http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2195579,00.html

Failed asylum seekers are to be offered an extra £500 to return home in
the wake of figures showing the number of removals is at its lowest
level for five years.

The changes announced by the International Organisation for Migration,
which runs the £22m-a-year reintegration scheme, will provide a flexible
package of support in cash and in kind to help those who go home to
start up their own businesses, go through further education or take up a
job.

So far 24,000 failed asylum seekers have gone home from Britain under
the Voluntary Assistance Return Programme, which was set up in 1999 and
is jointly funded by the Home Office and the European Refugee Fund.
Currently about 600 are taking up the offer every month, and in total
about one-third of all failed asylum seekers have been sent home in this
way.

Under the present system a £500 cash relocation grant is paid at the
airport for each member of the family going home and a £1,000
reintegration package paid in kind is made available to help set up a
business or in other ways ensure their return home is "sustainable".
About 80% use the aid to start a business and all are given help in
getting travel documents and buying flight tickets.

The new approach announced yesterday includes boosting the £1,000
package to £1,500 and making it more flexible to cover an individually
agreed return plan. The aid could be used for short-term accommodation
costs, to cover part of an annual salary bill for a job or even
contribute to the costs of children's schooling. A further new element
is the potential for a further £500-worth of assistance six months after
the failed asylum seeker has returned home to keep a new business going.

A Home Office spokesman said the new approach to voluntary returns
represented good value for money against the cost of enforcing a return
through deportation. He added that further potential savings would be
made through not having to provide support and accommodation while still
in Britain. Those who had to be forcibly removed did not receive such
help.

The Home Office announcement was criticised by the shadow home
secretary, David Davis, who said it was extraordinary that the
government was having to "bribe" asylum seekers to return home.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/21/nhomes121.xml

The number of people living in the United Kingdom will exceed 75 million
by the middle of the century, population experts now believe.

Rising immigration, a higher birthrate among migrant families and longer
lifespans are on course to lift the population by at least 15 million by
2051, from last year's 60 million total. There are fears it could even
hit 77 million.

The increase will be the equivalent of building two new cities the size
of London. It will place enormous demands on housing, transport and
public services, and will bring a dramatic change to the nation's ethnic
mix.

The projection, expected to be confirmed by government population
experts this week, represents a big increase from the last prediction,
in 2005, which showed the UK's population rising to 69 million by 2051.
The new figure will fuel the debate over Labour's policy on immigration
controls.

Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, has signalled a toughening of the
regime by pointing to "the need for swift and sweeping changes to the
immigration system". Last night, the Tories renewed their call for a cap
on the intake of migrant workers from outside the European Union.

Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, said: "We can't go on
like this. Increasing the population gradually is one thing, but a
headlong, unplanned rise is creating problems for public services and
possible social tensions. This needs urgent action from the Government."

Official forecasts of UK population growth are produced every two years
by the Government Actuary's Department. They are used in Whitehall to
plan public spending.

The dramatic change to a two-year-old forecast will be a new blow to
official statisticians, already under fire for their inability to count
accurately the number of incoming migrants. Mervyn King, the Governor of
the Bank of England, has complained that the poor quality of official
statistics is hindering his efforts to steer the economy.

The extra anticipated growth is due to revised predictions for
immigration rates, birthrates and longevity. The "underlying
assumptions" on which the new projection will be based were published
last month by the Office for National Statistics.

David Coleman, professor of demography at Oxford University, said the
new official projection was likely to show the UK's population reaching
69 million in 2031 and 75 million in 2051. His calculation, disclosed in
a memo to the House of Lords economic affairs committee, factors in only
the revised migration and birthrate figures. The revised longevity could
push the 2051 forecast as high as 77 million.

Prof Coleman told peers that the proportion of the population that is
non-white was on course to grow from 9 per cent at the last census in
2001 to 29 per cent in 2051.

However, forecasting population growth is fraught with difficulty
because it depends on the interaction of several unknowns over a period
of decades. Even small changes in the birthrate or annual migration
levels can have a big impact when forecasters look a long way ahead.

Last month, official statisticians raised their long-term estimate for
annual net migration to the UK from 145,000 to 190,000. The move
followed two years in which record numbers came seeking work here after
the 2004 EU expansion.

A baby boom among immigrant women has forced the statisticians to raise
their estimate for the birthrate of the entire population.

Women are now expected to have, on average, 1.84 babies each during
their lives, compared with an expectation of only 1.74 two years ago.
Foreign-born women living in the UK have, on average, 2.2 children.
Pakistani-born women living here have an average of 4.7, whereas
British-born women have only 1.6. Last year, 22 per cent of UK births
were to foreign-born women.

The rapidly growing population will increase demand for housing, putting
pressure on green-belt land and shoring up property prices for years to
come. Gordon Brown has promised three million new homes by 2020, yet the
new forecast suggests that the population by that year will be five
million higher than today. A trend for more young people to live alone
is also expanding the number of new households.

Rising population numbers will also require the building of new schools
and hospitals. A bigger tax base will provide the necessary finances.
The arrival of working-age migrants and the increase in the birthrate
will postpone the "demographic time bomb" - when the number of
pensioners becomes too large for the workforce to support.

Prof Coleman told peers: "The impact of an additional 15 million people
would obviously be considerable: economic, environmental, social and
ethnic…

"The absent-minded commitment into which we have drifted, to house a
further 15 million people, must be the biggest unintended consequence of
government policy of almost any century. As it is by no means
unavoidable, being almost entirely dependent upon continued immigration,
it might be thought worthy of discussion. In official circles, there has
been none."

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2195980,00.html

Nobel Prize winner James Watson has flown home to America with the
taunts of his critics ringing in his ears. But should he have been
shunned after his explosive remarks on race?

It should have been an evening of quiet, contemplative pleasure. In one
of the more elegant side rooms of the Royal Society, whose grand
headquarters overlook The Mall and St James's Park, Jim Watson had
gathered a few friends and a handful of journalists to celebrate the
launch of his latest book, Avoid Boring People

Watson was anything but happy, however. Indeed, according to most people
at the event, he looked completely shattered. The scientist who, with
Francis Crick, had discovered the structure of DNA and revolutionised
modern biology, and who is revered as one of the greatest scientists of
his day, was shaking badly. He rambled, paused and then rambled again as
he talked to friends. Finally he produced a prepared statement and began
reading it out to the assembled journalists.

He could only apologise 'unreservedly', the statement said, for his
assertion, published last Sunday, that he thought black people were less
intelligent than white. 'This is not what I meant.'

Then Watson hesitated, returned to his script and finally wandered off
his topic completely to end up, bizarrely, describing the behaviour of
the San bushmen of Botswana. 'It was a tragic sight,' said one guest.

It is not hard to understand why Watson was so distraught, of course.
His remarks, which by Wednesday had made front-page headlines across
Britain, had attracted a fusillade of abuse from scientists, politicians
and equality campaigners. 'It is a shame that a man with a record of
scientific distinction should see his work overshadowed by his own
irrational prejudices,' said David Lammy, the Skills Minister. London
mayor Ken Livingstone fulminated in a similar manner: 'Such ignorant
comments...are utterly offensive and give succour to the most backward
in our society.'

Worse was to follow. The Science Museum cancelled a sell-out meeting it
had planned to hold to honour 79-year-old Watson on the grounds that his
remarks had gone 'beyond the point of acceptable debate'. Several other
centres scheduled to host his talks followed suit.

After the Royal Society meeting, Watson and his wife returned to their
hotel, Claridge's, where they learned that the scientist's employers,
the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, had just disowned his
remarks. The next morning, it emerged the laboratory had also suspended
Watson as its chancellor. Enough was enough, the scientist announced. 'I
am going home to try to save my job.' By Friday afternoon he was back in
New York and was heading for Cold Spring Harbor. His chances of
remaining chancellor there look slim.

It is, by any standards, a depressing story. One of the world's most
distinguished scientists has fled from the country, his reputation and
his academic future left in tatters. As a tale of intellectual hubris,
it is hard to beat.

