Things you must not say

[Gob]

A scientist who was part of the team that discovered DNA has been forced to sell his Nobel Prize after he was shunned by the scientific community for comments that linked race and intelligence.



James Watson sparked an outcry in 2007 when he suggested in an interview with the Sunday Times that people of African descent were inherently less intelligent than white people.

The American scientist said he had become an 'unperson' since making the controversial remarks and is now selling his prize in a bid to 're-enter public life'. The medal, the first to be auctioned by a living recipient, is expected to fetch as much as £2.5million when it goes under the hammer at Christie's in New York next week. Dr Watson shared the 1962 Nobel Prize, awarded for uncovering the double helix structure of DNA, with British scientists Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick. The discovery was made by Watson and Crick, who used experimental data that had been gathered by Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin.

Dr Watson, 86, said that he was fired from the boards of a number of companies after making the inflammatory race comments, adding that he has not given any public lectures since. He told the Financial Times: 'No one really wants to admit I exist'. He said he would use the money from the sale of the medal to supplement his income, which now comes solely from academic institutions. Dr Watson added that he would use some of the proceeds to give back to institutions that have supported him, including the University of Chicago, where he was awarded his undergraduate degree, and Clare College, Cambridge.

He revealed that he would also like to buy an artwork, telling the newspaper that he would like to own a piece by David Hockney. He admitted that the comments had been 'stupid' on his part, and insisted he is not racist 'in a conventional way'. He said: 'I apologise ... (the journalist) somehow wrote that I worried about the people in Africa because of their low IQ - and you're not supposed to say that.'

In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine on 14 October 2007, Dr Watson was quoted as saying he is '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 everyone was equal, but added: 'People who have to deal with black employees find this not true.' The views were also included in a book, published that week, in which he wrote that 'there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically'. He said: 'Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.'

Four days later, the scientist was banned from speaking at London's Science Museum. At the time, a spokkesman said: 'The Science Museum feels that Nobel Prize winner James Watson's recent comments have gone beyond the point of acceptable debate.' Days later, the scientist attempted to justify his theory that there is a genetic basis behind differences in IQ. He told The Independent: 'I have never been one to shy away from stating what I believe to be the truth'. He added, 'this has, at times, got me in hot water.'

That week, Dr Watson was forced to cancel a book tour of the UK and fly back to the US after he was suspended by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Long Island. Since the race row erupted, Dr Watson claimed that he was fired from the boards of a number of companies.

[Joe Guy]

[TPFKA@W]

I am pretty sure this here feller is smarter than I am and I am soooooo pasty white.

[rubato]

James Watson is a very lovely man who has a habit of provoking people.

Sometimes he just says stupid things like his comments about Rosalind Franklin which were really out of line and he admitted it later on, and sometimes he deliberately pulls someone's chain, and sometimes he pisses off a friend like he did with Francis Crick.

He had a very fun biography aptly called "Avoid Boring People".

Freedom of expression exists to protect people like him who are trying to tell the truth albeit slightly chaotically at times.


yrs,
rubato

[wesw]

...on the other hand, everyone with any sense is still leaving Africa as fast as they can get their asses out of there. it s dangerous there.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I think he's confusing intelligence with education. There is no doubt that western-type social systems have not evolved in sub-Saharan Africa to the same level as we experience in our Euro/American context. Indeed, hot climates did not produce universities or railway engines but instead had those introduced from the outside. Just over 100 years ago, even a more moderate climatic county such as Japan had not "evolved" internally - but not because its people were unintelligent. China's rise has been even more recent and (pace colonialism) India came in between. These countries, no more than (say) Kenya, were not late developers through lack of IQ.

I doubt that the average South African - black or white - would do particularly well on standardized IQ tests that reflect a western idiom. None of this is to say that there are not many, many individuals (of any colour, race or creed) who exceed the general population in 'smarts'. To pull out one highly intelligent gentleman or lady from Africa and think that refutes any argument as to relative readiness to do well on an IQ test is ridiculous.

Surely we are all aware that random test subjects from Appalachia in any year up to 1970 and perhaps even today would fare about as well as any African. It's the availability of education, food, jobs, and freedom from hidebound tradition that raise the measurable "intelligence" level of any community, country or continent.

