Another Collision Between Science and Politics

[smackaholic]

my point is that unlike carl everett, reggie was right.

[BSmack]

my point is that unlike carl everett, reggie was right.

And my point is that what Reggie White said was so fucking retarded that it wasn't even worth the time for a rebuttal.

[Kierland]

Please accept my apologies, but my 8 brain cells cannot understand whatever it is that you are attempting to communicate with that last post.

Then brush up on English.

If I understand your post correctly, you are saying that just because there has been no science on the matter does not mean there has been a collision. Uh, yes it does.

Try: because there has been no science on the matter means there has been no collision because something that does not exist cannot collided with something.

The new breed of PC scientist (you know, the one that secures government grants by churning out scientific data to support the policies of the government that give him the grants...) has already condemned Watson for even suggesting that such a possibility could exist.

So pull your head out of your ass, do some science on the matter and get back to me. Oh that's right the Gov is keeping you from entering the free market with your racist drivel. Light bulbs yet?

[PSUFAN]

The part about "people who have to deal with black employees" is still a little strange to me.

[Mike the Lab Rat]

That isn't what Watson is suggesting at all. What he is suggesting is that within the next decade, geneticists be able to identify a portion of the human genome that is responsible for intelligence, just like they recently did with respect to speech and language (the FOXP2 gene, which is mentioned in the second article I linked above).

Hold your horses.

Contrary to what "Yahoo News" and other such news outlets have been reporting, FOXP2 is not the "speech gene"....primarily because the trait of speech is definitely controlled by a hell of a lot more than one gene. Any news outlet or person who says otherwise is playing damned fast and loose with scientific facts for the purpose of a cute storyline. For a more accurate view of what the FOXP2 does, click here.

The media is notoriously bad at reporting science. Speech comm majors were never the sharpest tools in the shed.

Secondly, they will never find an "intelligence gene."

Ever.

The decision of what constitutes "intelligence" has yet to be objectively decided, and the catchall phrase of "problem-solving behavior" is hardly specific enough to attribute to a single gene or gene family. Putting forth the argument that gee whiz, all they have to do is find the gene or gene family for IQ and compare it across different populations is a jaw-droppingly naive statement that may sound smart to folks who haven't taken a science class since junior year of high school, but sounds damned stupid to those with any education in molecular biology or genetics. Hell, even something as simple as eye-color is polygenic.

And, as anyone who has been following recent biological research knows, the environment has a HUGE role in determining genetic expression (genes can actually be turned on and off by factors in the environment). The field of epigenetics is just getting started and making genetic determinists like Watson seem more archaic by the week.

And as for the idiotic claim that the "PC crowd" won't allow the research...bullshit. The private sector won't do it solely because it has little or no financial payoff, and the government won't fund it because it would be an immensely stupid waste of research dollars that could be put toward actually useful ends. Looking for a mythological "intelligence gene" for shits and giggles is the kind of thing that only a private research foundation would or should do, and then its results should be subjected to the same SCIENTIFIC scrutiny as any other study, regardless of the sociological implications.

On the subject of Watson - the man is a misogynistic, racist pig with questionable morals even in science, and has been known as such for years before he made his recent statements. He has been quoted as seriously advocating the aborting of fetuses if they carry a gene for lower IQ, homosexuality, or even treatable mental disorders. Despite his unquestionably important role in scientific history (a role, btw, which he might not have had he not stolen an unpermitted view of another researcher's unpublished work), he has proven an embarrasment. My HIV lab went to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory years ago and came back with tales of a lecherous and hygenically-challenged Watson making all sorts of shocking (especially misogynistic) statements while "holding court" at an open-bar reception. My colleagues, especially the younger ones who had wanted his autograph (since we'd been taught to respect this historical figure) wound up disillusioned and disgusted by the guy. If nothing else, he helps show that scientists are human beings subject to the same stupid prejudices as all other folks, despite their education.

Here's an excerpt from an article on Watson:

In 1990 the journal Science noted: "To many in the scientific community, Watson has long been something of a wild man, and his colleagues tend to hold their collective breath whenever he veers from the script."