But the fall of Jim Watson goes beyond mere personal tragedy. It also
raises key issues of immediate concern. The first is simple: is there
any evidence there are major differences in the intellectual potential
of races? The second is more complex: how should we react when a
scientist of Watson's standing makes such provocative remarks?

In the first case, most scientists have quickly jumped into the furore
to dismantle the idea that significant intellectual differences exist
between Africans and others. 'Defining intelligence is complex and there
are many forms of intelligence, not all of which are captured by IQ
tests,' said the Oxford neurologist Colin Blakemore. 'In any case, it
would be as unethical to organise society around some numerical
indicator of difference as it would to do so on the basis of skin
colour.'

Other scientists point out that our species is so young - Homo sapiens
emerged from its African homeland only 100,000 years ago - that it
simply has not had time to evolve any significant differences in
intellectual capacity as its various groups of people have spread round
the globe and settled in different regions. Only the most superficial
differences - notably skin colour - separate the world's different
population groupings. Underneath that skin, people are remarkably alike.

This argument does not reject the idea that notable variations in
intellect exist between individuals, but it stresses that these
differences exist within racial groups, not between them. Judging a man
or woman by the colour of their skin will get you nowhere, in other
words. As Craig Venter, who pioneered much of America's work in decoding
the human genome, put it: 'There is no basis in scientific fact or in
the human gene code for the notion that skin colour will be predictive
of intelligence.'

The second issue raised by his claims is far more vexed. How should we
react to claims such as those made by Watson? Lammy, Livingstone and
other politicians urged he should be silenced on the grounds that his
views would only give succour to Britain's racist fringe - as indeed
they have. By Thursday, as Watson was making his mumbled Royal Society
apology, he was being hailed as the New Galileo by the BNP. Those who
objected so virulently to the science behind racism were 'simply denying
the facts of science and stand in the same position as those Catholic
theologians who offered Galileo the choice of recantation or the stake',
claimed a BNP website article.

Certainly Watson was extraordinarily naive. But was it right to cancel
public meetings at which he could be called to account for his views?
Senior staff at the Science Museum in London clearly thought so, as they
did at the Bristol Cultural Development Department Partnership, which
was set to host a public meeting with Watson this week. They, too,
decided not to hold their meeting on the grounds that the scientist's
views were 'unacceptably provocative'.

Not every centre scheduled to host public meetings with Watson took this
view, however. The Centre for Life in Newcastle said it would go ahead
with its meeting, scheduled to have been held today, on the grounds that
it would provide the public with the chance to question the scientist
and then make up its own mind about his claims. 'We had some calls
expressing misgivings about our decision to welcome Watson, but most
people supported us. We were going to give him a robust but fair hearing
and let people decide for themselves,' said a spokesman.

In the end, Watson's decided to return home, so no meetings occurred, a
move that has dismayed many scientists who believed that it was vital
Watson confront his critics and his public. 'What is ethically wrong is
the hounding, by what can only be described as an illiberal and
intolerant "thought police", of one of the most distinguished scientists
of our time, out of the Science Museum, and maybe out of the laboratory
that he has devoted much of his life to, building up a world-class
reputation,' said Richard Dawkins, who been due to conduct a public
interview with Watson this week in Oxford.

Dawkins's stance was supported by Blakemore. 'Jim Watson is well known
for being provocative and politically incorrect. But it would be a sad
world if such a distinguished scientist was silenced because of his more
unpalatable views.'

This last remark goes to the heart of the issue. Watson is renowned for
his controversial views. He sees himself as a free-thinker, though it
must be admitted his ideas often simply seem eccentric. In 1997, he
suggested it would be acceptable to terminate a foetus if it carried a
gene that might mean the adult that grows from it was gay. He has also
suggested a link between sunlight and libido. 'That is why you have
Latin lovers. You've never heard of an English lover,' he said. And
Watson has also proposed that a foetus destined to be 'stupid' should be
aborted.

Such maverick remarks led the journal Science to conclude, in 1990, that
'to many in the scientific community, Watson has long been something of
a wild man, and his colleagues tend to hold their collective breath
whenever he veers from the script'. This track record explains one
intriguing feature of the Watson affair. Although the Sunday Times
carried the interview in which the scientist outlined his disparaging
views about black people, the paper kept his remarks buried in its
colour magazine.

A story was offered to the Sunday Times newsdesk by magazine staff, but
was declined on the grounds that Watson had said such things in the
past, as indeed he had. Thus it was left to Simon Kelner, editor of the
Independent, to take Watson's claims and to run them as its lead story
on Wednesday, under the banner: 'Africans are less intelligent that
Westerners, says DNA pioneer'. In this way, Watson's fate was sealed.

But while it is obvious that the scientist holds some fairly illiberal
views on certain issues, it is also clear he has acted in a courageous,
progressive manner on other issues. When he was director of America's
human genome project, he fought bitterly to prevent the US government
from adopting a policy that would allow it to patent human genetic
material discovered by project scientists in order to exploit them as
sources of new drugs and medicines. The idea was 'lunacy', said Watson,
the equivalent of applying for ownership of the laws of nature. When he
realised he was losing the battle, he simply handed in his resignation.

Nor is it at all clear that Watson is a racist, a point stressed last
week by the Pulitzer-winning biologist E O Wilson, of Harvard
University. In his autobiography, Naturalist, Wilson originally
described Watson, fresh from his Nobel success, arriving at Harvard's
biology department and 'radiating contempt' for the rest of the staff.
He was 'the most unpleasant human being I had ever met,' Wilson
recalled. 'Having risen to fame at an early age, [he] became the
Caligula of biology. He was given licence to say anything that came into
his mind and expected to be taken seriously. And unfortunately he did
so, with casual and brutal offhandedness.'

That is a fairly grim description, to say the least. However, there is a
twist. There has been a rapprochement. 'We have become firm friends,'
Wilson told The Observer last week. 'Today we are the two grand old men
of biology in America and get on really well. I certainly don't see him
as a Caligula figure any more. I have come to see him as a very
intelligent, straight, honest individual. Of course, he would never get
a job as a diplomat in the State Department. He is just too outspoken.
But one thing I am absolutely sure of is that he is not a racist. I am
shocked at what has happened to him.'

As to Watson's own prospects today, those can only be described as
unpromising. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's campus is set in rolling
wooded hills on the north shore of Long Island, dotted with buildings
set amid the trees turning bright orange and red as autumn sets in.

Executives there have already revealed just how seriously they are
taking the Watson case and on Friday triggered a compete PR lockdown at
the campus: students and staff were warned not to talk to journalists,
security guards were on the lookout for unannounced reporters and
interlopers were picked up and taken to the campus PR department.

However, some students and staff did speak and expressed surprise at
Watson's remarks. 'It is all a bit of a shock. I suppose it is possible
that he was misquoted, but it is still shocking. The whole thing is just
amazing that anyone would say something like that,' said Louis Nguyen, a
graduate student taking courses on the campus and whose college is
affiliated with Cold Spring. Some members of staff were also upset at
the furore surrounding Watson.

'I agree with what the college has done so far in suspending Watson.
They acted well. It may be that he has to lose his job. That is a really
serious thing to say,' said Jean Wang, a science technician at the
college.

Responsibility for dealing with the PR crisis fell to Jim Bono. On
Friday, the director of the college's public affairs unit acknowledged
there had been a massive interest in the incident. 'We are getting phone
calls from all over the planet,' he said. Given the nature of Watson's
comments, that was not surprising.

However, Bono would not be drawn on a timetable for further action or
the outcome of the board's deliberations on Watson's future. 'The
leadership [of Cold Spring] continues [its] debates. The leadership has
been working around the clock and has been deeply involved in dealing
with this situation,' he said.

It sounds ominous. Nevertheless, the laboratory's behaviour has been
supported in the local Long Island press. America is facing a spate of
nooses being left in public places - including in Long Island: the noose
is a symbol of anti-black feeling and intended to rouse memories of
lynching. The prospects of a return to such extremism alarms authorities
and commentators alike.

