b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 1 http://infoproc.blogspot.co.nz/2011/05/forbidden-thoughts.html
The video below is of the final lecture in Biology 7.012 at MIT (2004), co-
taught by Professor Eric Lander, Director of the Broad Institute at MIT and
a principal leader of the Human Genome Project, and Professor Robert A.
Weinberg, winner of the 1997 National Medal of Science. Weinberg delivers
the final lecture.
Weinberg (@ 32:40): ... And what happens if one of these days people
discover alleles for certain aspects of cognitive function? Chess playing
ability. The ability to learn five different languages. The ability to
remember strings of numbers. The ability to speak extemporaneously in front
of a class, for what it's worth, for 50 minutes several times a week.
[It seems improbable to me that such abilities will be controlled or
strongly impacted by specific alleles. Rather, they are likely to be subtly
influenced by large numbers of different genetic loci. But this doesn't
necessarily affect the following discussion. Note also that Weinberg
neglects the possibility of variation in direction of selection pressure
experienced by different isolated groups.]
Whatever ability you want, valued or not so valued, what if those alleles
begin to come out? And here's the worse part. What if somebody begins to
look for the frequency of those alleles in different ethnic groups scattered
across this planet? Now, you will say to me, well, God has made all his
children equal. But the fact is if you look at the details of human
evolution, some of which I discussed with you a week ago, last week, you'll
come to realize that most populations in humanity are the modern descendents
of very small founder groups.
... So the fact is it's inescapable that different alleles are going to be
present with different frequencies in different inbreeding populations of
humanity or populations of humanity that traditionally have been genetically
isolated from one another.
It's not as if all the genes that we carry have been mixed with everybody
else's genes freely over the last 100,000 years. Different groups have bred
separately and have, for reasons that I've told you, founder affects and
genetic drift, acquired different sets and different constellations of
alleles. So what's going to happen then, I ask you without wishing to hear
an answer because nobody really knows?
Then for the first time there could be a racism which is based not on some
kind of virulent ideology, not based on some kind of kooky versions of
genetics, because the eugenicists in the beginning of the 20th century, as
well as the Nazis hadn't had any idea about genetics, they were just using
the word, even though they knew nothing about the science of genetics as we
understand it today. But what happens if now for the first time we, i.e.,
you who begin to understand genetics, begin to perceive that there are, in
fact, different populations of humanity that are endowed with different
constellation of alleles that we imagine are more or less desirable?
What's going to happen then? I don't know. But some scientists say, well,
the truth must come out and that everything that can be learned should be
learned, and we will learn how to digest it and we will learn how to live
with that. But I'm not so sure that's the right thing. And you all have to
wrestle with that as well. ... | b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 2 racial differences = "hate speech." |
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