James Watson, one of three men awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of DNA, has been stripped of several honorary titles by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) for reaffirming racist view he previously recanted.
Watson, his friend Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material. In 1953, they discovered that DNA is a double helix and is shaped like a long, twisting ladder. Their breakthrough was critical in determining how genetic material works.
Based in New York, CSHL is rated by some as the world's top basic research institution in molecular biology and genetics.
The problem with Watson that again surfaced had to do with Watson's comments about the intellectual superiority of some races. Watson has repeatedly asserted that differences in average measured IQ between whites and blacks are caused by genetics.
Watson said that stereotypes associated with racial and ethnic groups have a genetic basis. In his view, Jews are intelligent; Chinese are intelligent but not creative because of-of their penchant for conformity, while Indians are servile.
He first made his views on this explosive topic known in 2007; reaffirmed them in 2018 and restated them in a TV documentary last week. In the documentary, Watson said his views about intelligence and race had not changed since 2007.
At the time, he said he was inherently gloomy about the prospect of Afric because our social policies are based on the fact their intelligence is the same as ours -- where all the testing says not really.
While he hopes everyone is equal, he noted that people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true. In this month's documentary, he said genes cause a difference on average between whites and blacks in IQ tests.
It was the last straw for CSHL. It branded Watson's latest remarks "reprehensible" and "unsupported by science." The laboratory said Watson's new remarks effectively reversed his written apology and retraction in 2007.
It said it had revoked three of Watson's honorary titles, including Chancellor Emeritus and Honorary Trustee. Watson was CSHL director in 1968; its President in 1994 and Chancellor in 2004. Watson is now 90 years old.
Watson, however, is not of sound mind and body these days. His son, Rufus, revealed his father is in a nursing home following a car crash in October 2018. He said his father's awareness of his surroundings is very minimal.
"My dad's statements might make him out to be a bigot and discriminatory," said Rufus, but that's not true.
He said his father's views just represent his rather narrow interpretation of genetic destiny. My dad had made the lab his life, and yet now the lab considers him a liability, he said with regret.
Watson has also been hounded by accusations of homophobia and sexism.
