“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state as we may hope, than the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”
This rather astonishing quote is from Darwin's Descent of Man. It has been dissected to death in an effort to give it context, successfully, I think, by those that argue he was trying to show the episodic behavior in evolution and an apparent confusion between biologic and cultural evolution, the prejudice of a Eurocentric man. I think of this having read an interview with the 90 year old James Watson who, with Crick, developed the theory of the double helix. He has always had a cloud over him, originally from the supporters of Rosalind Franklin, the abrasive expert in X-ray crystallography whose photography allowed Watson to finish his calculations of the helix. Her supporters think she was excluded from credit because she was a woman. (Watson did not like her and did diminish her but she had been dead four years before the Nobel Prize was awarded to Watson and Crick, an award given only to the living.)
But it is Watson's racism that has ruined his life. He has lost his teaching positions, cannot speak on campuses and is the only man in history to sell his Nobel Prize for money he needed to live. His infamous interview in 2007 with the Sunday Times did the damage. He 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 added that while he hoped everyone was truly equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true."
Racism brings diversity full circle for diversity is a means of change, not enjoyment. Diversity allows for differences to be weighed and measured on the scales of evolution. Advantageous diversity moves on, disadvantageous diversity drops off. So differences among us may be charming, but may be lethal. As difference is a means of advancement, it seems that disparities--the flowering of differences--are inevitable. And even if there were no differences between groups, there would be differences among men. Should we not admit the differences between Ghandi and Himmler? Lincoln and Ted Bundy?
What is probably at the heart of this anxiety is the unspoken notion that some differences are irremediable, are handed down to children and leaves an identifiable portion of man as forever dependent upon others' charity and forbearance. But that area is more obtuse than ever. No one knows what IQ means now (a big portion of Dr. Watson's bigotry.) Nurture has an apparently sizable impact on Nature. And there is the fascinating implication of epigenetics which makes all geneticists sound Lamarckian now.
The truth of the matter is, testing is a poor measurement of man.
This rather astonishing quote is from Darwin's Descent of Man. It has been dissected to death in an effort to give it context, successfully, I think, by those that argue he was trying to show the episodic behavior in evolution and an apparent confusion between biologic and cultural evolution, the prejudice of a Eurocentric man. I think of this having read an interview with the 90 year old James Watson who, with Crick, developed the theory of the double helix. He has always had a cloud over him, originally from the supporters of Rosalind Franklin, the abrasive expert in X-ray crystallography whose photography allowed Watson to finish his calculations of the helix. Her supporters think she was excluded from credit because she was a woman. (Watson did not like her and did diminish her but she had been dead four years before the Nobel Prize was awarded to Watson and Crick, an award given only to the living.)
But it is Watson's racism that has ruined his life. He has lost his teaching positions, cannot speak on campuses and is the only man in history to sell his Nobel Prize for money he needed to live. His infamous interview in 2007 with the Sunday Times did the damage. He 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 added that while he hoped everyone was truly equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true."
Racism brings diversity full circle for diversity is a means of change, not enjoyment. Diversity allows for differences to be weighed and measured on the scales of evolution. Advantageous diversity moves on, disadvantageous diversity drops off. So differences among us may be charming, but may be lethal. As difference is a means of advancement, it seems that disparities--the flowering of differences--are inevitable. And even if there were no differences between groups, there would be differences among men. Should we not admit the differences between Ghandi and Himmler? Lincoln and Ted Bundy?
What is probably at the heart of this anxiety is the unspoken notion that some differences are irremediable, are handed down to children and leaves an identifiable portion of man as forever dependent upon others' charity and forbearance. But that area is more obtuse than ever. No one knows what IQ means now (a big portion of Dr. Watson's bigotry.) Nurture has an apparently sizable impact on Nature. And there is the fascinating implication of epigenetics which makes all geneticists sound Lamarckian now.
The truth of the matter is, testing is a poor measurement of man.
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