I just read in the recent news that James Watson, a Nobel prize winner for discovering DNA, was stripped off one of his honorary titles. It looks like a scandal, so let’s see what is behind the story.

Watson is a molecular biologist, who described the DNA as the carrier of genetic codes. Since the sixties we’ve known that instructions for growth and functioning are coded in these complex molecules, in every living thing. Thanks, Mr Watson, now it is clear that there is a “nature” component in our personality. We have inherited the ability to learn and understand the world. Through our upbringing, we can utilize it.

Watson went a step further, however, stating that white people are more intelligent than black people, due to their genetic setup. It means that black people are genetically… err…. dumb, and upbringing can’t add much to their abilities. He referred to intelligence tests, which show a difference between blacks and whites on IQ tests. This is the reason he was stripped from his honours. To articulate racist comments is a very sensitive question, but not everything is racial discrimination which looks like that. I wondered if he is right or not, after all he is a respected scientist.

So I checked the list of the famous physicists (I can’t help, I am a physics teacher). Out of 50 all-time famous guys I found four Asians, while the others are either Europeans or Americans.  Not a single black guy. I know one, Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist. However he hasn’t contributed any exceptionally great idea to our understanding.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist

So Watson is seemingly right, black people perform worse. But why? Is it about “nature”, genes, as he states, or more about upbringing?

James R. Flynn says in his book (Does your Family Make You Smarter?) that black people score lower on IQ test, due to their upbringing. Supported with experiments, observations and studies, he found that low IQ scores are the consequences of worse parenting in black homes. Black children raised by white people score higher. So nurture matters a lot. Tyson’s mother was a gerontologist, his father a sociologist, so it looks right. In this case Watson is wrong (with every respect to his discovery on DNA).

It would be great to know what is the ratio of these two factors in our IQ. Are we more predetermined or we can reach to the Moon if we want? There is an ongoing debate about it, but safe to state that we are predetermined to a degree, and have to work on it to achieve our potential.

We have two conclusions here. One, if nurture matters a lot, great news, you can improve your IQ. It is not fixed like your eye colour.  Work on it.

Two, IQ tests are created to test narrow areas like logical, linguistic and visual intelligence, all in all, mostly academic intelligence. Black people perform worse on these tests, however it doesn’t mean they are less worthy than white people. They excel in other areas. Intelligence is complex. It has many components, and I have a hunch that black people in general are better for example at music and dance (musical and kinaesthetic intelligence) than white people. Tyson is a good astrophysicist, and more importantly, an extraordinary communicator, hosting numerous science programmes. So high IQ is good, but not enough to be successful.  Don't overlook the importance of other skills.