He was further quoted as saying that his hope was that everyone was equal but that "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true". The scientist has since said that the way the words were presented did not reflect properly his position and he’s offered an unreserved apology. Apology or not Dr. Watson’s statement has caused a firestorm in academia and a number of booked lecture appearances have been cancelled as institutions of higher learning in Europe and America express shock and consternation at his comments while stopping short of calling them racist.
Dr. Watson’s comments are in sync with the conclusions reached in a published work of pseudo-science on Black inferiority and intellectual limitations called The Bell Curve (1994). This book and its authors received wide publicity and criticism. It was written by Americans Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein. While Dr. Watson made no reference to the Bell Curve his statement is laden and dripping with the white chauvinism of barely disguised eugenics. And no apology from an educated, rational and reasoned internationally acknowledged intellectual can change his suppressed racism.
The striking similarities between the arguments presented by Murray and Hernstein in The Bell Curve and Dr. Watson’s juxtaposition of intelligence as the defining marker for European, and therefore white superiority, over Blacks and therefore Africans is most revealing.
A précis of the Bell Curve starts with the issue of IQ Tests and the fact that Murray and Hernstein claimed that this test measures an essential human quality – general intelligence. They then postulate that advances in the “civilized, developed world(s)” during the 20th century created the conditions for this quality to assume overriding importance. Over a period of time, they argue, intelligence has been acted upon by the transformation of society and the class system to realize a concentration at the top of business, government and the professions.
Since Africa in particular (and by inference Third World nations in general) did not go through this developmental transformation then by this natural selective process of human and social development then “general intelligence” in Africa was thus stunted, undeveloped and underdeveloped as a consequence. Therefore, Africans are thus inferior to white people – through no fault of their own - based on “this science and a process of natural development.”
Dr. Watson’s inference to "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true" – Blacks not on par with whites when it comes to intelligence - is again like a page straight out of the Bell Curve. Both points of view suggest that Blacks are overrepresented among the unintelligent because of their life station(s) and their lagging behind whites in human and social developments.
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