Read on Twitter
The story goes that Galileo, forced to recant his belief that the Earth orbits the sun, muttered a defiant 'and yet, it moves,' as his inquisition ended. Good line. Except in my feed, people have been invoking it on behalf of another science icon & his belief in racial hierarchy.
The Galileo tweets are responding to news that @CSHLaboratory is removing the name of Jim Watson, the Nobel-winning biologist, from its graduate school. Watson said in a documentary last year that he thinks IQ differences between Blacks and whites reflect genetic differences.
So to be clear, these tweets are saying, "You can take Watson's name off the school, but the genetic inferiority of Black people still stands." "Watson," they are saying, "was persecuted by science-deniers, just like Galileo." https://twitter.com/amy_harmon/status/1279260752520663042
Watson's sad decision, at age 90, to tie his legacy to racism doesn't need rehashing, IMO (he's now 92). And there's nothing new about claims by white people that racial disparities in income, wealth, incarceration, etc are the product of genetics rather than social policy/power.
But the Galileo tweets don't just (wrongly) invoke science in the name of racist ideology, they also lay claim to scientific integrity. 'Not only is it true that white people are better than Black people,' they say, 'it's super-courageous to say so! We should really get a medal.'
It's bad to give bandwidth to trolls, but the Galileo thing has come up before and it really annoys me. I also know from other reporting that a lot of non-trolls are confused about whether genetic variants associated with 'race' are known to cause different IQ/behavior. (No).
So here's a thread of some of my reasons for why the Galileo-Watson analogy is trash, and few other responses to people casting their unfounded views on race/IQ as heroic because, supposedly, they're being persecuted aka canceled.
1) Galileo based his belief that the Earth revolves around the sun on evidence about the movement of Jupiter’s moons and the phases of Venus. Watson's belief that the average IQ difference between Blacks and whites is genetic is not based on evidence, because none now exists.
2) Watson defenders say "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, he's free to speculate either way!" But Watson is a science icon, so people take his unsupported speculation as truth. Which is why @CSHLaboratory called his comments both 'unsubstantiated' & 'reckless.'
3) Watson defenders say "Scientists are supposed to explore all possibilities!'' https://twitter.com/RIllumiknotty/status/1279431438455185408. But it's gross to suggest idle speculation on a topic linked to some of history's worst atrocities is the mark of a good scientist. per @DocEdge85 https://twitter.com/DocEdge85/status/1083059775120625664
4) And that's another difference - Galileo was persecuted for speaking truth (heliocentric solar system) to power (Catholic Church). Watson was repudiated by Cold Spring Harbor for statements that rationalize the political and economic power of the group that already holds it.
5) Watson defenders say "We're RIGHT to assume genetic differences in lots of traits arose in geographically isolated populations-David Reich says so!'' https://twitter.com/Biorealism/status/1279362459757760512. OK but Reich (& all other population geneticists) also say "we have no idea yet'' what those might be.
6) Watson defenders say 'But those differences PROBABLY align with our racial stereotypes!' There's no basis for thinking this. Americans inherit an environment shaped by racism along with our genetic ancestry. There's no method to cleanly decouple them... https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/168528991/eoy036f1.tif
...and signs that natural selection may have acted differently on a trait across human populations are open to other interpretations. Links that help explain: https://www.geneticshumanagency.org/gha/correlation-prediction-and-explanation-in-the-genome/ https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.00892
https://genetics.org/content/208/4/1351
https://twitter.com/DocEdge85/status/1081358427312447490
https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2019/1/26/5262222
https://genetics.org/content/208/4/1351
https://twitter.com/DocEdge85/status/1081358427312447490
https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2019/1/26/5262222
7) For people still wondering why racial disparities in traits like IQ or health don't imply corresponding genetic differences, maybe start w/ @nhannahjones on wealth https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/24/magazine/reparations-slavery.html or @Isabelwilkerson on caste, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/magazine/isabel-wilkerson-caste.html or a quiz https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/racism-african-americans-quiz.html
8) Here, also, is some data on school segregation https://nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/29/upshot/money-race-and-success-how-your-school-district-compares.html, hiring discrimination https://vox.com/identities/2017/9/18/16307782/study-racism-jobs, harmful effects of pollution on cognition https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/12/11/20996968/air-pollution-cognitive-impact and bias in media representations of black vs white quarterbacks. https://tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10646170903501328.
9) FWIW my 2019 stories on Watson & on teaching race in science class: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/01/science/watson-dna-genetics-race.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/science/watson-dna-genetics.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/us/race-biology-genetics.html
A thread about math & IQ: https://twitter.com/amy_harmon/status/1098933317997608965
Awesome emoji guide to human genetic diversity by @JacobPhD : https://scholar.harvard.edu/jtennessen/emojiguide
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/science/watson-dna-genetics.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/us/race-biology-genetics.html
A thread about math & IQ: https://twitter.com/amy_harmon/status/1098933317997608965
Awesome emoji guide to human genetic diversity by @JacobPhD : https://scholar.harvard.edu/jtennessen/emojiguide
10) And, lastly, a great @JenLucPiquant piece on the probably-apocryphal Galileo story, which includes the astute observation, "Galileo's example has been twisted by various cranks and crackpots into the exact opposite of what Galileo stood for.'' https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/we-now-have-more-evidence-that-galileo-likely-never-said-and-yet-it-moves/
