Yeah, this is a huge surprise
I’m sure just about everyone has heard about this by now, but here are James Watson’s recent comments at the Royal Society in London:
The 79-year-old geneticist said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really.". He said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”.
This honestly comes as no great surprise. Ever since reading about the shabby way in which Watson treated Rosalind Franklin in Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, I have had scant respect for him. I am tired of seeing him defended as someone who is willing to make politically incorrect speeches. I really don’t get this. Saying that black people are unintelligent and women who are carrying babies who have a "homosexual gene" should be allowed to abort them is somehow courageous? Reinforcing biases that already exist about groups of people is in no way courageous. He has made similar comments about the intelligence of women in the past, but apparently people aren’t as terribly shocked by that notion, for they received far less publicity. The worst thing about such comments is that the fact that he’s such a respected scientist validates these ideas. There are plenty of scientists working in the field who are far better qualified to comment on these ideas. I fully support Watson’s freedom of speech to say whatever he wants, but I disagree strongly that he should have been allowed to keep his job at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. There’s no way to know what unsaid assumptions most people in such positions of power hold, but now that we know what Watson thinks I really feel that he shouldn’t be in a position to affect the lives of people whom he seems to hold in such contempt.