Hence a thundering editorial in Newsday, Long Island's main newspaper:
'The lab condemned its chancellor and key fundraiser, but that statement
and Watson's apology yesterday will probably not be enough. He has to
go.'

Thus Watson - who today should have been accepting a warm welcome from
his public at Newcastle's Centre for Life - now finds himself at home,
alone and in trouble. His reputation as a brilliant, radical thinker has
been transformed in a few days into that of an unstable maverick. The
stain on his career is unlikely ever to be washed clean.

James Dewey Watson - The CV

Born in Chicago, Illinois, on 6 April 1928, Watson was a precocious
child who gained a place at Chicago University aged just 15. He
graduated with a zoology degree in 1947.

In October 1951 he arrived at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, to
carry out genetics research and met Francis Crick. They struck up a
friendship that became one of the most famous partnerships in science
and led them, in 1953, to the discovery that DNA, from which human genes
are made, has a double helix structure.

In 1962, the pair - with Maurice Wilkins, of King's College London -
were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for this work. Six years later
Watson published his racy account of the DNA story in The Double Helix.
Dropped by its original publisher amid objections by Crick, Wilkins and
others, its opening sentence was: 'I have never seen Francis Crick in a
modest mood.' It became a bestseller and the basis of the 1987 TV film
Life Story, in which Jeff Goldblum played Watson and Tim Pigott-Smith
Crick.

In 1988 Watson was made head of the US Human Genome Project, America's
arm of the international programme for sequencing human DNA. Four years
later he resigned over US plans to try to take out patents on gene
sequences discovered by US scientists, saying 'the human genome belongs
to the world's people'.

He was suspended last week as Chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory, Long Island.

The week that ruined Watson's reputation

14 October The Sunday Times Magazine publishes an interview with Dr
James Watson. He says he is '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'.

His hope is that everyone is equal but says that 'people who have to
deal with black employees find this is not true'.

17 October The front page of the Independent runs a story on Watson's
theory with the headline 'Africans are less intelligent than Westerners
says DNA pioneer'. It creates a furore.

18 October The Science Museum cancels Watson's talk planned for 19
October. In a statement, the museum says 'James Watson's recent comments
have gone beyond the point of acceptable debate'.

At a launch for his book at the Royal Society in London, Watson
withdraws the words attributed to him: 'To all those who have drawn the
inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow
genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly.'

19 October Watson seeks to justify his theory that there is a genetic
basis behind differences in IQ in an interview with the Independent.

20 October Watson is forced to return to New York after his employers at
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Long Island, suspend him from his duties
because of his apparent views.

