement, but ASHG has more work to do — you can’t just plop out a position statement in a journal only geneticists read, and then expect the general public to regard it as authoritative. You need to work at it. Just ask <a href=http://mathbionerd.blogspot.com/”>Melissa Wilson Sayres, who had a few criticisms for ASHG.

Read the whole thread. This is a common phenomenon: scientists who work in these fields know the racists are full of crap, see no point in discussing the crappiness with other scientists who also know they’re full of crap, and think that publishing a statement that “They’re full of crap, full stop” in a journal is sufficient. It isn’t. Evolutionary biologists also don’t talk about creationists at evolution meetings, and geologists don’t talk about flat earthers at geology meetings, except maybe to laugh at them over a beer at the bar after the daily sessions. And the people who do try hard to bring these issues to public attention are sneered at as popularizers who aren’t doing the real work. Meanwhile, racists and creationists and climate change deniers are climbing the civil service ladder and getting elected to high office, and making decisions about science funding.

But at least the meetings remain pure and unsullied by nonsense.

Which means that the scientists are cheerfully unaware of how their sloppy public speaking on the issues gets appropriated by ideologues. The shorthand of science is easily abused, technical terms get colloquialized in invalid ways (see the word “theory” for an example), and sometimes scientists let their biases lead them down unsavory paths (see James Watson) and get treated as respected fonts of wisdom rather than cranky outliers. We also see that the media cannot address what scientists take for granted without giving lots of press to the ignorant, anti-scientific ideas of bigots and fools in the name of ‘balance’ or ‘teaching the controversy’ — it doesn’t matter that there is no controversy, they’ll invent one.

Geneticists are walking through a minefield. They ought to learn about the dangers rather than just taking a blithe, heedless stroll.

The poster child for the invulnerability of white men

It’s James Watson. He’s got a Nobel prize, which means he gets to lecture incompetently about black people and women, write a bestseller full of sexist garbage about Rosalind Franklin, and basically push all the boundaries in a regressive direction, and what happens? He gets publicly shamed one week, but the next week everyone invites him back to praise him. It’s kind of amazing. You would think some of this stuff would stick, but no. He was just recently lauded in a meeting at Cold Spring Harbor.

No, really, look at all the white people joining him on stage and applauding! I guess he did contribute to a global community, of sorts, mainly by driving a lot of people away.

You will be pleased to know that the circle of life continues unending, because after that bit of public shaming, Eric Lander has apologized, predictably. I further predict, though, that we only have to wait a few weeks, possibly a few months, and there will be another event at which Watson will be fulsomely praised by a group of oblivious white guys, to begin the cycle anew.

Maybe it’ll be his funeral, who knows? I’m pretty sure that event will not be the quiet, dignified interment attended by a few loving and bereaved family members, but an opportunity yet again for distinguished white men to ignore all the careers he’s stunted, institutions he’s poisoned, and racist garbage he’s peddled with the authority of his Nobel. I am not looking forward to that at all, and rather hope he lives forever with his reputation.

People are still unaware of Jim Watson’s reputation?

The Illinois News-Gazette has an interesting twist in an editorial. Read it and let’s see if you can detect a bit of bias here.

One recent blot on the UI’s reputation, one that received statewide attention, was the disgracefully successful effort by a faculty ideologue to block a planned speech on cancer research by a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. Alas, the faculty members who were so agitated by the Salaita episode were conspicuously silent about the cancellation of a talk by Dr. James Watson, an esteemed 89-year-old molecular biologist, geneticist and zoologist.

Kate Clancy, a faculty member at the University of Illinois, is a faculty ideologue.

James Watson is an esteemed 89-year-old molecular biologist, geneticist and zoologist.

Clancy is a well-regarded anthropologist with a commendable record of public outreach. Watson, on the other hand, as every biologist knows, has a reputation as a raving loose cannon with deplorable ideas about women and black people. You wouldn’t go to a talk by him to hear about new developments in cancer research, you’d go anticipating the moment when it would go off the rails and produce a spectacular crash, and you’d be disappointed if he managed to stay focused (which he wouldn’t). It would be very exciting in the way that a NASCAR race is — cars going around and around in circles, livened up with the occasional disaster.

That editorial is grossly misinformed about the actual situation, and the author is relying on superficial information with an authoritarian twist — Watson has a Nobel prize! He would never deliver a talk about oversexed African men, spiced up with slides of women in bikinis! Except that he did. I’ve had my own encounter with Jim Watson, and really…he’s not a good choice for a speaker anywhere.

