Watson’s Nobel Prize Medal for Decoding DNA Fetches $4.1M at an Auction • Hacker News Board

Re: Watson’s Nobel Prize Medal for Decoding DNA Fetches $4.1M at an Auction

#41

Post by tomp » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 10:04 AM UTC

tinco wrote: post #34

seekingtruth wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That something someone says makes you feel bad or is used by others to justify ideas or actions you find loathsome does not make that person or what he said wrong. Your skin color and height are highly heritable attributes and it is by no means an outrageous assertion to state that intelligence is as well. Some estimates for heritability of intelligence are as high as 0.8. [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritab…

It's irrelevant whether intelligence is an inheritable trait or not. You can not say 'all Asians are short' nor 'all Africans are black' as they simply aren't all, nor does the precise number or accuracy give you indication about the traits of any single person. Watson is under the blatantly false impression that his statement have statistical merit when they clearly don't. He was simply wrong and should not have spo…

> You can not say 'all Asians are short' nor 'all Africans are black' as they simply aren't all, nor does the precise number or accuracy give you indication about the traits of any single person. Watson is under the blatantly false impression that his statement have statistical merit when they clearly don't.

This is an intellectually dishonest interpretation of statistics and/or his claims. Saying "all Asians are short" is stupid, but saying "Asians are shorter than Europeans" is not; my interpretation of the statement is that Asians are in average (or even better, in median) shorter than Europeans, not that all Asians are shorter than any European (btw, I don't know if it's true, and I don't particularly care, but it very well could be, and it very well could be the reverse).

About race and intelligence, I don't think it's a controversial claim, at least in the US, that Asians are more intelligent than whites, who are in turn more intelligent than blacks. Now, the reasons for this are varied, and might nothing to do with race, but with history (e.g. Asians are descendants of immigrants who were driven to succeed, while blacks are descendants of slaves, who grew up in poor neighborhoods). Why would you object to the second claim, but not the first one?

Re: Watson’s Nobel Prize Medal for Decoding DNA Fetches $4.1M at an Auction

#42

Post by tomp » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 10:05 AM UTC

aikah wrote: post #32

seekingtruth wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That something someone says makes you feel bad or is used by others to justify ideas or actions you find loathsome does not make that person or what he said wrong. Your skin color and height are highly heritable attributes and it is by no means an outrageous assertion to state that intelligence is as well. Some estimates for heritability of intelligence are as high as 0.8. [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritab…

Not going to discuss with a a throwaway account. You can go back to /r/greatapes and have fun with your racist pals.

Using throwaway accounts makes sense for discussing controversial topics that people could use to e.g. damage your career.

Re: Watson’s Nobel Prize Medal for Decoding DNA Fetches $4.1M at an Auction

#43

Post by tinco » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 10:20 AM UTC

tomp wrote: post #41

tinco wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's irrelevant whether intelligence is an inheritable trait or not. You can not say 'all Asians are short' nor 'all Africans are black' as they simply aren't all, nor does the precise number or accuracy give you indication about the traits of any single person. Watson is under the blatantly false impression that his statement have statistical merit when they clearly don't. He was simply wrong and should not have spo…

> You can not say 'all Asians are short' nor 'all Africans are black' as they simply aren't all, nor does the precise number or accuracy give you indication about the traits of any single person. Watson is under the blatantly false impression that his statement have statistical merit when they clearly don't. This is an intellectually dishonest interpretation of statistics and/or his claims. Saying "all Asians are sho…

I would object to both claims, because you, very much like Watson, seem to not grasp the idea that you can not simply drop a quantifier and assume people will interpret it as 'on average', this is simply not how the English language works. When Watson says "any person who has to deal with Black employees will know" he is implying that it is expected for any black employee to be dumb, whether he meant for that expectation or not. And frankly I believe he knows damn well how his language is interpreted and just hides behind his statistics to give his bigotry the illusion of merit.

Re: Watson’s Nobel Prize Medal for Decoding DNA Fetches $4.1M at an Auction

#44

Post by shamney » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 10:22 AM UTC

shamney wrote: post #39

jjoonathan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He established his reputation as a jerk independently of selling the medal. Here are some quotes: > [I am] inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa [because] all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really. He's flat out wrong about what "all the testing" says, btw. We're not just bashing someone for speaking a politically unpopul…

Why is he "flat out wrong" about the testing? African intelligence scores are much lower.

why would someone downvote this? I'm simply pointing out facts. For example, see this paper by Wicherts et al [1]: "Our estimate of average IQ converges with the finding that national IQs of sub-Saharan African countries as predicted from several international studies of student achievement are around 82."

[1]http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl/wicherts2010IQAFR.pdf

Re: Watson’s Nobel Prize Medal for Decoding DNA Fetches $4.1M at an Auction

#45

Post by tomp » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 10:31 AM UTC

tinco wrote: post #43

tomp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can not say 'all Asians are short' nor 'all Africans are black' as they simply aren't all, nor does the precise number or accuracy give you indication about the traits of any single person. Watson is under the blatantly false impression that his statement have statistical merit when they clearly don't. This is an intellectually dishonest interpretation of statistics and/or his claims. Saying "all Asians are sho…

I would object to both claims, because you, very much like Watson, seem to not grasp the idea that you can not simply drop a quantifier and assume people will interpret it as 'on average', this is simply not how the English language works. When Watson says "any person who has to deal with Black employees will know" he is implying that it is expected for any black employee to be dumb, whether he meant for that expecta…

On the one hand, you're totally right, I always interpret such statements as "in average" (or some other statistical quantifier, but definitely not "all"), and I don't know how other people understand it. On the other hand, I have never seen (in online discussions/articles that I read) object to the idea that Asians are smarter than whites (in the US) (except you), or call the statement bigoted/racist; in contrary, I would consider it fact (again, with appropriate quantifiers), and the discussion seems to be focused on how to deal with this fact (e.g. negative racial discrimination for Asians in universities).