"Steve Greene" <stephen_greene.@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:96clh3p0tbct3auko43ftuages5uoa6ou2@4ax.com...
> http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2195980,00.html
>
> Nobel Prize winner James Watson has flown home to America with the
> taunts of his critics ringing in his ears. But should he have been
> shunned after his explosive remarks on race?
>
> It should have been an evening of quiet, contemplative pleasure. In one
> of the more elegant side rooms of the Royal Society, whose grand
> headquarters overlook The Mall and St James's Park, Jim Watson had
> gathered a few friends and a handful of journalists to celebrate the
> launch of his latest book, Avoid Boring People
>
> Watson was anything but happy, however. Indeed, according to most people
> at the event, he looked completely shattered. The scientist who, with
> Francis Crick, had discovered the structure of DNA and revolutionised
> modern biology, and who is revered as one of the greatest scientists of
> his day, was shaking badly. He rambled, paused and then rambled again as
> he talked to friends. Finally he produced a prepared statement and began
> reading it out to the assembled journalists.
>
> He could only apologise 'unreservedly', the statement said, for his
> assertion, published last Sunday, that he thought black people were less
> intelligent than white. 'This is not what I meant.'
>
> Then Watson hesitated, returned to his script and finally wandered off
> his topic completely to end up, bizarrely, describing the behaviour of
> the San bushmen of Botswana. 'It was a tragic sight,' said one guest.
>
> It is not hard to understand why Watson was so distraught, of course.
> His remarks, which by Wednesday had made front-page headlines across
> Britain, had attracted a fusillade of abuse from scientists, politicians
> and equality campaigners. 'It is a shame that a man with a record of
> scientific distinction should see his work overshadowed by his own
> irrational prejudices,' said David Lammy, the Skills Minister. London
> mayor Ken Livingstone fulminated in a similar manner: 'Such ignorant
> comments...are utterly offensive and give succour to the most backward
> in our society.'
>
> Worse was to follow. The Science Museum cancelled a sell-out meeting it
> had planned to hold to honour 79-year-old Watson on the grounds that his
> remarks had gone 'beyond the point of acceptable debate'. Several other
> centres scheduled to host his talks followed suit.
>
> After the Royal Society meeting, Watson and his wife returned to their
> hotel, Claridge's, where they learned that the scientist's employers,
> the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, had just disowned his
> remarks. The next morning, it emerged the laboratory had also suspended
> Watson as its chancellor. Enough was enough, the scientist announced. 'I
> am going home to try to save my job.' By Friday afternoon he was back in
> New York and was heading for Cold Spring Harbor. His chances of
> remaining chancellor there look slim.
>
> It is, by any standards, a depressing story. One of the world's most
> distinguished scientists has fled from the country, his reputation and
> his academic future left in tatters. As a tale of intellectual hubris,
> it is hard to beat.
>
> But the fall of Jim Watson goes beyond mere personal tragedy. It also
> raises key issues of immediate concern. The first is simple: is there
> any evidence there are major differences in the intellectual potential
> of races? The second is more complex: how should we react when a
> scientist of Watson's standing makes such provocative remarks?
>
> In the first case, most scientists have quickly jumped into the furore
> to dismantle the idea that significant intellectual differences exist
> between Africans and others. 'Defining intelligence is complex and there
> are many forms of intelligence, not all of which are captured by IQ
> tests,' said the Oxford neurologist Colin Blakemore. 'In any case, it
> would be as unethical to organise society around some numerical
> indicator of difference as it would to do so on the basis of skin
> colour.'
>
> Other scientists point out that our species is so young - Homo sapiens
> emerged from its African homeland only 100,000 years ago - that it
> simply has not had time to evolve any significant differences in
> intellectual capacity as its various groups of people have spread round
> the globe and settled in different regions. Only the most superficial
> differences - notably skin colour - separate the world's different
> population groupings. Underneath that skin, people are remarkably alike.
>
> This argument does not reject the idea that notable variations in
> intellect exist between individuals, but it stresses that these
> differences exist within racial groups, not between them. Judging a man
> or woman by the colour of their skin will get you nowhere, in other
> words. As Craig Venter, who pioneered much of America's work in decoding
> the human genome, put it: 'There is no basis in scientific fact or in
> the human gene code for the notion that skin colour will be predictive
> of intelligence.'
>
> The second issue raised by his claims is far more vexed. How should we
> react to claims such as those made by Watson? Lammy, Livingstone and
> other politicians urged he should be silenced on the grounds that his
> views would only give succour to Britain's racist fringe - as indeed
> they have. By Thursday, as Watson was making his mumbled Royal Society
> apology, he was being hailed as the New Galileo by the BNP. Those who
> objected so virulently to the science behind racism were 'simply denying
> the facts of science and stand in the same position as those Catholic
> theologians who offered Galileo the choice of recantation or the stake',
> claimed a BNP website article.
>
> Certainly Watson was extraordinarily naive. But was it right to cancel
> public meetings at which he could be called to account for his views?
> Senior staff at the Science Museum in London clearly thought so, as they
> did at the Bristol Cultural Development Department Partnership, which
> was set to host a public meeting with Watson this week. They, too,
> decided not to hold their meeting on the grounds that the scientist's
> views were 'unacceptably provocative'.
>
> Not every centre scheduled to host public meetings with Watson took this
> view, however. The Centre for Life in Newcastle said it would go ahead
> with its meeting, scheduled to have been held today, on the grounds that
> it would provide the public with the chance to question the scientist
> and then make up its own mind about his claims. 'We had some calls
> expressing misgivings about our decision to welcome Watson, but most
> people supported us. We were going to give him a robust but fair hearing
> and let people decide for themselves,' said a spokesman.
>
> In the end, Watson's decided to return home, so no meetings occurred, a
> move that has dismayed many scientists who believed that it was vital
> Watson confront his critics and his public. 'What is ethically wrong is
> the hounding, by what can only be described as an illiberal and
> intolerant "thought police", of one of the most distinguished scientists
> of our time, out of the Science Museum, and maybe out of the laboratory
> that he has devoted much of his life to, building up a world-class
> reputation,' said Richard Dawkins, who been due to conduct a public
> interview with Watson this week in Oxford.
>
> Dawkins's stance was supported by Blakemore. 'Jim Watson is well known
> for being provocative and politically incorrect. But it would be a sad
> world if such a distinguished scientist was silenced because of his more
> unpalatable views.'
>
> This last remark goes to the heart of the issue. Watson is renowned for
> his controversial views. He sees himself as a free-thinker, though it
> must be admitted his ideas often simply seem eccentric. In 1997, he
> suggested it would be acceptable to terminate a foetus if it carried a
> gene that might mean the adult that grows from it was gay. He has also
> suggested a link between sunlight and libido. 'That is why you have
> Latin lovers. You've never heard of an English lover,' he said. And
> Watson has also proposed that a foetus destined to be 'stupid' should be
> aborted.
>
> Such maverick remarks led the journal Science to conclude, in 1990, that
> 'to many in the scientific community, Watson has long been something of
> a wild man, and his colleagues tend to hold their collective breath
> whenever he veers from the script'. This track record explains one
> intriguing feature of the Watson affair. Although the Sunday Times
> carried the interview in which the scientist outlined his disparaging
> views about black people, the paper kept his remarks buried in its
> colour magazine.
>
> A story was offered to the Sunday Times newsdesk by magazine staff, but
> was declined on the grounds that Watson had said such things in the
> past, as indeed he had. Thus it was left to Simon Kelner, editor of the
> Independent, to take Watson's claims and to run them as its lead story
> on Wednesday, under the banner: 'Africans are less intelligent that
> Westerners, says DNA pioneer'. In this way, Watson's fate was sealed.
>
> But while it is obvious that the scientist holds some fairly illiberal
> views on certain issues, it is also clear he has acted in a courageous,
> progressive manner on other issues. When he was director of America's
> human genome project, he fought bitterly to prevent the US government
> from adopting a policy that would allow it to patent human genetic
> material discovered by project scientists in order to exploit them as
> sources of new drugs and medicines. The idea was 'lunacy', said Watson,
> the equivalent of applying for ownership of the laws of nature. When he
> realised he was losing the battle, he simply handed in his resignation.
>
> Nor is it at all clear that Watson is a racist, a point stressed last
> week by the Pulitzer-winning biologist E O Wilson, of Harvard
> University. In his autobiography, Naturalist, Wilson originally
> described Watson, fresh from his Nobel success, arriving at Harvard's
> biology department and 'radiating contempt' for the rest of the staff.
> He was 'the most unpleasant human being I had ever met,' Wilson
> recalled. 'Having risen to fame at an early age, [he] became the
> Caligula of biology. He was given licence to say anything that came into
> his mind and expected to be taken seriously. And unfortunately he did
> so, with casual and brutal offhandedness.'
>
> That is a fairly grim description, to say the least. However, there is a
> twist. There has been a rapprochement. 'We have become firm friends,'
> Wilson told The Observer last week. 'Today we are the two grand old men
> of biology in America and get on really well. I certainly don't see him
> as a Caligula figure any more. I have come to see him as a very
> intelligent, straight, honest individual. Of course, he would never get
> a job as a diplomat in the State Department. He is just too outspoken.
> But one thing I am absolutely sure of is that he is not a racist. I am
> shocked at what has happened to him.'
>
> As to Watson's own prospects today, those can only be described as
> unpromising. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's campus is set in rolling
> wooded hills on the north shore of Long Island, dotted with buildings
> set amid the trees turning bright orange and red as autumn sets in.
>
> Executives there have already revealed just how seriously they are
> taking the Watson case and on Friday triggered a compete PR lockdown at
> the campus: students and staff were warned not to talk to journalists,
> security guards were on the lookout for unannounced reporters and
> interlopers were picked up and taken to the campus PR department.
>
> However, some students and staff did speak and expressed surprise at
> Watson's remarks. 'It is all a bit of a shock. I suppose it is possible
> that he was misquoted, but it is still shocking. The whole thing is just
> amazing that anyone would say something like that,' said Louis Nguyen, a
> graduate student taking courses on the campus and whose college is
> affiliated with Cold Spring. Some members of staff were also upset at
> the furore surrounding Watson.
>
> 'I agree with what the college has done so far in suspending Watson.
> They acted well. It may be that he has to lose his job. That is a really
> serious thing to say,' said Jean Wang, a science technician at the
> college.
>
> Responsibility for dealing with the PR crisis fell to Jim Bono. On
> Friday, the director of the college's public affairs unit acknowledged
> there had been a massive interest in the incident. 'We are getting phone
> calls from all over the planet,' he said. Given the nature of Watson's
> comments, that was not surprising.
>
> However, Bono would not be drawn on a timetable for further action or
> the outcome of the board's deliberations on Watson's future. 'The
> leadership [of Cold Spring] continues [its] debates. The leadership has
> been working around the clock and has been deeply involved in dealing
> with this situation,' he said.
>
> It sounds ominous. Nevertheless, the laboratory's behaviour has been
> supported in the local Long Island press. America is facing a spate of
> nooses being left in public places - including in Long Island: the noose
> is a symbol of anti-black feeling and intended to rouse memories of
> lynching. The prospects of a return to such extremism alarms authorities
> and commentators alike.
>
> Hence a thundering editorial in Newsday, Long Island's main newspaper:
> 'The lab condemned its chancellor and key fundraiser, but that statement
> and Watson's apology yesterday will probably not be enough. He has to
> go.'
>
> Thus Watson - who today should have been accepting a warm welcome from
> his public at Newcastle's Centre for Life - now finds himself at home,
> alone and in trouble. His reputation as a brilliant, radical thinker has
> been transformed in a few days into that of an unstable maverick. The
> stain on his career is unlikely ever to be washed clean.
>
> James Dewey Watson - The CV
>
> Born in Chicago, Illinois, on 6 April 1928, Watson was a precocious
> child who gained a place at Chicago University aged just 15. He
> graduated with a zoology degree in 1947.
>
> In October 1951 he arrived at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, to
> carry out genetics research and met Francis Crick. They struck up a
> friendship that became one of the most famous partnerships in science
> and led them, in 1953, to the discovery that DNA, from which human genes
> are made, has a double helix structure.
>
> In 1962, the pair - with Maurice Wilkins, of King's College London -
> were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for this work. Six years later
> Watson published his racy account of the DNA story in The Double Helix.
> Dropped by its original publisher amid objections by Crick, Wilkins and
> others, its opening sentence was: 'I have never seen Francis Crick in a
> modest mood.' It became a bestseller and the basis of the 1987 TV film
> Life Story, in which Jeff Goldblum played Watson and Tim Pigott-Smith
> Crick.
>
> In 1988 Watson was made head of the US Human Genome Project, America's
> arm of the international programme for sequencing human DNA. Four years
> later he resigned over US plans to try to take out patents on gene
> sequences discovered by US scientists, saying 'the human genome belongs
> to the world's people'.
>
> He was suspended last week as Chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor
> Laboratory, Long Island.
>
> The week that ruined Watson's reputation
>
> 14 October The Sunday Times Magazine publishes an interview with Dr
> James Watson. He says he is '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'.
>
> His hope is that everyone is equal but says that 'people who have to
> deal with black employees find this is not true'.
>
> 17 October The front page of the Independent runs a story on Watson's
> theory with the headline 'Africans are less intelligent than Westerners
> says DNA pioneer'. It creates a furore.
>
> 18 October The Science Museum cancels Watson's talk planned for 19
> October. In a statement, the museum says 'James Watson's recent comments
> have gone beyond the point of acceptable debate'.
>
> At a launch for his book at the Royal Society in London, Watson
> withdraws the words attributed to him: 'To all those who have drawn the
> inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow
> genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly.'
>
> 19 October Watson seeks to justify his theory that there is a genetic
> basis behind differences in IQ in an interview with the Independent.
>
> 20 October Watson is forced to return to New York after his employers at
> Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Long Island, suspend him from his duties
> because of his apparent views.

