Editorial
James Watson tells the inconvenient truth: Faces the consequences

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2008.03.041Get rights and content

Summary

Recent comments by the eminent biologist James Watson concerning intelligence test data from sub-Saharan Africa resulted in professional sanctions as well as numerous public condemnations from the media and the scientific community. They justified these sanctions to the public through an abuse of trust, by suggesting that intelligence testing is a meaningless and discredited science, that there is no data to support Dr. Watson’s comments, that genetic causes of group differences in intelligence are falsified logically and empirically, and that such differences are already accounted for by known environment factors. None of these arguments are correct, much less beyond legitimate scientific debate. Dr. Watson was correct on all accounts: (1) Intelligence tests do reveal large differences between European and sub-Saharan African nations, (2) the evidence does link these differences to universally valued outcomes, both within and between nations, and (3) there is data to suggest these differences are influenced by genetic factors. The media and the larger scientific community punished Dr. Watson for violating a social and political taboo, but fashioned their case to the public in terms of scientific ethics. This necessitated lying to the public about numerous scientific issues to make Watson appear negligent in his statements; a gross abuse of valuable and fragile public trust in scientific authority. Lies and a threatening, coercive atmosphere to free inquiry and exchange are damaging to science as an institution and to scientists as individuals, while voicing unfashionable hypotheses is not damaging to science. The ability to openly voice and argue ideas in good faith that are strange and frightening to some is, in fact, integral to science. Those that have participated in undermining this openness and fairness have therefore damaged science, even while claiming to protect it with the same behavior.

Section snippets

Unsupported by science?

The “scientific community” is a broad and inappropriately encompassing term, but to the extent such a thing exists as a social or public entity (apart from the research literature), it is fair to say it pronounced Watson’s claims not only false, but also outside the bounds of appropriate scientific discourse. For instance, the Science Museum in London responded by canceling Watson’s speaking engagement, saying:

“We know that eminent scientists can sometimes say things that cause controversy and

Our problems are not relevant to them?

In 1988 Stanley Rothman and Mark Snyderman published The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy [50]. Using data from their survey of over 1000 scholars in fields familiar with IQ testing, such as psychology, sociology, and behavioral genetics [51], Rothman and Snyderman took a quantitative look at media coverage of IQ and demonstrated how this media coverage habitually diverged with mainstream scholarly opinion.

And, indeed, media reports and editorials were quick to attack Watson on the

In closing: who damaged science?

According to the media and members of the scientific community, James Watson hurt science itself.

An editorial in the top science journal Nature asserted:

“Crass comments by Nobel laureates undermine our very ability to debate such issues, and thus damage science itself” [112].

Similarly the Chicago Tribune featured this:

“The damage to Watson’s legacy from his statements may be difficult to mend,” said Jerry Coyne, a professor of evolutionary genetics at the University of Chicago.

“He’s done

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      The recent debate on the intellectual efficiency of sub-Saharan African populations is probably the best illustration of the importance of ensuring the absence of differential item functioning before concluding anything when comparing groups on the basis of psychometric instruments. Briefly, literature reviews on studies using western intelligence tests and their standardization norms (mostly the various versions of Raven's matrices), suggest that sub-Saharan peoples would have a mean IQ below 70 (e.g., Lynn & Meisenberg 2010; Lynn & Vanhanen 2002; Malloy 2008). Given that the difficulty of items of sub-Saharan and western samples is highly correlated and that between-groups differences in item difficulty are greater for items showing the higher item-total score correlations, some researchers have concluded that the IQ difference between African and non-African peoples reflects a true difference of g-factor rather than the influence of culturally specific factors affecting test performance (Rushton 2002; Rushton et al., 2003; Rushton and Skuy, 2000).

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    A slightly different and expanded version of this editorial first appeared at: http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/10/james-watson-tells-inconvenient-truth_296.php.

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