Sunday, October 21, 2007

Oxford professor calls for scientific freedom

Some rather good news from the Sunday Times that significant members of the scientific community are rallying around James Watson (a subject I posted about on Wednesday after the Independent ran a front page on him effectively branding him a racist).

Colin Blakemore, former chief executive of the Medical Research Council and now professor of neuroscience at Oxford University has argued, quite rightly, that scientists should not be constrained in their hypothesising on the basis of political and cultural correctness.

The Sunday Times also reports that the presidnet of the Royal Society, Lord Rees, and his predecessor Lord May have not publicly spoken out to defend such academic and scientific freedoms. Personally I hope they say something soon

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Although scientists should not hold back from stating what the science shows them, it is worrying when they seem so naive about how what they say will be interpreted, both by the press and by bigotted individuals. Some might think this brings the scientists' own intelligence into question.

dizzy said...

It's not just about what their testing shows them. It's about the hypotheses they use as a starting point for testing.

I don;t think it is they who are naive either, it is the political culture in which we find ourselves that suggests that scientists should be guarded with their language in case they upset sensibilities.

Newmania said...

Balls Dizzy. Watson was not acting as a scientist he was acting as celebrity( publicising his book0 . This is comparable to the blithering lunacy Chomsky got away with in the day because he was a genius at linguistic analysis , in fact he founded the subject really . The exaggerated respect and misunderstanding of what science( useful for Greens ) makes the pronouncements of scientists acutely difficult to gauge in the freedom of speech spectrum. I have no special objection to old, men being rude and acquisitive . I do object to the Independent putting it on the front page and the unwarranted respect afforded to ill-mannered garbage

This is the bright wing version of political correctness. Because the statement ‘Black people do worse at IQ tests is’ , at a simple level , true . Right wing people deliberately confuse it with that much more slippery substance ,’ the truth’.
It is also true that

1 Black races are unusually subject to poor childhood diet. This effect is un quantifiable
2 The phenotypic effects of genetic inheritance in new environments is un quantifiable .For example are Indian men genetically heart disease or predisposed to certain diets in the aggregate . What is the causality ?
3 Its is perhaps the weakest caveat but the cultural input of IQ testing is not something that can be ignored neither can the class and economic group bias . I appreciate that the effort is resolutely to achieve sound methodology but only a misunderstanding of science assumes it has bee successful, because it claims to have been
4 We are all descended fro a small group of Africans recently . There are at least four other out groups in Africa . Which black people are you talking about ?
5 Races are not fixed and nascent adaptive features can spread quickly though populations in particular circumstances which cannot be called racial characteristics . Islanders tend to become larger over a short period of time . This not a racial features , it might become one and such shifts are swirling constantly in the liquid landscape in which the incidence of features occurs.
6 If I were to say Samoans tend to be fat this does not make the Samoan babe in front of me fat nor does it mean that Samoans have to be fat nor does it mean it is racial feature and nor does it mean my measurement of fatness is objective.Given the right diet and traning samoans are perhaps the most man for man gifted set of athletes in the world. Nutrition and enviroment act with inheritance in un foreseebale ways .

Homosexuals . Explain that scientitists ?


All of these things are true an. We know the avaricious egomania that drove Watson and I would kt have laws prescribing it . I wish top be free to pour scorn on that vile rag the Independent for sinking to such depths and for anyone who pretends to the Western religion of science worship conducted , usually , in the same ignorant cowering posture as most magical religions .

Shame on you Dizzy ,. I expect better. This is the opposite of science and surely you must be aware if how misunderstanding of Darwin has given encouragement to the worst sort of self love and brutality in the past.


You imaguine science is outside polticaol and broad humancuklture and so immune to question and cynisism. I trust you do not carry thei starry eyed curouis Alice attutude itno dealing weioth medial surveys conducted byt the Tobacco industry or Climatology financed by the States and superstates. Indeed scientific work on passive smoking and anything else pertaining to immediate social question shouild be met by a default

" What the fuck do you know about it , who is paying you and why do you ask ?"

The answer here is

Nothing
Your Publisher
To make money and show off