The wider world began to find out why. In 1997 he suggested in a newspaper interview that a woman should have the right to abort a foetus if it was found to be carrying a "gay" gene. His attempts to justify his stance only made matters worse. He had been speaking in favour of choice for women, he said, but added "because most women want to have grandchildren ... it's common sense". It was a Freudian slip similar to the one he made this week with his anecdotal remark about "people who have to deal with black employees".

Then in 2000 in a lecture at Berkeley University, after showing images of women in bikinis and veiled Muslim women, he suggested that there is a link between exposure to sunlight and libido. "That's why you have Latin lovers," he said. "You've never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient." He then went on to show a photograph of Kate Moss and assert that thin people are unhappy and therefore ambitious. "Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you're not going to hire them," he added. Fat people may also be more sexual, he suggested, because their bloodstreams contain higher levels of leptin.

Watson likes to regard himself as a free-thinker: "Why don't people with Down's syndrome get cancer? Why don't we analyse the genomes of 1,000 heavy smokers who have lived to the age of 80 in search of a gene that would allow people to smoke ... If I believe something then I'll say it. I figure, generally, at least half the time I am reflecting common sense."

Others see things differently. In 2001, he wrote an article for a German newspaper advocating diagnostic tests early in pregnancy for untreatable diseases such as Tay-Sachs, which involves great suffering and early death in childhood. Such cases should be aborted. The problem is that Tay-Sachs is restricted to Ashkenazi Jews. Choosing Germany as the place to float the idea of promoting abortion for Jews suggests that Watson himself may be missing the gene that governs political sensitivity.

He has talked about a gene for stupidity and suggested that stupid people should be aborted. "If your heart doesn't work well, people say it's genetic. If your brain doesn't work well, that, in a sense, is a brain disease," he said. Again, when in a hole he never knows that he should stop digging. He was, he said, only talking about the bottom 10 per cent of the population "who really have difficulty, even in elementary school".

And he has publicly revealed that he wishes a genetic test had been available which would have shown that his son Rufus would turn out to have schizophrenia. "I think I would be a monster to want someone to suffer the way he has... so, yes, I would have aborted him," he once said. Genetic screening, he says, would also inspire greater compassion for the underdog. He fails to see that it might also lead to a world where "underdogs" are discriminated against by insurance companies or to a rise in eugenic abortions.

His is, in any case, a weird world. It may turn out to be bad genes that predispose people to habitually lie, steal or kill, he believes. "I'm strongly opposed to sequencing people at birth and predicting their future," he said last week promoting his book at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. "But if there's a violent criminal, and I'm wondering whether to release him, in the future we would certainly look at his or her DNA."

Watson's suggestions that some races are less intelligent than others sit neatly against this long history of contrived controversy. "Our brains aren't equal," he said in Seattle. "Biology seldom treats people as equal."

There is about it all a detached determinism which takes no account of environment, culture, education and all the other myriad factors which impact upon human behaviour. Nature seems to have ousted nurture entirely in James Watson's mind. It may finally have taken him into one controversy too many.

[Kierland]

There are many ways to express it, but science basically boils down to:

1. Making an observation.
2. Constructing a hypothesis that explains the observation.
3. Developing an experiment to test the hypothesis.
4. Analyzing the data from the experiment and drawing a conclusion regarding it.
5. Publishing the hypothesis, experimental testing protocol, data and conclusion for other scientists to critically review.

Two of the five steps are complete in this instance.

You're an idiot. You are from Ohio. That means people from Ohio have a dumb gene. Sciencey enough for you?

[Kierland]

I doubt your little buddy Queerland is going to get it.

So you're a racist too. Gotcha. Anything else you would like to add?

[Dr_Phibes]

[Mike the Lab Rat]

He has been quoted as seriously advocating the aborting of fetuses if they carry a gene for lower IQ, homosexuality, or even treatable mental disorders.

Why is that a problem? We live in a society that advocates the aborting of fetuses for no reason at all.

