← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · seq
Thread ID: 5283 | Posts: 11 | Started: 2003-03-02
2003-03-02 00:08 | User Profile
Stupidity should be cured, says DNA discoverer
18:13 28 February 03 New Scientist.com news service
Fifty years to the day from the discovery of the structure of DNA, one of its co-discoverers has caused a storm by suggesting that stupidity is a genetic disease that should be cured.
On 28 February 1953 biologists James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA - the chemical code for all life. The breakthrough revealed how genetic information is passed from one generation to the next and revolutionised biology and medicine.
But in a documentary series to be screened in the UK on Channel 4, Watson says that low intelligence is an inherited disorder and that molecular biologists have a duty to devise gene therapies or screening tests to tackle stupidity.
"If you are really stupid, I would call that a disease," says Watson, now president of the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory, New York. "The lower 10 per cent who really have difficulty, even in elementary school, what's the cause of it? A lot of people would like to say, 'Well, poverty, things like that.' It probably isn't. So I'd like to get rid of that, to help the lower 10 per cent."
Watson, no stranger to controversy, also suggests that genes influencing beauty could also be engineered. "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great."
Complex traits
But other scientists have questioned both the ethics and plausibility of his suggestions. Nikolas Rose, a bioethics expert at the London School of Economics, says such genetic engineering may not be possible: "These are complex traits, with multiple genes interacting with the environment."
"These are characteristically casual and provocative statements by James Watson," Rose adds. "I think they should be treated just as amusing rather than as a serious account of what behavioural genetics or any genetics should be doing, or will be able to do."
[url=http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993451]http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?...p?id=ns99993451[/url]
2003-03-02 12:08 | User Profile
[url=http://home.att.net/~dysgenics/lev.htm]http://home.att.net/~dysgenics/lev.htm[/url] Why Race Matters
Long, but worth the read.
It's genetic, and blacks are just plain stooopid.
Not mentioned is Ashkanazi Jew IQ of 117.
2003-03-02 20:17 | User Profile
This whole topic proceeds from a false assumption.
Intelligence has lots to do with "where/when." People crossing the Rio Grande illegally and working the U.S. Welfare system are smarter than the citizens who foot the bill. If the Mestizos have an average IQ of 65 and the citizens have an IQ of 110, it makes no difference at all; the Mestizos are still smarter given the situation.
Working class Brit writer Colin Wilson (The Outsider) was on this long time ago. His point was how the analytical mind has severe disadvantages when coping with tribal-intuitive situations. Trained to regard the world from a right brain perspective no matter what, they are disarmed when dealing with so-called primitives.
Homer covered this even earlier than Wilson. The Greeks exhausted an analytic elite at the walls of Troy. Only intuition saved Odysseus.
2003-03-02 22:39 | User Profile
...any premature attempt to meddle with IQ will be utterly disastrous.
"Geneticist Steve Jones, at University College London: ââ¬ÅGenetics could and does help people with severe disorders like Fragile X syndrome and phenylketonuria, both of which affect IQ, says Jones: The problem is where do we draw the line?"
Itââ¬â¢s a question of the degree of meddling. Boosting the average Western IQ from approximately 100 to a modest 115 certainly wouldnââ¬â¢t produce dangerous geniuses, but it could improve the quality of life on this planet. And think what miracles it might accomplish in Sub-Saharan Africa.
2003-03-03 13:03 | User Profile
Originally posted by seq@Mar 2 2003, 16:39 Itââ¬â¢s a question of the degree of meddling. Boosting the average Western IQ from approximately 100 to a modest 115 certainly wouldnââ¬â¢t produce dangerous geniuses, but it could improve the quality of life on this planet.
I don't know seq, mediocre intellectuals are possibly even more dangerous. That would be like genetically engineering a race of salon.com subscribers ;)
2003-03-03 22:36 | User Profile
It would surely be better to have a higher degree of intelligence in the general population than a dumber one. I doubt if any could argue that. As far as the higher iqed people having a greater degree of pathologies, mental or otherwise. that is simply not the case. while not immune from those disorders, intelligent people are healthier, mentally and physically, live longer, and are far less neurotic than the dull. Something of an urban myth has been concocted about the crazy scientist, bookworm, etc. It is simply not the case.
2003-03-03 23:56 | User Profile
**I don't know seq, mediocre intellectuals are possibly even more dangerous. That would be like genetically engineering a race of salon.com subscribers. **
Yeah, youââ¬â¢re right. Salon subscribers define mediocrity. Of course, what Iââ¬â¢d really prefer to see happen: some not-so-mad scientistsââ¬âthere may still be a few old gentlemen hiding out in the jungles of South America--genetically engineering a race of tall, blonde, blue-eyed, ubermenschen genii whose DNA is encoded to reproduce ONLY with the European-descended.
But to say so publicly might make me sound like a whacked-out nazi deserving of exile from this board and a free ticket to the nearest gulag. So I wonââ¬â¢t.
2003-03-04 01:46 | User Profile
Originally posted by Ragnar@Mar 2 2003, 14:17 **People crossing the Rio Grande illegally and working the U.S. Welfare system are smarter than the citizens who foot the bill. **
They are just more desperate, and as they say: necessity is the mother of invention.
2003-03-04 02:25 | User Profile
As far as the higher iqed people having a greater degree of pathologies, mental or otherwise. that is simply not the case. while not immune from those disorders, intelligent people are healthier, mentally and physically, live longer, and are far less neurotic than the dull.
Yes -- to a point. But over a certain threshold (around 160-165 IQ), the social integration of a gifted child is an extraordinary developmental challenge.
2003-03-04 09:39 | User Profile
Originally posted by Bardamu@Mar 4 2003, 01:46 ** They are just more desperate, and as they say: necessity is the mother of invention. **
I can agree with half of that. The other half is, the wetbacks can cooperate. They still know how. Even when desperate white folks in the USA seem to have forgotten how to work together. I know they knew once. Hoover Dam and all that.
The space program seems to be another example of cooperative intelligence failing. NASA has lots of great talent, but it's been MIA since Apollo.
2003-03-05 14:06 | User Profile
Originally posted by Ragnar@Mar 4 2003, 03:39 ** > Originally posted by Bardamu@Mar 4 2003, 01:46 ** They are just more desperate, and as they say: necessity is the mother of invention. **
I can agree with half of that. The other half is, the wetbacks can cooperate. They still know how. Even when desperate white folks in the USA seem to have forgotten how to work together. I know they knew once. Hoover Dam and all that.
**
I guess what is wrong with White people is 50 years of television and movies. That is my best guess. That or the two White Wars killed off the best of our spirited genes. It is summed up by the scene in Lord of the Rings with the good king hypnotized by the ministrations of evil counselors. Yes, White people as an eternal body (a god) have a nasty case of the jews. It is like an auto-immune disease. That part of our body, the elite, that should be defending us is attacking us. Death by Sanhedrin.