James Watson: Scientist loses titles after claims over race

[brooklynite]

Source: BBC

Nobel Prize-winning American scientist James Watson has been stripped of his honorary titles after repeating comments about race and intelligence.

In a TV programme, the pioneer in DNA studies made a reference to a view that genes cause a difference on average between blacks and whites on IQ tests.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory said the 90-year-old scientist's remarks were "unsubstantiated and reckless".

Dr Watson had made similar claims in 2007 - and subsequently apologised.

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46856779?ocid=socialflow_twitter

[ProudLib72]

1. HOLY CRAP!!! Watson and Crick!!

Anyone who has ever taken a biology class has heard of the names. This is unbelievably sad.

[FreepFryer]

2. Eugenicist adherent loses well-earned Nobel when he pushes his pseudoscience as science.

Shoulda stuck with the science, Jimmy.

[jpak]

5. Rosalind Franklin is smiling somewhere

[Kind of Blue]

13. Indeed! Immediately who I thought of, too.

[clementine613]

11. Was his Nobel Prize actually revoked?

Is there precedent for that?

[Rollo]

15. No, this does NOT apply to his Nobel Prize

[bobbieinok]

3. Didn't he use the work of a woman and never mention her? Became a very belated scandal?

[obamanut2012]

4. Yes, Rosalind Franklin also deserved the Nobel

And should be rewarded with it posthumously.

She contributed MUCH to DNA/RNA research, and her work was basically hidden, and Crick and Watson claimed much of her work as theirs.

Photo 51 is probably the most well-known of her work, although it's just the tip of the iceberg:

[link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_51#/media/File hoto_51_x-ray_diffraction_image.jpg|

[tinrobot]

14. Unfortunately, the Nobel comittee does not do posthumous prizes.

Sadly, Franklin died in 1958. The Nobel for DNA was awarded in 1962 - after she passed.

[dalton99a]

6. "Even Watson begrudgingly says that she should have gotten it."

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/rosalind-franklin-legacy/

[Botany]

7. Yes, she looked @ the picture and correctly I.D.ed the helix nature of the DNA ....

.... Watson and Crick took credit for her work for years.

[Rollo]

16. According to Watson...

Franklin was extremely meticulous and wanted to gather all the evidence possible before she published her results. Watson basically stole her results and beat her to it. I think one show about it said that Crick wouldn't speak to Watson for many years because he resented Watson's grandstanding with the book "The Double Helix".

Watson relied on his intuition about the structure and he was lucky he was right. He was helped in this because Linus Pauling had already made a huge blunder in publishing that DNA was a chemically unlikely triple helix.

My opinion is that no matter how gifted the scientist, their expertise is generally limited to one field and it does not make them an expert on unrelated matters, such as Watson's ill-considered opinions on race. But society seems to expect scientific geniuses to be geniuses about everything, and it sounds like Watson embraced that hubris. Watson did know how to play scientific politics.

[Grokenstein]

9. One of my favorite Kate Beaton strips!

[Scurrilous]

8. Good!

[Paladin]

10. Glad it happened....but the old fool will make a ton of money as a right-wing martyr. (nt)

[Laffy Kat]

12. He's not a nice person.

And not especially brilliant either. Watson and Crick too way too much credit away from Franklin. He's got this coming, IMO.