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James Watson's Nobel Prize Medal Will Be Returned To Him
First time accepted submitter Dave Knott writes Following the recent auction of James Watson's Nobel Prize medal, the winning bidder will return the medal to Watson. The $4.7 million winning bid was made by Alisher Usmanov, Russia's wealthiest man, a metal and telecommunications tycoon worth $15.8 billion US. In remarks carried by Russian television Tuesday, Usmanov hailed Watson one of the greatest biologists in the history of mankind, and stated that when he learned that Watson was selling the medal for charity, he decided to purchase it and immediately give it back to him.
Sure... With that net worth, 4.7 million is less than 0.03%. Consider the average American with a net worth of $300k. This would be like buying the medal for $90 then returning it.
So really it was nothing to him but will make him even more famous and "awesome" to other people.
More generally, he stated that there is no actual data to support the notion that race does not contribute to intelligence, making a specific reference to Africans, and which happens to be a politically incorrect notion, but is still an accurate statement.
This does not mean that members of one race are necessarily intellectually inferior to another, it only means that there exists some sizable amount of data which merely suggests it as a possibility, and that no data has yet been accumulated which can actually show that this is not the case. The strongest objection to the conclusion comes from a political reaction to it, and does not arise from the data itself. It would have been far more interesting to do a detailed exploration on exactly why the data appeared to indicate that than to simply make the statement about the data that he did, since there was absolutely no possible way to interpret it without him being seen as racist.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
less and less people have $30 to give to charity. But if statistics mean anything, most people who worth $100k are more willing to give to charity than those worth $100m. Large well broadcasts of millionares donating be damned, most charity actually comes from poor and middle class people. Of course don't let me stop you mixing up "willing" and "able". It only strengthens the demand for the commons and the public sphere.(inb4 some bad hyperbole)
Racism is a belief. Facts can't hold beliefs, although they can be used to support someone's belief. Unreasonable conclusions and unreasonable interpretations of facts can be racist. Facts cannot, and logic cannot.
Say that a bullet-proof study came out saying that blond-haired people are, on average, far less intelligent than brown-haired people (assuming some specific, concrete definition of and way of measuring "intelligence" were to be discovered). In and of itself, that would be a fact. If you add the opinion that "more intelligent is better than less intelligent", then you might come up with the prejudiced opinion that "brown-haired people are better than blond-haired people". That doesn't make the fact itself "colorist". It's only the combination of fact and preconceived opinion that makes the thought colorist.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.