Ah -- the coming age of the "molecular full Monty" and ingraining of
illogic into modern society... This goes far beyond quirky humor.
James D. Watson, the discoverer of of DNA and winner of the Nobel prize,
is one of several notable, but now disgraced, scientists who have fallen
from favor after opining that black Africans are not as intelligent as
whites.
That kind of opinion is often based on misapplication of statistics, and
the illogic of applying the general to the specific, the so-called
"Dicto Simpliciter" fallacy. Underlying any such racist opinion,
however, is the more basic question - what constitutes a "black" American?
In one of the stranger cases of poetic justice in recent memory,
Watson's own DNA seems to reverse the legal situation to such an extent
that Watson himself would have been technically considered to be
"officially negroid" under the antiquated laws (1/16) of many Southern
States in the USA, until the modern era.
This ironic and hidden role-reversal, is reminiscent of Adolph Hitler's
(rumored) Jewish ancestry, which is more doubtful than Watson's
undeniable but formerly hidden "ethnicity". There is absolutely no
doubt, however, that Hitler's real name "should have been"
Schicklgruber. You can take it from there as to whether any
Schicklgruber could ever have generated the mass appeal, and pulled-off
the same kind of political results, in a once-racist society which was
leaning heavily towards Aryan supremacy anyway. Numen est nomen - Heil
Schicklgruber !
http://history1900s.about.com/od/hitleradolf/a/hitlerancestry.htm
A new analysis of Dr. Watson’s genome shows that he has 16 times the
number of genes considered to be of African origin, almost exactly the
same amount of African DNA which would turns up when one
great-grandparent is of African origin. This is according to Kari
Stefansson, the chief executive of deCODE Genetics of Iceland, which did
the analysis.
“This came up as a bit of a surprise,” Dr. Stefansson said in an
interview, “especially as a sequel to his utterly inappropriate comments
about Africans.”
“The irony is bigger, and broader, than his having made derogatory
comments and having an ancestral relationship with the folks he
insulted,” said Kathy Hudson, the founder and director of the Genetics
and Public Policy Center in Washington. As people see what happens to
Dr. Watson and others as they undergo what she called the “molecular
Full Monty,” the inevitable surprises might “help people make the
decision about whether they want their information for themselves, and
to ask, Who will I share this with?”
It may turn out in the near future, when genetics can expose more detail
than we ever thought or desired - that the whimsical notion and
ingrained illogic of "don't ask, don't tell" becomes a rock-solid
doctrine of US jurisprudence, going all the way to the Doctor's office...
Jones
