Nobel Laureate Says Blacks Less Intelligent

James Watson, co-winner of the Nobel in 1962 for his work in DNA research, has created a firestorm by stating publicly that he believes Africans to be less intelligent than whites (and presumably Asians) due to "geographically separated" evolution.

Here's the original article and quote:

He says that he is “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”, and I know that this “hot potato” is going to be difficult to address. His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”. He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because “there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level”. He writes that “there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so”.

Watson has created controversy in the past by offending feminists and telling a woman that, yes, it would be possible to abort gay babies. This last was taken as advocacy, but apparently he was just speaking to the theoretical possibility of determining sexual orientation prior to birth.

Sadly, rather than refute Watson on scientific grounds, most critics will attack from a position of political correctness, a kneejerk response that will only encourage overt racists.