  Lets dissemble REALITY away !........

Pellucid wrote:
> "Steve Greene" <stephen_greene.@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote in message
> news:96clh3p0tbct3auko43ftuages5uoa6ou2@4ax.com...
>> http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2195980,00.html
>>
>> Nobel Prize winner James Watson has flown home to America with the
>> taunts of his critics ringing in his ears. But should he have been
>> shunned after his explosive remarks on race?
>>
>> It should have been an evening of quiet, contemplative pleasure. In one
>> of the more elegant side rooms of the Royal Society, whose grand
>> headquarters overlook The Mall and St James's Park, Jim Watson had
>> gathered a few friends and a handful of journalists to celebrate the
>> launch of his latest book, Avoid Boring People
>>
>> Watson was anything but happy, however. Indeed, according to most people
>> at the event, he looked completely shattered. The scientist who, with
>> Francis Crick, had discovered the structure of DNA and revolutionised
>> modern biology, and who is revered as one of the greatest scientists of
>> his day, was shaking badly. He rambled, paused and then rambled again as
>> he talked to friends. Finally he produced a prepared statement and began
>> reading it out to the assembled journalists.
>>
>> He could only apologise 'unreservedly', the statement said, for his
>> assertion, published last Sunday, that he thought black people were less
>> intelligent than white. 'This is not what I meant.'
>>
>> Then Watson hesitated, returned to his script and finally wandered off
>> his topic completely to end up, bizarrely, describing the behaviour of
>> the San bushmen of Botswana. 'It was a tragic sight,' said one guest.
>>
>> It is not hard to understand why Watson was so distraught, of course.
>> His remarks, which by Wednesday had made front-page headlines across
>> Britain, had attracted a fusillade of abuse from scientists, politicians
>> and equality campaigners. 'It is a shame that a man with a record of
>> scientific distinction should see his work overshadowed by his own
>> irrational prejudices,' said David Lammy, the Skills Minister. London
>> mayor Ken Livingstone fulminated in a similar manner: 'Such ignorant
>> comments...are utterly offensive and give succour to the most backward
>> in our society.'
>>
>> Worse was to follow. The Science Museum cancelled a sell-out meeting it
>> had planned to hold to honour 79-year-old Watson on the grounds that his
>> remarks had gone 'beyond the point of acceptable debate'. Several other
>> centres scheduled to host his talks followed suit.
>>
>> After the Royal Society meeting, Watson and his wife returned to their
>> hotel, Claridge's, where they learned that the scientist's employers,
>> the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, had just disowned his
>> remarks. The next morning, it emerged the laboratory had also suspended
>> Watson as its chancellor. Enough was enough, the scientist announced. 'I
>> am going home to try to save my job.' By Friday afternoon he was back in
>> New York and was heading for Cold Spring Harbor. His chances of
>> remaining chancellor there look slim.
>>
>> It is, by any standards, a depressing story. One of the world's most
>> distinguished scientists has fled from the country, his reputation and
>> his academic future left in tatters. As a tale of intellectual hubris,
>> it is hard to beat.
>>
>> But the fall of Jim Watson goes beyond mere personal tragedy. It also
>> raises key issues of immediate concern. The first is simple: is there
>> any evidence there are major differences in the intellectual potential
>> of races? The second is more complex: how should we react when a
>> scientist of Watson's standing makes such provocative remarks?
>>
>> In the first case, most scientists have quickly jumped into the furore
>> to dismantle the idea that significant intellectual differences exist
>> between Africans and others. 'Defining intelligence is complex and there
>> are many forms of intelligence, not all of which are captured by IQ
>> tests,' said the Oxford neurologist Colin Blakemore. 'In any case, it
>> would be as unethical to organise society around some numerical
>> indicator of difference as it would to do so on the basis of skin
>> colour.'
>>
>> Other scientists point out that our species is so young - Homo sapiens
>> emerged from its African homeland only 100,000 years ago - that it
>> simply has not had time to evolve any significant differences in
>> intellectual capacity as its various groups of people have spread round
>> the globe and settled in different regions. Only the most superficial
>> differences - notably skin colour - separate the world's different
>> population groupings. Underneath that skin, people are remarkably alike.
>>
>> This argument does not reject the idea that notable variations in
>> intellect exist between individuals, but it stresses that these
>> differences exist within racial groups, not between them. Judging a man
>> or woman by the colour of their skin will get you nowhere, in other
>> words. As Craig Venter, who pioneered much of America's work in decoding
>> the human genome, put it: 'There is no basis in scientific fact or in
>> the human gene code for the notion that skin colour will be predictive
>> of intelligence.'
>>
>> The second issue raised by his claims is far more vexed. How should we
>> react to claims such as those made by Watson? Lammy, Livingstone and
>> other politicians urged he should be silenced on the grounds that his
>> views would only give succour to Britain's racist fringe - as indeed
>> they have. By Thursday, as Watson was making his mumbled Royal Society
>> apology, he was being hailed as the New Galileo by the BNP. Those who
>> objected so virulently to the science behind racism were 'simply denying
>> the facts of science and stand in the same position as those Catholic
>> theologians who offered Galileo the choice of recantation or the stake',
>> claimed a BNP website article.
>>
>> Certainly Watson was extraordinarily naive. But was it right to cancel
>> public meetings at which he could be called to account for his views?
>> Senior staff at the Science Museum in London clearly thought so, as they
>> did at the Bristol Cultural Development Department Partnership, which
>> was set to host a public meeting with Watson this week. They, too,
>> decided not to hold their meeting on the grounds that the scientist's
>> views were 'unacceptably provocative'.
>>
>> Not every centre scheduled to host public meetings with Watson took this
>> view, however. The Centre for Life in Newcastle said it would go ahead
>> with its meeting, scheduled to have been held today, on the grounds that
>> it would provide the public with the chance to question the scientist
>> and then make up its own mind about his claims. 'We had some calls
>> expressing misgivings about our decision to welcome Watson, but most
>> people supported us. We were going to give him a robust but fair hearing
>> and let people decide for themselves,' said a spokesman.
>>
>> In the end, Watson's decided to return home, so no meetings occurred, a
>> move that has dismayed many scientists who believed that it was vital
>> Watson confront his critics and his public. 'What is ethically wrong is
>> the hounding, by what can only be described as an illiberal and
>> intolerant "thought police", of one of the most distinguished scientists
>> of our time, out of the Science Museum, and maybe out of the laboratory
>> that he has devoted much of his life to, building up a world-class
>> reputation,' said Richard Dawkins, who been due to conduct a public
>> interview with Watson this week in Oxford.
>>
>> Dawkins's stance was supported by Blakemore. 'Jim Watson is well known
>> for being provocative and politically incorrect. But it would be a sad
>> world if such a distinguished scientist was silenced because of his more
>> unpalatable views.'
>>
>> This last remark goes to the heart of the issue. Watson is renowned for
>> his controversial views. He sees himself as a free-thinker, though it
>> must be admitted his ideas often simply seem eccentric. In 1997, he
>> suggested it would be acceptable to terminate a foetus if it carried a
>> gene that might mean the adult that grows from it was gay. He has also
>> suggested a link between sunlight and libido. 'That is why you have
>> Latin lovers. You've never heard of an English lover,' he said. And
>> Watson has also proposed that a foetus destined to be 'stupid' should be
>> aborted.
>>
>> Such maverick remarks led the journal Science to conclude, in 1990, that
>> 'to many in the scientific community, Watson has long been something of
>> a wild man, and his colleagues tend to hold their collective breath
