The Gift of Security

Reenact racial profiling this holiday season.
This July I flew from Seattle to Vienna to present a paper at the VISU History and Philosophy of Science symposium. I was wearing the T-shirt I always wear while traveling, which says "We Will Not Be Silent" in both English and Arabic (the same one that blogger Raed Jarrar wore that got him harrassed by security and resulted in a $240,000 discrimination settlement). As I was boarding the plane I was pulled out of line by a team of five TSA agents, one of whom grabbed my crotch before patting down my arms and legs. I asked repeatedly why I was being searched, but they remained mute as they manhandled me. So you can imagine how pleased I was to find this actual toy currently on sale through Amazon.com.

For only $62.00 your child can be the first on their block to own the Playmobil Security Checkpoint. The set comes complete with metal detector, X-ray machine and hand-wand for added security. Apparently the selling point is that while other kids are getting yet another Bratz knock-off, your child can experience all the stress and exhaustion of waiting in line while an overworked TSA officer ransacks their luggage (also included).

But perhaps the best part are these actual customer reviews:

I was a little disappointed when I first bought this item, because the functionality is limited. My 5 year old son pointed out that the passenger's shoes cannot be removed.

The best thing about this product is that it teaches kids about the realities of living in a high-surveillence society. My son said he wants the Playmobil Neighborhood Surveillence System set for Christmas.

Thank you Playmobil for allowing me to teach my 5-year old the importance of recognizing what a failing bureaucracy in a ever growing fascist state looks like. Sometimes it's a hard lesson for kids to learn because not all pigs carry billy clubs and wear body armor.

When we first set it up we tried it with my daughters African American Magic Jewel Ken Doll and Barbie Princess of the Nile Doll but they were pulled out of line before the security checkpoint and taken to a back room for "processing."

Not complete without the Playmobil Police Checkpoint ($99.99) or the Playmobil Police Station ($47.99) complete with jail! Yes, they're real. This is the world we live in.

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Controversial and Sad

James Watson retires after promoting racist science

James Watson and Francis Crick after their discovery of DNA in 1953.

Image: A. Barrington Brown/Photo Researchers Inc.

The final chapter (one hopes) in a shameful history of scientific racism has just departed in a cloud of embarrassment. As I detailed earlier, DNA co-discoverer James Watson made the unambiguous statement that he thought Africans were less intelligent than other people, a claim he has just as unambiguously rejected.

"To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief."

Watson has now announced his retirement as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was director from 1968 - 2003.

As New Scientist reports:

Eduardo Mestre, chairman of the board of CSHL, says Watson's contribution to the understanding of DNA "will continue to influence biomedical research for decades to come", and added that, the board "respects his decision to retire at this point in his career".

There is no doubt that Watson's past scientific work has been exemplary, however his numerous public statements have revealed him to be not only racist but also sexist and homophobic. While Watson is welcome to hold whatever opinions he likes, he does a great disservice to the public trust by representing the scientific viewpoint in such a shameless manner. I wish him well, but am glad not to have him on the public stage any longer.

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Intelligent Design's Selective Moral Outrage

James Watson, Ann Coulter and the tolerance of bigotry

Image: Voices for Change Committee

The nineteenth-century American author and moralist T.S. Arthur once wrote, “We are judged by the company we keep.” While we can doubt the veracity of this statement in every particular (after all, this famous advocate against the evils of alcohol was a friend of Edgar Allen Poe who probably died from drink) it’s certainly true in the case of people who condemn in others what they tolerate amongst themselves.

Denyse O’Leary, Canadian journalist and Intelligent Design creationist who writes at William Dembski’s site Uncommon Descent, has taken great umbrage with James Watson for yesterday’s racist comments, and for good reason. Just days after insulting the intelligence of Rosalind Franklin (the geneticist he refuses to credit as one of the discoverers of DNA) Watson claimed that 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 the testing says not really . . . people who have to deal with black employees find this not true."

This is patently offensive nonsense. How such a formerly brilliant mind could believe such absolute hogwash is a depressing thought. However, it takes tremendous hypocrisy on the part of Uncommon Descent to paint these absurd remarks with a broad brush and vehemently assert that “legitimized racism is an inevitable consequence” of evolutionary theory. Considering that they have such high standards, one would naturally assume they’d call out such vile language in those they agree with as well as those they don’t.

Predictably this isn’t the case. Ann Coulter (who has said about Muslims that “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” - also see below) has been praised repeatedly on the same website which now claims such profound moral indignation.

William Dembski himself has stated that Coulter “will propel our issues in the public consciousness like nothing to date” and was “happy to report that I was in constant correspondence with Ann” while writing her book Godless, in which she defends the racist social science propagated in The Bell Curve.

