Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than Westerners

**chef** · 17 October 2007, 12:36

"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. "

oh my my my.. this is certainly a 'character'.. although he is an outstanding genetic professional I personally feel that his "views" are pretty out there..

isn't this the same as myself (surely being termed an "expert" in computers by the press if ever I made an outlandish comment) saying that in my opinion Windows Vista is a pile of sh!te?

**sasguru** · 17 October 2007, 12:40

Course we are. The problem with saying that a certain group of people are more intelligent than another is that we have to firstly, define intelligence (which no one has done satisfactorily - the IQ test is a little to uni-dimensional) and secondly, hold all other variables constant for the two groups while this "intelligence" variable was tested - which again would be a difficult task.

**oracleslave** · 17 October 2007, 12:41

Originally posted by sasguru View Post

Course we are. The problem with saying that a certain group of people are more intelligent than another is that we have to firstly, define intelligence (which no one has done satisfactorily - the IQ test is a little to uni-dimensional) and secondly, hold all other variables constant for the two groups while this "intelligence" variable was tested - which again would be a difficult task.

You should be in Analytics

**DBA_bloke** · 17 October 2007, 12:43

Just another part-genius, part-braindead ******. Most super-clever folk seem to be a bit like that.

**mrdonuts** · 17 October 2007, 12:43

do you think there is anecdotal evidence to support this theory?

**SallyAnne** · 17 October 2007, 12:44

" he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary."

"He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true". "

I can understand the scientific thoery that people in different geographical areas develop differently - that makes sense. But this guy just seems to be talkin about black people in general, which is utterly disgusting, and more to the wrong, wholely untrue!

What a c*ck. Burn him.

**daviejones** · 17 October 2007, 12:45

Originally posted by mrdonuts View Post

are we allowed to discuss this?

http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_te...cle3067222.ece

Yes, what is the problem exactly?

**sasguru** · 17 October 2007, 12:46

Originally posted by oracleslave View Post

You should be in Analytics

Don't even get me started on the problems of obtaining representative samples, holding the tests (whatever these are) in equivalent conditions, confounding variables (whice are probably impossible to disentangle in a cultural context) etc. etc.

**The Lone Gunman** · 17 October 2007, 12:47

Originally posted by mrdonuts View Post

do you think there is anecdotal evidence to support this theory?

It wasn't anecdotal. The tests (I think IQ) were done in the states and the results used to generate a bell curve which showed mean IQs were less in the black population.
A SAS said above, there is no mechanism to show they were testing like for like. Socio-economic problems or exposure to similar tests would skew the results.

Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than Westerners