It is a problem because it makes him a flaming hypocrite - the laboratory which he has guided for four decades (Cold Spring Harbor) specifically has a website designed to discuss the dark history of the misuse of genetic information and about the awful legacy of eugenics. They've also put out an educational DVD called "DNA Interactive" (I have it ans use it in my AP classes) in which the "Ethical Implications" section discusses and condemns the history of eugenics and how dangerous eugenic policies are. Watson's opinions are pretty much in line with the eugenics idiocy of years ago.

Having a world-famous, Nobel-prize-winning genetic researcher argue that we should, as a species, deliberately engage in eugenic breeding and abortive practices as a means to direct our evolution (I have a video interview with him in which he even argues that NOT doing so is irresponsible) is a far cry than a woman making a personal choice of terminating a pregnancy, even if you disagree with that decision.

The man is an embarrassment.

[smackaholic]

mike,

once you decide that it's just a matter of personal choice for a woman to abort simply because having a baby would be a nuisance, then what the hell is wrong with doijng it for a different reason such as ensuring that you have a healthy kid.

I mean, if an embryo is nothing more than a lump of tissue, why grow one into a defective child? Why not just flush it and wait for a better one?

Anyone that sees abortion as a right or a choice has absolutely no bidness questioning those that would use abortion as a means of picking healthy children.

[Mike the Lab Rat]

mike,

once you decide that it's just a matter of personal choice for a woman to abort simply because having a baby would be a nuisance, then what the hell is wrong with doijng it for a different reason such as ensuring that you have a healthy kid.

I mean, if an embryo is nothing more than a lump of tissue, why grow one into a defective child? Why not just flush it and wait for a better one?

Anyone that sees abortion as a right or a choice has absolutely no bidness questioning those that would use abortion as a means of picking healthy children.

I never said that I personally advocated abortion as a choice. I stated that there is a huge difference between what Watson has advocated - societal decision to, as a policy, terminate any fetus with any "undesirable" characteristic (which Watson categorizes as including homosexuality and currently treatable medical disorders) in order to "improve the species" and the legal ability of a woman to obtain an abortion as a personal choice. Stating that the two positions are the same is ridiculous, even if one opposes abortion.

[smackaholic]

I didn't say you advocated it. And if you are saying that he thinks we should make it mandatory to off suspect embryos, I agree.

I do, however see how someone might think that offing a perfectly healthy prospective human for convenience is worse than offing one that is known to have problems that are going to cause it and everyone around it a lot of trouble.

[Atomic Punk]

Is there a way to do stem cell research from the placenta and umbilical cord from a birth? If so, then this abortionist political block needs to be exposed for the liars they all are.

Seems my anatomy classes said you can do "stem cell" research w/o aborted fetuses. So what's the fucking problem?

I'm surprised this hasn't been brought up in the thread.

[Mike the Lab Rat]

Seems my anatomy classes said you can do "stem cell" research w/o aborted fetuses. So what's the fucking problem?

I'm surprised this hasn't been brought up in the thread.

No one uses aborted fetuses for stem cells. That's not how it's done.

It's called EMBRYONIC stem cell research.

The stem cells are from EMBRYOS that are a result of in vitro fertilization. Take eggs from woman, place in Petri dish with sperm, let fertilization occur and time pass until zygotes become embryos. Place a few in mom's uterus later and hope that at least one sticks and develops. Freeze or flush the rest. Some scientists want to take THOSE buggers and use them for research. No aborted fetuses. The fact that people think that aborted fetuses are where we get embryonic stem cells drives me nuts.

The religious objection to stem cell research is that, if human life (including the soul) begins the second that sperm hits egg, then destroying those Petri-dish-sitting embryos is the same as murder, whether the cells are used for research or (as they used to be, prior to viable freezing processes) flushed down the sink. IVF is a no-no for truly observant Roman Catholics (and many other denominations) for that very reason.

[LTS TRN 2]

Among its many peculiar singularities, San Francisco alone among significant American cities has a black population whose percentage mirrors that of the national average, about eleven percent. Similarly preserved is the gallingly disproportionate murder rate of black-on-black, etc.

But...you think you can play Beethoven like this cat....?...


