I don't think so. But when you state controversial ideas, expect controversy.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

One could argue that temperate climates, with their variable nature, are more challenging and stimulating to the intellect [I have heard that]. It could have provided a marginal intellectual advantage for peoples of those regions along history. There is a correlation between temperate climates and material welfare, resulting from the inventivess of the peoples of those regions. Practically all human development stems either from early Chinese and European, or from recent North American inventions; inventive peoples living in temperate zones. Anyway, those [slight] advantages would be environmental and not resultant of any genetic 'superiority'.

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"As truth is gathered, I rearrange,
Inside out, outside in - Perpetual change." - A British rock band

I for one am not trying to paint anyone as anything. Believe it or not, I once was on that side of this debate where you are now. And not that long ago.

I want to comment on this you wrote, in light of what Mr. Watson has said.

Mr. Watson says there are differences in intelligence which are consistently "tested". No doubt he is talking about IQ testing. One thing about IQ is that it assumes that intelligence is a well-defined human characteristic which can be represented by a single number (as opposed to a sequence of numbers representing various "dimensions").

Here's the rub: if intelligence is unique, then it should be selected for in any environment, because it's always a plus for survival. (Our whole evolution as hominoids was driven by intelligence to a large extent.)

And if, as you seem to be now suggesting, it's not intelligence per se, but more particular abilities which are selected for or against, then how can we maintain that intelligence is unique?

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

If I may pick a nit, Watson (and Crick) didn't discover DNA, they determined a model for its structure (for which they won a Nobel Prize). DNA was known since at least ca. 1900, and the first convincing experiment that demonstrated that it was the genetic material was done by Oswald Avery (who ought to be in the "underappreciated scientists" thread) and coworkers in the 1940's.

But don't let the nitpick keep me from agreeing with you that Watson is one of those names who ought to be known by non-specialists (and maybe we need a thread about that as well).

The other thing is that he is sometimes described as being a geneticist (as if that might give some weight to his comments), but this a bit of an overstatement, or at least an oversimplification. First of all, he hasn't done any research in many years; he has been more of an administrator since the 1960's. Second, his field was more of structural molecular biology, not the kind of genetics that studies inheritance.

Nick

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Nick Theodorakis

I feel as though I'm asking questions more than advocation positions. But I digress.

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Spock Jenkins of the Vulcan Jenkins'.

Well, as I said, in small, completely closed populations which stay in one environment for a large number of generations, what you're asking about could happen. But races are usually defined more broadly, and the label applied to large, open, dynamic and non-homogenous population groups.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I'm not saying intelligence isn't unique. In choosing a mate - some cultures may have dictated that a person who is capable of building the most durable shelter - regardless of strength or size of the individual - would be the most desirable mate. That person may also be big and strong, but that would just be a bonus and not the main factor.

I'm just throwing ideas out there as possibilities - personally I really don't have a set understanding or belief regarding the subject (whatever that may be at this point).

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Spock Jenkins of the Vulcan Jenkins'.

That's what I'm saying. And I'm not just referring to skin color groups. I don't doubt for a second that even within the continent of Africa there are subsets where different characteristics were desirable in mate. Within European populations, some groups are likely to be blond, some are likely to be tall, some are likely to be short, on average general population vs. general population (with the customary variance among individuals allowed for). The question I'm asking is why not other non-physical characteristics as well?

As the world shrinks - these lines are becoming more and more blurry - and I wouldn't be surprised by a future thousands of years down the road where there are no more blondes, where the degree of skin color variance is far more narrow (not as many really dark or really light skin tones).

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Spock Jenkins of the Vulcan Jenkins'.

Well, now we know who is making up the questions in the IQ tests

Seriously, the question of what makes a specific population prosper in a given environment is fascinating. There was a time when the Russian's appealed to the Germanic families to provide a ruling class, there was a time the Russians and French shot and beheaded the ruling class because they became such idiots. I suspect there was a time when a similar nomadic clan was run out of Africa. There is this American thing going on with a ruling class that is pathologically intellectually challenged.

There has been enough success and failure of nations of all 'races', no matter how they are subdivided, to conclude Watson's assertions are foolish. As others have said, it is the wise application of knowledge that is most important for long term success.

This implies those who build condos on barrier islands are the most intellectually challenged; seconded by those who would procreate us into oblivion. Foolishness has no racial or intellectual boundries.

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jwj

It's ok not to know. We should try harder to find out.

One comment in that page is worth quoting:

How true.

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

You mean like the Boers of South Africa? Gotta keep in mind, traits like that in the modern world of sentience tend to follow asthetic trends. We're very capable of identifying and isolating individuals from the breeding pool with undesirable traits.

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I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

I strongly hate these eugenic speeches about breeding or gene pools...

Who deleted my posts and why?Do I insulted you favourite sciencist?

Get used to it. We're nothing more than animals who think we're too good to be selectively bred, but under the right circumstances, its no more or less difficult to do than it would be with dogs or cattle.

Consider the FLDS cities in Utah and Arizona. Generationally isolated populations suffering from severe inbreeding and the resultant recessive genetic disorders. Over the course of hundreds of generations with those mutations expressing, in theory, they could drift off the main line of human evolution. Its already causing some level of physical and mental alteration from human norms.

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I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

I refuse to.

That's kind of heavy on the math. I liked this other one.

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

I'm interested in it because it's affecting me personally right now. I wouldn't be too surprised down the road to find that our (in general terms) children aren't covered by health insurance due to the fact that we should have known the genetic risks of particular health conditions and chose to breed anyway. Or people making genetic screening a pre-condition of marraige.

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Spock Jenkins of the Vulcan Jenkins'.

The opposite argument is that agriculture, metal, the shorter supply of big dangerous animals, the fact that staying warm in the cold is easier than staying cool in the heat, and such make survival less challenging in Europe than it is in Africa. So explanations how how intelligence might have been more important in one place or the other can be thought up either way... which makes such ideas worthless without facts for them to be needed to explain. The order is observation then idea, not idea first.

In modern times, the challenges of a temperate climate don't really touch us, so it can't really still be causing an intelligence boost except through biological responses to past difficulty. And Europe and North America inherited knowledge that was actually discovered or invented in warmer climates first, thousands of years ago.

Could it be that Dr. Watson is confusing race with CULTURE?

I've lived in a culture different from the one I was born/raised in. These folks are, imo, of normal intelligence and etc...however, their CULTURE is a bit backwards. For instance, ask the distance to a nearby landmark and the answer is usually "I don't know."

Where I come from, most EVERYONE knows: Distances between places, approximately how old a historical building is, etc.; just general stuff any long-term resident should know.

Or they make up answers. My husband asked a clerk why a $3.00 item was rung up as $4.50. The re