Re: Watson’s Nobel Prize Medal for Decoding DNA Fetches $4.1M at an Auction

#46

Post by seekingtruth » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 10:32 AM UTC

shamney wrote: post #44

shamney wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is he "flat out wrong" about the testing? African intelligence scores are much lower.

why would someone downvote this? I'm simply pointing out facts. For example, see this paper by Wicherts et al [1]: "Our estimate of average IQ converges with the finding that national IQs of sub-Saharan African countries as predicted from several international studies of student achievement are around 82." [1] http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl/wicherts2010IQAFR.pdf

I'm getting downvoted for linking to Wikipedia. Facts don't matter on this topic.

Re: Watson’s Nobel Prize Medal for Decoding DNA Fetches $4.1M at an Auction

#47

Post by shamney » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 10:43 AM UTC

seekingtruth wrote: post #46

shamney wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would someone downvote this? I'm simply pointing out facts. For example, see this paper by Wicherts et al [1]: "Our estimate of average IQ converges with the finding that national IQs of sub-Saharan African countries as predicted from several international studies of student achievement are around 82." [1] http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl/wicherts2010IQAFR.pdf

I'm getting downvoted for linking to Wikipedia. Facts don't matter on this topic.

the downvotes are quite amazing. this is just a basic factual matter -- nothing to do with whether watson's broader claims are true -- yet it seems some people are simply incapable of dealing with reality...

Re: Watson’s Nobel Prize Medal for Decoding DNA Fetches $4.1M at an Auction

#48

Post by tinco » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 10:43 AM UTC

tomp wrote: post #45

tinco wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would object to both claims, because you, very much like Watson, seem to not grasp the idea that you can not simply drop a quantifier and assume people will interpret it as 'on average', this is simply not how the English language works. When Watson says "any person who has to deal with Black employees will know" he is implying that it is expected for any black employee to be dumb, whether he meant for that expecta…

On the one hand, you're totally right, I always interpret such statements as "in average" (or some other statistical quantifier, but definitely not "all"), and I don't know how other people understand it. On the other hand, I have never seen (in online discussions/articles that I read) object to the idea that Asians are smarter than whites (in the US) (except you), or call the statement bigoted/racist; in contrary, I…

Well I have my own beliefs of course, and they might taint my rationality in accepting such statements. Still it's good to be vigilant, it might be true that Asians on average perform better at certain tests at a certain age, this might not at all mean they were born more intelligent and might only correlate with their upbringing and the expectancies of the world around them.

Also, I think universities have the job to yield brilliant researchers, inventors and engineers. I don't think any racial prejudice would be a very fundamental way of working towards that goal, so I'd rather they not do it, even if it means whites would rarely be accepted.

Of course, that whole problem might be caused by their entry exams not being a very good way of selecting for their goal, but that's me as a hopeful white person :p

Re: Watson’s Nobel Prize Medal for Decoding DNA Fetches $4.1M at an Auction

#49

Post by waps » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 3:29 PM UTC

kendallpark wrote: post #23

waps wrote: post #3

"Decoding DNA" is such a bad name. He figured out the double helix. DNA isn't decoded yet. Genes have a preamble, and postamble, and we have very little idea what they mean, we only know what compounds are "requested" by the codons in the middle of the gene. There are large "empty" parts in chromosomes (not just the telomeres), and while we know they're not optional, exactly what they're for is anyone's guess. Furthe…

> What we know as the double helix, what everybody thinks of as DNA, is really a picture of sex (or "conception" if you want to get technical. That's why we have sex of course). DNA only occurs in that form during reproduction (could be cell, or organism reproduction of course, though during cell (asexual) reproduction it's only present for a few seconds at best, during sexual reproduction it exists for a few minutes…

In the chromatin network there's no double helix, because it's always mostly unrolled and various things are bound to it. It looks a lot more like a ladder.

The double helix as analyzed only exists as part of chromosomes.

Re: Watson’s Nobel Prize Medal for Decoding DNA Fetches $4.1M at an Auction

#50

Post by vixen99 » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 4:42 PM UTC

baker0 wrote: post #8

This is a simplified argument but if you gave any adolescent group an assignment to study and argue the Talmud, then I think they'd naturally grow into inquisitive-minded individuals well versed in critical thinking. It seems clear that the intellectual success of European Jews is directly related to their cultural upbringing and academic endeavors. I doubt anyone has ever suggested otherwise. The fact that 27% of No…

Non Jewish, non-prize winner here! If culture and this 'ton of hard work' is such a winning strategy why hasn't it been emulated by other groups of people. The Jewish achievement is extraordinary: twelve million out of six billion winning 32% of Nobel Prizes in the 21st century! And this is supposed to be down to hard work and culture? Strange how a vast range of characteristics are known to be determined by our genes but apparently, intellectual eminence cannot possibly be linked to genes. What is remarkable is the determination with which folk set their face against considering any such interpretation. What are they scared of?