See...?...all it takes is one talented, competent, brilliant fellow...and the whole proposition of Watson is gone to smash...sucks, don't it?

[RadioFan]

What I disagree with you about is the influence of the PC police on science. I think researchers are loathe to propose a hypothesis that, if proven true, would be politically incorrect. And anyone who sets forth such a hypothesis is immediately thrown under the bus.

Complete bullshit.

As I've argued many times with pop and Dio, that's not how science works. Science isn't about being "PC," nor is it about any certain "agenda," whether that be "threatening" the Bible or "(dis)proving" racist ideas.

If the guy's getting "thrown under the bus" by his peers, it probably means he's about as legit as some UFO researchers ('sup LTS?)

You and MtLR, however, are right on when it comes to many news stories about science -- it's generally dumbed down to the point of being so simplified that it's either misleading, or just plain wrong.

The reason much of "mainstream" journalism about science is beyond pathetic is pretty simple when it comes right down to it. How the hell would you expect most Americans to grasp the concepts of basic science when they can't even find Brazil on a map, when "American Idol" is the No. 1 show on television and when more Americans know the theme to the "Brady Bunch" than know who is the vice president or speaker of the House?

Be it good or bad (the latter, BIG-TIME, imo), many good science stories aren't read/viewed, along with science, in general.

Hell, I'd be willing to bet that most people on this board -- without having to look it up -- don't know the difference between science and technology.


Btw, RACK the FUCK out of MtLR's first post.

MtLR -- "Yahoo News," is more often than not, AP or another secondary source, which is often -- but not always -- a rewrite of a newspaper or magazine's original story.

[smackaholic]

Among its many peculiar singularities, San Francisco alone among significant American cities has a black population whose percentage mirrors that of the national average, about eleven percent. Similarly preserved is the gallingly disproportionate murder rate of black-on-black, etc.

But...you think you can play Beethoven like this cat....?...


See...?...all it takes is one talented, competent, brilliant fellow...and the whole proposition of Watson is gone to smash...sucks, don't it?

no, dumbass, it doesn't. noone has said that all blacks are dumb anymore than anyone claims that all whites are not dumb. he is talking about a groups average. also, that dude in that pick looks about as black as i do. i'd say theres quite a few honkeys in his woodpile.

also, just to go reggie white for a moment, i think musical talent is one of the areas that black folks represent themselves quite well in, or atleast they did before hip hop came along.

[Dinsdale]

What I disagree with you about is the influence of the PC police on science. I think researchers are loathe to propose a hypothesis that, if proven true, would be politically incorrect. And anyone who sets forth such a hypothesis is immediately thrown under the bus.

Complete bullshit.

Maybe not quite "bullshit."

Sin,
Secondhand Smoke

[Mike the Lab Rat]

Having a world-famous, Nobel-prize-winning genetic researcher argue that we should, as a species, deliberately engage in eugenic breeding and abortive practices as a means to direct our evolution (I have a video interview with him in which he even argues that NOT doing so is irresponsible)

Needless to say, he is undeniably correct. Save your ignorant, handwringing twaddle for somebody who cares.

Which obviously includes you, since you took the time to respond to my post. When I read posts that I sincerely don't care about, I sure as hell don't bother to respond.

Artificial selection works. Mankind has been using it for thousands of years. To say that it doesn't or wouldn't work with people is a blatant lie.

No one said that it doesn't work. Great job twisting what was posted.

Artificial selection is completely ethical with regards to domesticated plants and animals. In some small fashion, it is employed on an amateur basis on every stinking one of us who made a point of being choosy about our mate.

What Watson proposes is damned stupid. Pray, tell me WHO gets to decide WHICH traits we should selectively breed? Are we going for IQ? Where is the cutoff? And out of the "smart" group, we have to cull (or sterilize) those individuals who don't physically measure up (obesity, vision abnormalities, asthma, allergies, etc.) and do the same with individuals who may themselves measure up but carry alleles for undesired traits. Hell, Watson himself would have to be sterilized, since his own son has a treatable mental disorder.

