The ‘unfathomable’ arrest of a black scholar

 [...] the recent arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation’s most prominent African-American scholars, has stirred outrage and debate.

Jelani Cobb, an author and professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, says it’s troubling on many levels when “one of the most recognizable African-Americans in the country can be arrested in his own home and have to justify being in his own home.”

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‘Why, because I’m a black man in America?’

- Gates, in response to being arrested by a police officer in his own home

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‘You’re not responding because I’m a black man, and you’re a white officer.’”

- Gates

 

 [Full article here]

Question:

Comprehension: Punctuation

Why is the word ‘unfathomable’ in the title in inverted commas?

Sex, Race and IQ: Off Limits?

Granted, the study of racial and sex differences in intelligence has not exactly covered itself in glory. There was that unfortunate incident in the mid-20th century, when British psychologist Cyril Burt apparently made up data to “prove” that genes make blacks and the poor innately less intelligent than whites and the wealthy. Later studies reaching similar conclusions were based on statistics that would have done Mark Twain (“lies, damned lies …”) proud. But does this sorry record warrant the scientific equivalent of the death penalty for such research?

- Begley (2009)

[full article here]

Questions:

Is it prejudiced to research into sex, race and IQ? Why?

If society perceives that race/sex/IQ studies reflect a prejudice, will that significantly affect the advancement of Science? Why?

“Ailing while black”

“Dr. Lauren Shaiova, a pain specialist who treats sickle-cell-disease patients at Manhattan’s Beth Israel Medical Center, says doctors have long allowed African-American sickle-cell sufferers to agonize because they assume blacks will become addicted to pain medication. Call it “ailing while black.”"

- TIME, “What’s Race Got To Do With It?“

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010730/cover.html