American Nobel Prize-winning scientist, James Watson, created more controversy recently around the racial issues in IQ testing by being quoted as saying he was “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 testing says not really.” After his comments caused an outrage, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist denied saying those statements, stating, “There is no scientific basis for such a belief.”
According to allAfrica, it doesn’t matter whether or not he said such statements because this argument has always existed in one form or another since the invention of IQ testing and since comparisons have been made between racial groups. There have been white scientists who actually have written essays saying that blacks do worse on intelligence testing than whites. One wonders how a white child would do in Nigeria eating Nigerian food, drinking Nigerian water and going to Nigerian schools. In fact, Nigerian children tend to do very well when sent to America to learn. The problem is the way the IQ is tested. It doesn’t test environment very well and is geared toward the Western, predominately white, cultures. The article states that intelligence as defined by the intelligence testing is more related to nurture than nature.