O’Leary likewise accuses Richard Dawkins of being anti-Semitic for making passing reference to the successful “Jewish lobby” in Washington. But when Coulter announces that Jews are nothing but “imperfected Christians” and that the entire religion of Judaism should be thrown away there is strangely no mention, no moral outrage, no condemnation that “legitimized bigotry is an inevitable consequence” of conservative Christianity (which I don’t think it has to be, though believers often attempt to dissuade me of this view).

James Watson deserves the public thrashing he’s currently receiving, and I’m glad that Uncommon Descent will agree that such racist comments are despicable. However, I think this hypocrisy represents a fundamental difference between Intelligent Design advocates such as O’Leary and Dembski and those they intend to malign. Immediately after Watson’s diatribe was uttered, prominent evolutionary scientists condemned his opinions and were rightly offended by his remarks. I’m still waiting for similar actions to be taken by those pillars of tolerance over at Uncommon Descent.

UPDATE: For more on this see Mark's terrific post today at Denialism Blog.

Additional quotes by Ann Coulter:

"Jihad monkey talks tough; jihad monkey takes the consequences. Sorry, I realize that's offensive. How about 'camel jockey'?"

"I'm all for public flogging. One type of criminal that a public humiliation might work particularly well with are the juvenile delinquents, a lot of whom consider it a badge of honor to be sent to juvenile detention. And it might not be such a cool thing in the 'hood to be flogged publicly."

“Thank God the white man did win or we would not have the sort of equality and freedom, or life, that we have now.”

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The Genetics of Politics

New study breaks the silence and suggests voter apathy could be explained by the genes.

Front page from the 1914 American textbook Eugenics by Professor T.W. Shannon


Genetics and political science have had an ugly association in the past. Arguments that certain people were biologically “unfit” for the political process led to an official eugenics policy in the United States that continued up until the Second World War. This was based largely in prevailing views about racial inferiority.

For example, writing in 1907 Davis Rich Dewey notes (p. 163):

The white population of the South honestly believed that political activity and privilege was bad for the colored race. . . The inferiority of the negro was still held to be a demonstrated fact.

This “demonstrated fact” motivated the Jim Crow voting exclusion laws and anti-miscegenation legislation such as the Racial Integrity Act of 1924.

Given this history you’d suspect few political scientists would be willing to link the fields of genetics and politics, even if they’re clearly separated from the racist views of the past. However, political scientist James Fowler and colleagues have suggested just such a connection in a study they reported on at the American Political Science Association.

In trying to predict who will vote and who will stay home, researchers have tried in vain to find any patterns in age, gender, race, income, or level of education. This is a question of some urgency since fewer than 50% of US citizens regularly vote in presidential elections. In order to determine if genes played any role the researchers collected voting data on 442 identical and 364 fraternal twins and found that 72 percent of the differences in voting turnout and around 60 percent of the differences in political activity could be explained by genetics alone (though those numbers are disputed).

According to a review in the current issue of Scientific American:

If genes do in part control voting, a single gene is unlikely to be responsible—hundreds of genes are probably involved, suggests behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin of King’s College London. Fowler hypothesizes that because “we obviously did not vote in large-scale elections in the Pleistocene,” the drive to vote or participate in politics may be linked with genes underlying more ancient behaviors, such as innate dispositions toward cooperation. The search for any such genes in our primate relatives could help determine “whether we share the neurobiological underpinnings of cooperation or whether humans are unique in this respect,” Fowler adds.

This study doesn’t suggest that genetics can account for political differences (though another study tries to make that claim), merely a willingness to engage in the political process. As it happens, studies on such neurobiological underpinnings of cooperation in non-human primates have been undertaken, including with our closely related cousins the chimpanzees and bonobos.


Bonobos sharing cantaloupe

Image: David Eppstein
According to research by Brian Hare and colleagues published in the journal Current Biology (subscription required) bonobos were found to be more successful than chimpanzees in cofeeding trials that tested their emotional reactivity. Bonobos were shown to be consistently more tolerant, were able to cooperate more effectively and, as a result, ended up receiving a greater food reward than the more individualistic chimps. While it’s a far cry from representative democracy, what the bonobo study demonstrates is that neurobiological processes (and potentially even genetic differences) can go a long way in promoting cooperative behavior and social engagement.

So perhaps Fowler’s study isn’t as far fetched as it may initially appear. However, there are numerous additional factors that should be considered before throwing up our hands and blaming our faulty genes. For example, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance has demonstrated that since WWII Western Europe has had the largest voter turnout in the world while North America has had the third lowest. Would anyone seriously suggest that genetic factors account for this difference? Certainly higher education standards, a news media that informs rather than provokes and greater worker participation in collective bargaining play some role. Understanding genetic factors can provide some interesting insights into political motivations but, like those who challenged injustice in our nation’s past, in order to turn our broken election system around we’ll need to follow our bonobo cousins and work together to achieve a larger reward.

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