>> whenever he veers from the script'. This track record explains one
>> intriguing feature of the Watson affair. Although the Sunday Times
>> carried the interview in which the scientist outlined his disparaging
>> views about black people, the paper kept his remarks buried in its
>> colour magazine.
>>
>> A story was offered to the Sunday Times newsdesk by magazine staff, but
>> was declined on the grounds that Watson had said such things in the
>> past, as indeed he had. Thus it was left to Simon Kelner, editor of the
>> Independent, to take Watson's claims and to run them as its lead story
>> on Wednesday, under the banner: 'Africans are less intelligent that
>> Westerners, says DNA pioneer'. In this way, Watson's fate was sealed.
>>
>> But while it is obvious that the scientist holds some fairly illiberal
>> views on certain issues, it is also clear he has acted in a courageous,
>> progressive manner on other issues. When he was director of America's
>> human genome project, he fought bitterly to prevent the US government
>> from adopting a policy that would allow it to patent human genetic
>> material discovered by project scientists in order to exploit them as
>> sources of new drugs and medicines. The idea was 'lunacy', said Watson,
>> the equivalent of applying for ownership of the laws of nature. When he
>> realised he was losing the battle, he simply handed in his resignation.
>>
>> Nor is it at all clear that Watson is a racist, a point stressed last
>> week by the Pulitzer-winning biologist E O Wilson, of Harvard
>> University. In his autobiography, Naturalist, Wilson originally
>> described Watson, fresh from his Nobel success, arriving at Harvard's
>> biology department and 'radiating contempt' for the rest of the staff.
>> He was 'the most unpleasant human being I had ever met,' Wilson
>> recalled. 'Having risen to fame at an early age, [he] became the
>> Caligula of biology. He was given licence to say anything that came into
>> his mind and expected to be taken seriously. And unfortunately he did
>> so, with casual and brutal offhandedness.'
>>
>> That is a fairly grim description, to say the least. However, there is a
>> twist. There has been a rapprochement. 'We have become firm friends,'
>> Wilson told The Observer last week. 'Today we are the two grand old men
>> of biology in America and get on really well. I certainly don't see him
>> as a Caligula figure any more. I have come to see him as a very
>> intelligent, straight, honest individual. Of course, he would never get
>> a job as a diplomat in the State Department. He is just too outspoken.
>> But one thing I am absolutely sure of is that he is not a racist. I am
>> shocked at what has happened to him.'
>>
>> As to Watson's own prospects today, those can only be described as
>> unpromising. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's campus is set in rolling
>> wooded hills on the north shore of Long Island, dotted with buildings
>> set amid the trees turning bright orange and red as autumn sets in.
>>
>> Executives there have already revealed just how seriously they are
>> taking the Watson case and on Friday triggered a compete PR lockdown at
>> the campus: students and staff were warned not to talk to journalists,
>> security guards were on the lookout for unannounced reporters and
>> interlopers were picked up and taken to the campus PR department.
>>
>> However, some students and staff did speak and expressed surprise at
>> Watson's remarks. 'It is all a bit of a shock. I suppose it is possible
>> that he was misquoted, but it is still shocking. The whole thing is just
>> amazing that anyone would say something like that,' said Louis Nguyen, a
>> graduate student taking courses on the campus and whose college is
>> affiliated with Cold Spring. Some members of staff were also upset at
>> the furore surrounding Watson.
>>
>> 'I agree with what the college has done so far in suspending Watson.
>> They acted well. It may be that he has to lose his job. That is a really
>> serious thing to say,' said Jean Wang, a science technician at the
>> college.
>>
>> Responsibility for dealing with the PR crisis fell to Jim Bono. On
>> Friday, the director of the college's public affairs unit acknowledged
>> there had been a massive interest in the incident. 'We are getting phone
>> calls from all over the planet,' he said. Given the nature of Watson's
>> comments, that was not surprising.
>>
>> However, Bono would not be drawn on a timetable for further action or
>> the outcome of the board's deliberations on Watson's future. 'The
>> leadership [of Cold Spring] continues [its] debates. The leadership has
>> been working around the clock and has been deeply involved in dealing
>> with this situation,' he said.
>>
>> It sounds ominous. Nevertheless, the laboratory's behaviour has been
>> supported in the local Long Island press. America is facing a spate of
>> nooses being left in public places - including in Long Island: the noose
>> is a symbol of anti-black feeling and intended to rouse memories of
>> lynching. The prospects of a return to such extremism alarms authorities
>> and commentators alike.
>>
>> Hence a thundering editorial in Newsday, Long Island's main newspaper:
>> 'The lab condemned its chancellor and key fundraiser, but that statement
>> and Watson's apology yesterday will probably not be enough. He has to
>> go.'
>>
>> Thus Watson - who today should have been accepting a warm welcome from
>> his public at Newcastle's Centre for Life - now finds himself at home,
>> alone and in trouble. His reputation as a brilliant, radical thinker has
>> been transformed in a few days into that of an unstable maverick. The
>> stain on his career is unlikely ever to be washed clean.
>>
>> James Dewey Watson - The CV
>>
>> Born in Chicago, Illinois, on 6 April 1928, Watson was a precocious
>> child who gained a place at Chicago University aged just 15. He
>> graduated with a zoology degree in 1947.
>>
>> In October 1951 he arrived at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, to
>> carry out genetics research and met Francis Crick. They struck up a
>> friendship that became one of the most famous partnerships in science
>> and led them, in 1953, to the discovery that DNA, from which human genes
>> are made, has a double helix structure.
>>
>> In 1962, the pair - with Maurice Wilkins, of King's College London -
>> were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for this work. Six years later
>> Watson published his racy account of the DNA story in The Double Helix.
>> Dropped by its original publisher amid objections by Crick, Wilkins and
>> others, its opening sentence was: 'I have never seen Francis Crick in a
>> modest mood.' It became a bestseller and the basis of the 1987 TV film
>> Life Story, in which Jeff Goldblum played Watson and Tim Pigott-Smith
>> Crick.
>>
>> In 1988 Watson was made head of the US Human Genome Project, America's
>> arm of the international programme for sequencing human DNA. Four years
>> later he resigned over US plans to try to take out patents on gene
>> sequences discovered by US scientists, saying 'the human genome belongs
>> to the world's people'.
>>
>> He was suspended last week as Chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor
>> Laboratory, Long Island.
>>
>> The week that ruined Watson's reputation
>>
>> 14 October The Sunday Times Magazine publishes an interview with Dr
>> James Watson. He says he is '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'.
>>
>> His hope is that everyone is equal but says that 'people who have to
>> deal with black employees find this is not true'.
>>
>> 17 October The front page of the Independent runs a story on Watson's
>> theory with the headline 'Africans are less intelligent than Westerners
>> says DNA pioneer'. It creates a furore.
>>
>> 18 October The Science Museum cancels Watson's talk planned for 19
>> October. In a statement, the museum says 'James Watson's recent comments
>> have gone beyond the point of acceptable debate'.
>>
>> At a launch for his book at the Royal Society in London, Watson
>> withdraws the words attributed to him: 'To all those who have drawn the
>> inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow
>> genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly.'
>>
>> 19 October Watson seeks to justify his theory that there is a genetic
>> basis behind differences in IQ in an interview with the Independent.
>>
>> 20 October Watson is forced to return to New York after his employers at
>> Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Long Island, suspend him from his duties
>> because of his apparent views.
> 
>   Lets dissemble REALITY away !........
> 
> 
sounds like a typical scientist loosing his marbles..he should learn to 
shut up