And, once again, WHO the hell gets to be the one making the call? The government? A committee of genetically-superior researchers (and who checks their DNA in an objective, foolproof system)?

What do we do about the inevitable mutations that crop up? Some of the traits that result may very well become advantageous, but with the cultural & scientific shortview we all necessarily have due to our limited science and short lifespans, we have no way of knowing. Hell, we don't even know for sure what traits that may seem bad now may help us later (in "Survival of the Sickest", the author points out that many genetic diseases confer a selective advantage in certain circumstances).

I realize that you enjoy stirring the pot and all that, but in this area, your views have little or no credibility.

[Kierland]

What I disagree with you about is the influence of the PC police on science.

Then do some science on it you stupid, lazy piece of shit.

Until then you are just a blow hard racist with a theory.

[PSUFAN]

Watson needs to understand the mantra - a world needs its underclass. Then again, maybe he'll shut up for a while if he does some more selective hiring in his office.

[Mike the Lab Rat]

What Watson proposes is damned stupid. Pray, tell me WHO gets to decide WHICH traits we should selectively breed?

You start with criminals and anyone on public assistance. Neither group has any business reproducing. This isn't difficult stuff here. Culls are abundantly obvious.

[golf claps]

As always, a well-thought-out response made after serious consideration of all the moral, scientific, and political issues involved. Kudos.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

You start with criminals and anyone on public assistance.

Defense contractors and their Republican benefactors?

Damn, that's cold mv.

[Mike the Lab Rat]

I think it's funnier than hell that those advocating eugenics assume that they'll make the cut.

[BSmack]

The bar needn't be very high. Just be able to take care of yourself and stay out of trouble.

That eliminates every person on the face of this earth.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." --- John Donne

[Mike the Lab Rat]

mvscal, we're talking about GENETICS.

The biological judgement on who is fit to pass on their genetic material may be at complete odds with what YOU would choose.

Watson, for example, wants to cull GENETIC defects from the gene pool...genetic defects that are the proven CAUSE of an undesirable trait. Watson would sterilize or abort otherwise productive individuals for having traits that are physiologically undesirable (myopia, genetic deafness, blood disorders, etc.). For true artificial selection to improve our species "stock" as you earlier claimed to advocate, we would do as Watson suggested - high IQ, solid citizen, great husband and dad but have a gene for Parkinson's disease? Off ya go, into the vats!

You, on the other hand, seek to cull individuals from the species because you find them to be a waste, regardless of the genetic advantages they may carry in their DNA. As much as it may pain you to keep convicts and welfare users around and breeding, there might be serious biological arguments for keeping some of them around for the positive traits they carry in their DNA (disease resistance, new biological traits).

After all, only a simple-minded, scientifically illiterate dumbfuck would even TRY to argue that ALL criminal tendencies are the result of genetics (instead of being a result of a mix of screwed-up parenting, poverty, etc.).

[smackaholic]

You, on the other hand, seek to cull individuals from the species because you find them to be a waste, regardless of the genetic advantages they may carry in their DNA. As much as it may pain you to keep convicts and welfare users around and breeding, there might be serious biological arguments for keeping some of them around for the positive traits they carry in their DNA (disease resistance, new biological traits).

yeah. we'd never win another international bball tournament.

[warren]

He may be a racist, but I know for a fact that Mexicans evolved as really bad drivers.

Come to think of it, though, it may not have anything to do with evolution...it could have something to do with driving a 15 year old Corolla with the mini spare on the front left wheel and the rear bumper duck taped together.

Damn, I love coming back to this think tank and shooting fish in a barrel. Once again, Avacado Michelle has nothing to offer intellectually so he tosses up a thinly veiled racist comment that he can always come back and say "I'm a card carrying pussy who loves all mankind and that was just a joke everyone in Cen-Cal will get."

Bring something to the table bitch or just get your "I T" ass to the back of the cubicle.

The man didn't make a racist statement, he just plain said people who, for whatever reason, be it geographically, politically, evironmentally, may not make it in Mikey's world.

I mean would you have an Aboriginal writing cryptic code for the CIA. Well, now that I think about it, they probably couldn't do any worse.

