Every now and then, a respected voice in one science makes controversial remarks in another for which he has no particular training or experience. I refer to the comments by Nobel Laureate Watson documented below in

Uh oh - Hot water suits him - Eri - 10/18/2007 4:10:24 PM

I feel compelled to expand on some of my remarks there, and I feel a separate thread is approriate. As I tried to insinuate there, the aspects of racism which seem so obvious to the racist, can just as easily be applied to his own race, and can very often sound identical to his own comments and prejudices. As I pointed out, the perceived characteristics of Southern whites which so negatively impressed my family sounded suspiciously similar to some Cracker opinions of my own heritage. This alone should warn us that culture, not race, may be the issue here. Cubans, after all, do not feel the same way about native Spaniards, who are of primarily Celtic stock and are physically indistinguishable from the Scots or the Irish which contributed so predominantly to Southern whites. Creole Cubans have their own prejudices about Spaniards, but that's another story altogether.

In relation to blacks and whites, the truth is that they are not really all that different. The traits of skin color and physiognomy stand out dramatically to the eye, but they are superficial. Has anyone considered deeper physiological and genetic differences and compared them to other races, such as Amerinds or Asians? As for the anecdotal evidence, that works both way. My own experience living in Puerto Rico convinced me that PuertoRicaness trumped race, the society was about as free of racism as any I've experienced, and when dealing with Puerto Ricans, one soon forgot whether they were black or white. It simply made no difference.There was no separate black and white cultural difference, as exists in this country.

I've also wondered what it would have been like to live in Spain during the Moorish occupation from Muslim North Africa. In that society, it was the Negro (Moors were not ethnically Arab) that had the civilization, the large cities, the advanced organization and the tolerant civil culture. The blond and red-haired Spanish knights were medieval brutes, basically, biker gangs on horseback ruling over an impoverished and oppressed peasantry.

I do agree with some critics that it is now politically impossible to do serious scientific work on differences in intelligence between the races; which is sad because there may be indeed differences which can be detected by research and which may be useful to know. However, I am convinced that cultural biases in the tests make such tests very iffy. I also suspect that if such tests can be devised to be bias-free, we may be very shocked as to what they eventually reveal. As it is now, preliminary results will either be swept under the rug if they are "incorrect", or greatly exaggerated if they meet someone's racist requirements.

The racist agenda is not restricted to black/white, or even white/non-white. The English have historically considered the Scots and the Irish as basically sub-human, even more so than the French and Germans which they grudgingly respect even though they despise them. And the English, that magnificent and utterly racist nation, has always sneered at the contemporay wogs (Mediterraneans) while idolizing their accomplishments during Classical times. The fact that Britons once painted themselves blue and were ruled for centuries by Italians seems to be conveniently forgotten. Alas, many of those prejudices survived the immigration to the New World intact, as our own history shows us. The one thing all racists DO have in common is how similar their opinions are of the communities they despise. I hope my pointing that out to you in my post below helped bring that out.

But before I'm accused of being just another bleeding-heart Kumbaya liberal, let me make it perfectly clear that I personally have my own prejudices and biases, and I'm proud of 'em.. But I do not pre-judge someone by their genetics, but by their culture. People are taught to be bad, they are not born that way. I believe all cultures have their good and bad points, but I also believe some cultures are superior to others, and some are decadent and corrupt. A few are downright foul and evil. I won't bother revealing here which ones they are. In my defense, I try to base my judgements on average characteristics, and try to avoid painting individuals with the broad brush. There are always individual exceptions in every group, whether it be fundamentally positive or negative in aggregation.