"KJ"  wrote in message
news:2eWdnTNfs7IHuobanZ2dnUVZ8v-dnZ2d@bt.com...
> Pellucid wrote:
> > "Steve Greene" <stephen_greene.@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote in message
> > news:96clh3p0tbct3auko43ftuages5uoa6ou2@4ax.com...
> >> http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2195980,00.html
> >>
> >> Nobel Prize winner James Watson has flown home to America with the
> >> taunts of his critics ringing in his ears. But should he have been
> >> shunned after his explosive remarks on race?
> >>
   Gigantic SNIP !

> >> 19 October Watson seeks to justify his theory that there is a genetic
> >> basis behind differences in IQ in an interview with the Independent.
> >>
> >> 20 October Watson is forced to return to New York after his employers
at
> >> Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Long Island, suspend him from his duties
> >> because of his apparent views.
> >
> >   Lets dissemble REALITY away !........
> >
> >
> sounds like a typical scientist loosing his marbles..he should learn to
> shut up

But the idea of 'a Scientist' is that they search for the TRUTH of the
world, ..not just the Politically Convenient. He has allowed his true
observations to be strung-up on the petard of a media feeding scrum, and
failed to defend himself !....nil points.

On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 11:19:06 +0100, KJ  wrote:

>sounds like a typical scientist loosing his marbles..he should learn to 
>shut up

The problem is that he could well be right and his critics wrong.

Svenne

On 21 Oct, 11:38, Svenne  wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 11:19:06 +0100, KJ  wrote:
> >sounds like a typical scientist loosing his marbles..he should learn to
> >shut up
>
> The problem is that he could well be right and his critics wrong.

Of course he is right! If they weren't thick, would Mugabe keep being
elected?

On Oct 21, 11:19 am, KJ  wrote:
> sounds like a typical scientist loosing his marbles..he should learn to
> shut up

Watson has been well known for this kind of view for a
long time, it's just that people in the scientific community
keep their mouths shut about it for the most part. After all,
if you get on the wrong side of someone that powerful,
you run serious risks of the career-related variety.

Don't forget that he's been quoted in the press as being
in favour of eugenics. Some opinions that get voiced privately
by some people in the area of genetics research are even
more extreme than some which have found their way into
the media. (Such as the ones that Watson voiced recently.)

And it is also well known that Watson, in his capacity as
uber-furher of the Cold Spring Harbour lab, is not averse
to dealing with people that he doesn't like in a "certain"
fashion, which could be described in less flattering terms.
One could say that it is "robust", for example.

You have to remember that senior scientists, particularly
Nobel Laureates (in the US especially) spend their whole
careers getting their arses thoroughly licked. Watson was
arrogant when he was young, and age has not moderated
but exacerbated his personality traits. His decades of
running CSH as his personal fifedom attest to this.

He is, not to put too fine a point of it, bonkers, and the
powers that be in US seem to have grown increasingly
uncomfortable in recent years with his public and private
behaviour. It is possible that they have simply been waiting
for him to go too far in public, which this time, he has.

So now he's lost his job (well, hopefully anyway); couldn't
happen to a nicer guy.

Cheers,

BA

On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 02:52:36 +0100, Steve Greene
<stephen_greene.@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote:

>http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2195980,00.html
>
>Nobel Prize winner James Watson has flown home to America with the
>taunts of his critics ringing in his ears. But should he have been
>shunned after his explosive remarks on race?

what was 'explosive' about his alleged comments?
why should anyone be 'shunned' just because they talk tripe
     on occasion?


he has since claimed he was misquoted

are you claiming he was lying when he said
>>"I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have
>>reacted in the ways they have."

or are you claiming he was previously lying?

or are you claiming he has no integrity and should therefore be
      ignored in any case?

or was he indeed misquoted by our disgusting leftist media?



are you claiming the apparent misquote had substance.

if so you are most welcome to attempt to defend his alleged
     position....

do you suppose that even had a person of emininence in one
     area made a foolish comment, that be taken seriously as expert 
     in another different field?

or are you merely another sop taken in by stuff you don't
     understand when it supports your own prefered ignorance?


your 300 line tirade binned unread
     

-- 
web site at www.abelard.org - news comment service, logic, economics 
 energy, education, politics, etc 1,552,396 document calls in year past
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  all that is necessary for       []     walk quietly and carry
  the triumph of evil is that      []           a big stick.
  good people do nothing     []   trust actions not words
                    only when it's funny -- roger rabbit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What are "scientists" for?
We don't need a "scientist" to tell us that the various racial groups
are the descendants of a Patriarch or a partriarchal group, the
survivors of past cataclysms of the earth.
Human beings vary in their talents and level of intelligence, so
therefore the racial groups descended from a very mixed bunch of
patriarchs must also vary in their talents and level of intelligence.
Thus the Jews are obviously a very talented and intellectually bright
race who always become wealthy in any region where they settled and
from whose ranks many illustrious scientists and philosophers have
come.
And the Irish are a mixed bunch of drunken bums and romantics and
entrepreneurs....
The English are cowardly and lacking in self respect, as shown by
their shameful submission to the PC dictatorship........
And I'll leave the rest to you........
If you were waiting for some shithead parasitic career "scientist" to
give you permission to think clearly about that, well then you are not
fit to take part in a debate.

On 21 Oct, 14:44, George Dorne

>>The problem is that he could well be right and his critics >>wrong.

> Of course he is right! If they weren't thick, would Mugabe >keep being elected?

George Bush got elected twice, so that puts Americans close to the
bottom of the intelligence scale.

Svenne

On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 02:52:36 +0100, Steve Greene
<stephen_greene.@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote:

>http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2195980,00.html
>
>Nobel Prize winner James Watson has flown home to America with the
>taunts of his critics ringing in his ears. But should he have been
>shunned after his explosive remarks on race?

On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 02:52:36 +0100, Steve Greene
<stephen_greene.@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote:

>http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2195980,00.html
>
>Nobel Prize winner James Watson has flown home to America with the
>taunts of his critics ringing in his ears. But should he have been
>shunned after his explosive remarks on race?

what was 'explosive' about his alleged comments?
why should anyone be 'shunned' just because they talk tripe
     on occasion?


he has since claimed he was misquoted

are you claiming he was lying when he said
>>"I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have
>>reacted in the ways they have."

or are you claiming he was previously lying?

or are you claiming he has no integrity and should therefore be
      ignored in any case?

or was he indeed misquoted by our disgusting leftist media?



are you claiming the apparent misquote had substance.

if so you are most welcome to attempt to defend his alleged
     position....

do you suppose that even had a person of emininence in one
     area made a foolish comment, that be taken seriously as expert 
     in another different field?

or are you merely another sop taken in by stuff you don't
     understand when it supports your own prefered ignorance?


your 300 line tirade binned unread

-- 
web site at www.abelard.org - news comment service, logic, economics 
 energy, education, politics, etc 1,552,396 document calls in year past
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  all that is necessary for       []     walk quietly and carry
  the triumph of evil is that      []           a big stick.
  good people do nothing     []   trust actions not words
                    only when it's funny -- roger rabbit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 21 Oct, 15:10, tvaerska...@aol.com wrote:
> On 21 Oct, 14:44, George Dorne
>
> >>The problem is that he could well be right and his critics >>wrong.
> > Of course he is right! If they weren't thick, would Mugabe >keep being elected?
>
> George Bush got elected twice, so that puts Americans close to the
> bottom of the intelligence scale.

That would appear to be true, especially as they do not suffer
intimidation like that of the voters in Rhodesia.

--
 x   If you have been, could you get servants?
/|\

On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:44:46 +0200, abelard 
wrote:

>On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 02:52:36 +0100, Steve Greene
><stephen_greene.@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote:
>
>>http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2195980,00.html
>>
>>Nobel Prize winner James Watson has flown home to America with the
>>taunts of his critics ringing in his ears. But should he have been
>>shunned after his explosive remarks on race?
>
>what was 'explosive' about his alleged comments?
>why should anyone be 'shunned' just because they talk tripe
>     on occasion?
>
That is the question posed by the article!  Perhaps you didn't
understand - it is sympathetic to your viewpoint!

>he has since claimed he was misquoted
>
>are you claiming he was lying when he said
>>>"I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have
>>>reacted in the ways they have."
>
>or are you claiming he was previously lying?
>
>or are you claiming he has no integrity and should therefore be
>      ignored in any case?
>
>or was he indeed misquoted by our disgusting leftist media?
>
>
I'm baffled...are you talking to Steve Green of all people here?
>
>are you claiming the apparent misquote had substance.
>
>if so you are most welcome to attempt to defend his alleged
>     position....
>
>do you suppose that even had a person of emininence in one
>     area made a foolish comment, that be taken seriously as expert 
>     in another different field?
>
>or are you merely another sop taken in by stuff you don't
>     understand when it supports your own prefered ignorance?
>
>
>your 300 line tirade binned unread
>     

Ah...all is now explained.   What kind of person spews out such bile
without having read the article?