I damn sure'd give 'em Mikey's danish route and subsequent mail drop off. He consistently punches the pooch on that glory run.

[RadioFan]

What I disagree with you about is the influence of the PC police on science. I think researchers are loathe to propose a hypothesis that, if proven true, would be politically incorrect. And anyone who sets forth such a hypothesis is immediately thrown under the bus.

Complete bullshit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO9laiUX ... rming_myth

Hold on a second, bro.

Not to go all Dinsdale on you, but you're trying to make a point with a fucking TV "news" story?

Ponderous.

Hilarious, actually.

As you, yourself, have posted before, the science behind global warming (and the "dangers" of second-hand smoke, for that matter) has been politicized.

Policy-makers and pontificators using scientific studies to further an agenda? Tell me you knew?

In this country, before long, we'll have a pro-UFO presidential candidate. Despite more than a few votes from LTS, that doesn't mean UFOs are real.

I think you started this thread trying to politicize an idea by a nutjob/charlatan, as MtLR has more than pointed out.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.


A TV news story, interviewing kids. Sad, but apropos.

[LTS TRN 2]

What advantage does society derive from permitting scum to breed?

--Adolph Hitler

[Wolfman]

Politics influencing science ?? Laughable !

sin--

Trofim Lysenko

[Goober McTuber]

Watson would sterilize or abort otherwise productive individuals for having traits that are physiologically undesirable (myopia, genetic deafness, blood disorders, etc.).

Well, there goes the SEC.

[PSUFAN]

Why, if the answer to the question is presently unknown, are we throwing stones at the person asking the question?

It's the way that he has said it. I agree that it should be possible - politically and financially - to explore theories such as this...but Watson furnishes potential opponents convenient handles with which to dismiss his questions. He comes across as being concerned about his own office politics, and perhaps his motivations are justly questioned. His method of approaching the issue does the issue no real favors, ultimately.

You better believe that there are researchers who have made things like this their life's work...and they have their head in their hands when guys like Watson open their dirtholes.

[BSmack]

What bullshit. Save your inane platitudes.

Simply put mv, nobody on this planet is without sin, or fully independent. You are a part of me. Deal with it.

[PSUFAN]

BSmack: You...complete me.
mvscal: go completely fuck yourself.

[Mike the Lab Rat]

You, on the other hand, seek to cull individuals from the species because you find them to be a waste, regardless of the genetic advantages they may carry in their DNA. As much as it may pain you to keep convicts and welfare users around and breeding, there might be serious biological arguments for keeping some of them around for the positive traits they carry in their DNA (disease resistance, new biological traits).

That argument isn't even remotely compelling. The bottom line cost/benefit does not favor keeping these "people" around. At the very least, criminals should be exterminated.

The issue was culling the herd using genetic traits as the criteria.

You've turned it into a "kill anyone who in prison or sponges off society" bit.

You're argument is not only not compelling, it's not even on-topic.

Hell, it doesn't even address the FACT that innocent folks get imprisoned - some for life or put on death row. You'd whack those folks in the name of bettering society and use your delightfully inane "gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet" horseshit.

If nothing else, you're entertaining.

[BSmack]

BSmack: You...complete me.
mvscal: go completely fuck yourself.

Notice how mv skirted that uncomfortable truth. Lots of repression going on in there. Lots.

[Jimmy Medalions]

You've turned it into a "kill anyone who in prison or sponges off society" bit.

You're right. I apologize. I've been approaching the issue from the wrong angle. By sterilizing and executing all the n...iggers in the country, we could reduce violent crime by nearly 45%, empty out a lot of prisons, fire a lot of prison guards and drastically thin the welfare roll. Oh, I guess we're back to killing criminals and spongers, aren't we?

OK, OK. Now if we line up all the Mexicans....

[Jay in Phoenix]

OK, OK. Now if we line up all the Mexicans....

So does that include yourself mv?

[poptart]

I will donate $4.39 to the Biggie Cohen laboratory in support of an exhaustive study into the disappearance of the NFL cornerback gene in Jews.