James Watson has shown the world how intelligent he is by contributing to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA.
However, the 1962 Nobel Prize winner has shown more than once this decade that ignorance is in his DNA structure.
According to the Sunday Times of London, Watson suggested during a lecture tour in 2000 that there might be links between skin color and sexual prowess, and between a person’s weight and level of ambition.
And in a British TV documentary that aired in 2003, Watson suggested that stupidity was a genetic disease that should be treated.
Watson was quoted as saying he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa … all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really.”
His latest comments have forced his employer, New York’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, to suspend him and to put a hold on his British book tour.
Watson has some interesting theories, but they probably reflect more on education than on intelligence. If he had tested his hypotheses and focused on education, I doubt any controversy would have erupted.
Watson said he hoped everyone was equal, but “people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true,” according to the Sunday Times.
At 79, Watson must be losing his mind. It is statements like this that confirm that some people believe that superiority is skin deep. If he weren’t blacklisted, before, he definitely is now.
In his apology, Watson says that “there is no scientific basis for such a belief.” In that case, why in the world did he make such a statement to begin with? Suspending a tenured employee of 39 years shows that Cold Spring Harbor believes he was capable of making the prejudicial statement he reportedly made.
Watson has apologized “unreservedly,” but racist statements by such an eminent scientist still put a bull’s-eye on the backs of black people everywhere, and will be believed.
By
Nick Davis