Unfortunately, that misleading editorial has now led to online harassment, and for Clancy to fear for her safety. This looks trivial, but it’s actually rather chilling.

Why would you email someone, and then drive to their home and leave a note to tell them to check their mail? One reason: to let them know that you know where they live.

Clancy has a recommendation. Let this newspaper know how dishonest and dangerous they were by publishing such nonsense.

Jim Watson needs to retire to a nice, remote beach somewhere far from everyone else

Dr. James Watson, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, 7.23.06

It’s long past due. He’s been shooting himself in the foot and then stuffing it in his mouth to gnaw on it for decades. He was in the news for his racist, sexist views ten years ago.

The article is like a summary of Watson’s greatest gaffes.

In 1997, he told a British newspaper that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual. He later insisted he was talking about a “hypothetical” choice which could never be applied. He has also suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, positing the theory that black people have higher libidos, and argued in favour of genetic screening and engineering on the basis that “stupidity” could one day be cured. He has claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying: “People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would great.”

Zuska has another one.

He smiles. “Rosalind is my cross,” he says slowly. “I’ll bear it. I think she was partially autistic.” He pauses for a while, before repeating the suggestion, as if to make it clear that this is no off-the-cuff insult, but a considered diagnosis. “I’d never really thought of scientists as autistic until this whole business of high-intelligence autism came up. There is probably no other explanation for Rosalind’s behaviour.

At that time I thought he was a horrible old man but I argued that he ought to have the right to speak freely…and he does. He speaks very freely. But what he says is neither intelligent nor insightful, and he doesn’t deserve respect for his stupid opinions. Especially when tolerance just means he never learns and keeps doing the same thing over and over again.

Now the Carl Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at Illinois has cancelled an invitation to speak.

A research institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign agreed to host James Watson, a Nobel laureate whose work is credited with discovering the structure of DNA, to give a lecture there. But the event was quickly called off amid faculty concerns about whether it was appropriate to host someone like Watson, whose statements have been widely condemned as racist.

Watson has made numerous controversial comments over the years and also has been condemned for sexist and homophobic statements.

But his comments on race have led many to say he should be shunned.

In a 2007 interview, he said 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.” Further, he said that while people hope that all groups are equal, “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.” (He also said that some black people are smart, and has apologized, although many question the sincerity of his apology.)

I had dinner with Watson at a small restaurant in New York several years ago. It was the most uncomfortable two hours of my life. All he wanted to talk about was race, and the conversation was all about our geneaology. He asked what my ancestry was, and when I told him half Scandinavian, half Scot/English/Irish he immediately judged me acceptable company, and started explaining my personality to me. Scandinavians are intelligent but cold and aloof, and share the same problems that the Japanese have: they are among the smartest people in the world, but they lack the passion and drive to accomplish great things. You know who may not be as intrinsically intelligent, but make up for it with their aggressive need to get things done? The Scots/Irish! Best people on the planet! The perfect combination of ambition and smarts!

I think he thought he was flattering me, but I just wanted to sink into my chair and down through the floor and drop into a subway tube. Heck, dropping into a sewer line would be preferable.

It was difficult to get a word in edgewise with this guy, but after that pronouncement he looked at me expectantly — I could tell there was a question he wanted me to ask. So I obliged, knowing exactly what the answer would be. “So, Jim, what’s your ancestry?”

“Scots/Irish!” he cackled.

And then he regaled the table with tales of brave explorers and pioneers and soldiers, all his people. I tried to strike up a conversation with his wife, instead, who seemed very nice and a little distressed at her husband’s mania.

So, yes, I’ve heard more than enough of Jim Watson. I think we all ought to be a bit Watsoned out at this point, and I don’t see any purpose in inviting him to give public lectures anymore. You never know: he might launch into a fact-free fairy tale about having dark skin, being fat, and being over-sexed as linked properties caused by exposure to the sun and living in tropical countries, illustrated with a slide show of women in bikinis.

He really did that.

I’m just surprised that any professional organization would be so unaware of his reputation that they’d invite him in the first place.

I thought they didn’t like hyperbole?

Tim Hunt's very bad day

Tim Hunt’s very bad day

Here we go again. Eight Nobel prize winners have come out to defend Tim Hunt.

They warned of a chilling effect on academics’ freedom to speak their minds after Sir Tim was forced to resign his honorary post at University College London amid pressure from social media users.

Sir Andre Geim, of the University of Manchester who shared the Nobel prize for physics in 2010 said that Sir Tim had been “crucified” by ideological fanatics , and castigated UCL for “ousting” him.

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