DNA pioneer James Watson stripped of honorary titles for racist remarks about black people

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory called his comments “unsubstantiated and reckless” and said it was revoking the titles 12 years after the geneticist lost his job at the New York-based institution. In 2007 Dr Watson shocked the scientific world when told the Times newspaper that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” as “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – where all the testing says not really”. And while the geneticist said he hoped everyone was equal, he added: “People who have to deal with black employees find this is not true.” 

 

Dr Watson was awarded the Nobel in 1962, sharing it with Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick, for their discovery of the DNA’s double helix structure. He later issued a written apology and retraction and was forced to retire from the lab which he headed. 

In a documentary about his career, American Masters: Decoding Watson which aired earlier this month, the molecular biologist said his views on intelligence and race had not changed.

The laboratory released a statement on Friday saying it was stripping the 90-year-old of his three honorary titles –  chancellor emeritus, honorary trustee and Oliver R. Grace professor emeritus. 

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory called his remarks “reprehensible, unsupported by science, and in no way represent the views of CSHL” or its wider community. 

It rejected what it called Dr Watson’s “unsubstantiated and reckless personal opinions” but added it appreciated his scientific legacy. 

In 1968 Dr Watson was appointed director of the lab and went on to become its president and chancellor and have a school at the site named after him. 

Dr Watson’s son Rufus responded by saying his father was in a nursing home recovering from a car crash and that his awareness of his surrounding were “very minimal”. 

He said: “My dad’s statements might make him out to be a bigot and discriminatory,” he said, adding that this was not true.“They 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.”

source: express.co.uk