Web Frog

Letter sent to The Independent

Sir

As reported on the front page of The Independent (17 October), James Watson, the Nobel Prize-winning co-discoverer of DNA, stated publicly that Africans are less intelligent than Europeans. Given that the average sub-Saharan African IQ is 67 and the average IQ of Europeans is 100 (Lynn 2006), his assertion is true. Indeed, it is not even controversial among experts, who have been aware of the direction and magnitude of black/white differences in intelligence since Galton's work in 1869.

Yet Dr Watson has been widely condemned by the media, the Science Museum cancelled his talk, the Bristol Festival of Ideas cancelled an appearance and he was forced to cancel his tour of the UK. That a Nobel Prize-winning scientist is so heavily vilified for telling the truth in this country is an absolute disgrace.

Yours faithfully

Martin Sewell

Reference:
LYNN, Richard, 2006. Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis. Augusta, GA: Washington Summit Publishers.

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This is outrageous. We have been aware of the direction and magnitude of black/white differences in intelligence since Galton (1869), they are not even controversial. The sub-Saharan African IQ of 67 puts it 2.2 standard deviations below Europeans, whilst the genotypic African IQ of 80 is 1.3 standard deviations below Europeans. These results are not surprising: Europeans first set foot on the moon nearly 40 years ago, whilst Africans never even invented the wheel.

This has nothing to do with one race being superior to another: intelligence isn't everything. Different races excel at different things: West Africans make the best sprinters, Kenyans the best distance runners, Europeans the best swimmers, whilst Africans are the most fertile and East Asians have the highest IQ. Evolution doesn't do equality, but it doesn't do hierarchy either: you can have a big brain or a big penis, but you can't have both.

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