[wesw]

also, necessity is (italics) the mother of invention, and peoples who have migrated long distances have had to have to been able to survive periods of hardship and change of environments and different threats to their safety, more often than have societies which have been developed in one place or type of environment.

of course, this assumes that the theory that we are all out of Africa is correct.

[wesw]

ok , the error is in the first sentence. the present tense in the first sentence should be separated from the past participle with a period instead of the comma and the and before peoples can be dropped afterwards....

[rubato]

Each branch of the African diaspora has differentiated by losing genetic material; by subtraction. The broadest range of genetic potential is in Africa. They still have the richest and most complex genome.


Watson isn't the first living person to sell his prize medal; Neils Bohr sold his to send support to the Finns.


yrs,
rubato

[Guinevere]

I think he's becoming a caricature of himself. He's a brilliant old man who has lost his filter -- as most seniors do -- and who believes his life's work is the answer to every problem in creation. It's a bit sad, really.

[wesw]

...except that recent studies have shown that everyone, except most Africans, has a bit of Neanderthal added, thus widening the genome of those people. also, if whole peoples left Africa, there was a bit of subtraction there too....

[rubato]

I think he's becoming a caricature of himself. He's a brilliant old man who has lost his filter -- as most seniors do -- and who believes his life's work is the answer to every problem in creation. It's a bit sad, really.

I don't think he's changed all that much. He has a long history of provocation. He just believes that the conversation continues on after he says something shocking so that its content can be explored and modified. He does not understand that certain statements bring everything to a full stop and no one wants to listen anymore.


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

You have a lot in common then?

[rubato]

You have a lot in common then?

Not really. I know about the not-listening part which you and the tribe of haters illustrate pretty well. Like you just did.


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Do you think so? It's true that I wasn't listening but was reading. However, that's just a quibble.

I read what you wrote and thought about the number of times that you have unchangingly been provocative. You do appear to believe that after you say something shocking you can either ignore or modify (usually the former) shocking things you've said that the subsequent discussion reveals to be inaccurate. You do appear to lack understanding that some of your statements bring everything to a full stop and no one wants to read their kind anymore.

So, dropping the interrogative leaves us with the declarative: you've a lot in common then.

It seems to be the case that you're not alone in that. Most of us have more or less done the same kind of thing from time to time.

[Lord Jim]

What I think is funny is the way rube is so ready to make excuses for this blatantly racist old crank and his crackpot eugenics theories...

He's not "provocative"; he's a white supremacist who believes blacks to be genetically inferior...

Rube would be jumping with both feet (and rightly so) on any high profile conservative saying anything remotely like this...

But since this guy's both a chemist and the recipient of a nobel prize, there's no limit to how far rube's willing to shove his tongue up his keister...

[MajGenl.Meade]

To be fair, I think rubato's comment was far from being a defense of the old coot. I could be wrong - it happened once. Maybe.

[Lord Jim]

Rube's obviously attempting to rationalize and make excuses for his behavior. On the other hand, I see not one word of condemnation from him.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Yeah, I guess I can see that too.

[Gob]

Russia's richest man has revealed that he bought US scientist James Watson's Nobel Prize gold medal, and intends to return it to him.

Steel and telecoms tycoon Alisher Usmanov said Mr Watson "deserved" the medal, and that he was "distressed" the scientist had felt forced to sell it.

The medal, awarded in 1962 for the discovery of the structure of DNA, sold for $4.8m (£3m) at auction.

The medal was the first Nobel Prize to be put on sale by a living recipient.

The 1962 prize was awarded to Watson, along with Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick, with each receiving a gold medal.

Mr Watson, 86, has said he planned to donate part of the proceeds to charities and to support scientific research.

In an interview with the Financial Times recently, Mr Watson said he had been made to feel like an "unperson" since a Sunday Times interview seven years ago in which he linked race to intelligence.

Mr Usmanov said in a statement that he was the anonymous telephone bidder who bought the medal at a Christie's auction last week.

"In my opinion, a situation in which an outstanding scientist has to sell a medal recognising his achievements is unacceptable," he added.

"James Watson is one of the greatest biologists in the history of mankind and his award for the discovery of DNA structure must belong to him."

Mr Usmanov, said by Forbes magazine to be worth $15.8bn, is a major shareholder in Arsenal football club and was named Britain's wealthiest man in the Sunday Times rich list for 2013