For your benefit the Observer has two articles on Watson both of which
uphold his right to free speech.   

Perhaps if you were to read the Observer some time instead of
dismissing it as disgusting leftist media you would might find it to
be a very unbiased and liberal paper as witness these articles...not
at all supportive of the government. 
(the two biggest anti government scoops emanated from the
Guardian/Observer stable!)

How about a little challenge...you buy the Observer in two weeks time
and I will buy the MoS and then we can compare notes regarding
disgusting bias in our media?

KJ wrote:
> Pellucid wrote:
>> "Steve Greene" <stephen_greene.@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote in message
.
>>
>>   Lets dissemble REALITY away !........
>>
>>
> sounds like a typical scientist loosing his marbles..he should learn
> to shut up

Touch a nerve did he?

Gaz

George Dorne wrote:
> On 21 Oct, 11:38, Svenne  wrote:
>> On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 11:19:06 +0100, KJ  wrote:
>>> sounds like a typical scientist loosing his marbles..he should
>>> learn to shut up
>>
>> The problem is that he could well be right and his critics wrong.
>
> Of course he is right! If they weren't thick, would Mugabe keep being
> elected?

Choice of who to vote for is probably not a matter of IQ, that is a cultural 
thing.

Gaz

On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:34:28 GMT, Rob 
wrote:

>On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:44:46 +0200, abelard 
>wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 02:52:36 +0100, Steve Greene
>><stephen_greene.@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2195980,00.html
>>>
>>>Nobel Prize winner James Watson has flown home to America with the
>>>taunts of his critics ringing in his ears. But should he have been
>>>shunned after his explosive remarks on race?
>>
>>what was 'explosive' about his alleged comments?
>>why should anyone be 'shunned' just because they talk tripe
>>     on occasion?
>>
>That is the question posed by the article!  Perhaps you didn't
>understand - it is sympathetic to your viewpoint!

the article statement is rhetoric...it is dishonest rhetoric....
there are two assumptions that are not clearly factual...
    1)the argument (inasmuch as there is one) is not 'explosive',
    usually it is just silly...
    2)nobody but a fool suggests a person who says sommat
    silly should be shunned...and i've no great interest in the
    'opinions' of fools...    

>>he has since claimed he was misquoted
>>
>>are you claiming he was lying when he said
>>>>"I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have
>>>>reacted in the ways they have."
>>
>>or are you claiming he was previously lying?
>>
>>or are you claiming he has no integrity and should therefore be
>>      ignored in any case?
>>
>>or was he indeed misquoted by our disgusting leftist media?

>I'm baffled...are you talking to Steve Green of all people here?

i'm responding to the article as posted

i have no doubt steve can shift for himself....

>>are you claiming the apparent misquote had substance.
>>
>>if so you are most welcome to attempt to defend his alleged
>>     position....
>>
>>do you suppose that even had a person of emininence in one
>>     area made a foolish comment, that be taken seriously as expert 
>>     in another different field?
>>
>>or are you merely another sop taken in by stuff you don't
>>     understand when it supports your own prefered ignorance?
>>
>>
>>your 300 line tirade binned unread

>Ah...all is now explained.   What kind of person spews out such bile
>without having read the article?

now you've made a stupid response...that puts you on notice
where did you get the silly notion that i didn't read it?

>For your benefit the Observer has two articles on Watson both of which
>uphold his right to free speech.   

ie neither of these dubious organs suggested he be shunned....
another indication that the rhetoric at the top of the article is slop

>Perhaps if you were to read the Observer some time instead of
>dismissing it as disgusting leftist media you would might find it to
>be a very unbiased and liberal paper as witness these articles...not
>at all supportive of the government. 

i read it every week and every day in the form of the groaniad....
so, again you make a stupid stt...that's twice...

>(the two biggest anti government scoops emanated from the
>Guardian/Observer stable!)

i care...i really care...

>How about a little challenge...you buy the Observer in two weeks time
>and I will buy the MoS and then we can compare notes regarding
>disgusting bias in our media?

whatever the mos is

next time try thinking before you post


-- 
web site at www.abelard.org - news comment service, logic, economics 
 energy, education, politics, etc 1,552,396 document calls in year past
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  all that is necessary for       []     walk quietly and carry
  the triumph of evil is that      []           a big stick.
  good people do nothing     []   trust actions not words
                    only when it's funny -- roger rabbit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 01:53:22 +0100, "Gaz"  wrote:

>George Dorne wrote:
>> On 21 Oct, 11:38, Svenne  wrote:
>>> On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 11:19:06 +0100, KJ  wrote:
>>>> sounds like a typical scientist loosing his marbles..he should
>>>> learn to shut up
>>>
>>> The problem is that he could well be right and his critics wrong.
>>
>> Of course he is right! If they weren't thick, would Mugabe keep being
>> elected?
>
>Choice of who to vote for is probably not a matter of IQ, that is a cultural 
>thing.

imv a lot of it is emotional tendencies....
tough minded or tender minded in one scalar

regards..

-- 
web site at www.abelard.org - news comment service, logic, economics 
 energy, education, politics, etc 1,552,396 document calls in year past
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  all that is necessary for       []     walk quietly and carry
  the triumph of evil is that      []           a big stick.
  good people do nothing     []   trust actions not words
                    only when it's funny -- roger rabbit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 03:01:54 +0200, abelard 
wrote:

>On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:34:28 GMT, Rob 
>wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:44:46 +0200, abelard 

>>>your 300 line tirade binned unread
>
>>Ah...all is now explained.   What kind of person spews out such bile
>>without having read the article?
>
>now you've made a stupid response...that puts you on notice
>where did you get the silly notion that i didn't read it?

ah, i see....i mis-stated....being so used to typing
     'binned unread'....
i repeated it on automatic...
i did in fact read it at high speed!

but it remains it was obvious trash

-- 
web site at www.abelard.org - news comment service, logic, economics 
 energy, education, politics, etc 1,552,396 document calls in year past
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  all that is necessary for       []     walk quietly and carry
  the triumph of evil is that      []           a big stick.
  good people do nothing     []   trust actions not words
                    only when it's funny -- roger rabbit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

brian_abberation@hotmail.com posted
>
>Watson has been well known for this kind of view for a
>long time, it's just that people in the scientific community
>keep their mouths shut about it for the most part. After all,
>if you get on the wrong side of someone that powerful,
>you run serious risks of the career-related variety.
>
>Don't forget that he's been quoted in the press as being
>in favour of eugenics. Some opinions that get voiced privately
>by some people in the area of genetics research are even
>more extreme than some which have found their way into
>the media. (Such as the ones that Watson voiced recently.)
>
>And it is also well known that Watson, in his capacity as
>uber-furher of the Cold Spring Harbour lab, is not averse
>to dealing with people that he doesn't like in a "certain"
>fashion, which could be described in less flattering terms.
>One could say that it is "robust", for example.
>
>You have to remember that senior scientists, particularly
>Nobel Laureates (in the US especially) spend their whole
>careers getting their arses thoroughly licked. Watson was
>arrogant when he was young, and age has not moderated
>but exacerbated his personality traits. His decades of
>running CSH as his personal fifedom attest to this.
>
>He is, not to put too fine a point of it, bonkers, and the
>powers that be in US seem to have grown increasingly
>uncomfortable in recent years with his public and private
>behaviour. It is possible that they have simply been waiting
>for him to go too far in public, which this time, he has.
>
>So now he's lost his job (well, hopefully anyway); couldn't
>happen to a nicer guy.

What a complete load of self-contradictory drivel. If Watson is so
powerful and everybody is scared stiff of crossing him, how could he
possibly have got sacked? 

-- 
PeteM

-- 
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