James Watson: Genius, Nobel Laureate, Total Idiot

James Watson is a brilliant scientist.  He won the Nobel Prize in 1962 for his groundbreaking work discovering and explaining the DNA helix.  And he is living, breathing proof that no matter how smart you are, you can still be an idiot.

He is also proof that you can understand great mysteries of the universe in one area but be completely unable to apply that knowledge to other disciplines. In this case Watson is a biologist who was years ahead of his time, but as an anthropologist he is about 100 years behind his time.

For several years now, Watson has been sticking his aged foot in his brilliant mouth by attempting to leverage his knowledge of biology into sociological conclusions.  For example, in 1997, he said if (note the use of the word "if" here) a homosexual gene were discovered, mothers who learned their unborn child had that gene should be allowed to have an abortion.  In 2000, he was quoted as saying there "might be links" between skin color and sexual prowess. He cited as an example the fact that you have "Latin Lovers" but "English Patients."

Also in 2000, he suggested a link between a person's weight and their ambition.

I guess not enough Brits or overweight people rose up in protest, because Watson continued in his post as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island. 

But this past Sunday his learned mouth got him into a jam from which he cannot extricate himself.  In an interview with the Sunday Times of London, Watson said, in essence, that black people are not as intelligent as white people.  These excerpts are from a CNN.com article on the issue:

The eminent biologist told the British newspaper 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."

...In the newspaper interview, he said there was no reason to think that races which had grown up in separate geographical locations should have evolved identically. He went on to say that although he hoped everyone was equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".

Fellow scientists have dismissed Watson's conclusions as "genetic nonsense."

This incident should serve as a reminder to us that while an individual may possess brilliant insights in a particular discipline, that does not qualify them to speak ex cathedra about any and all subjects.

We are too quick to bow down at the altar of scientific accomplishment or celebrity and assume these people should be listened to no matter what subject they are opining on.  That is why you have Tom Cruise speaking authoritatively about psychology or James Watson speaking about the characteristics or relative intelligence of various races.

We are certainly not immune to this in the church.  In the mid-1980s I served on the media staff of a large church while pursuing a graduate degree.  One Sunday we had John Delorean as our guest speaker.  He had been a brilliant automobile designer at GM - responsible for the classic Pontiac GTO - who launched out on his own. Remember the gull-winged stainless steel Delorean that was a central character in "Back to the Future"? As his car company was going under Delorean was arrested and accused of cocaine trafficking, fraud and conspiracy, caught up in a government sting while trying to get cash to salvage his dream. 

I spent 15-20 minutes talking with him in the green room that day and found him to be an engaging person whose conversion story seemed genuine and heartfelt.  But that conversion experience was only weeks earlier! He had only been a Christian a few weeks, but because he was famous, he was invited to fill the church's pulpit.

James Watson's fame from the discovery of DNA and subsequent Nobel Prize provided him with an platform and an audience for his bogus conclusions.

Simon Peter was a man not unlike James Watson. He, too held deeply rooted prejudices against people of other races.  While Watson attempts to justify his racism with science, Peter used religious beliefs to justify his.  In Acts 10, Peter had a dream in which he saw animals that his religious rules deemed unclean and unacceptable.  When told by God to eat, Peter responded indignantly. "Lord, I have never eaten anything unclean!"  In the dream God responded firmly and decisively: "Do not call anything impure that I have made clean!"

Peter got the message.  God wasn't talking about animals.  He was talking about people, and within hours Peter stood before a group of Gentiles and said, "God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean."

James Watson is now attempting to remove his foot from his mouth by pleading what amounts to temporary insanity:

I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said. I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways that they have.  To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief.

I have two problems with his mea culpa. First, Watson did not malign a continent, he denigrated a race of people. Second, he might be 79 years old, but his comments were succinct and obviously well-thought out, so his pleading "I didn't know what I was saying" doesn't pass the giggle test. What actually happened was he attempted to couch his ignorant, racist, irrational prejudices in the context of his scientific reputation in order to give them some semblance of legitimacy.  Thankfully, his colleagues around the world rose up to denounce his ignorant, racist opinions.

It is interesting to note that in 2003, Dr. Watson postulated publicly that stupidity was a genetic disease. I disagree.  I think it is an acquired disease. And he has a really bad case of it.

Read the CNN article here.

UPDATE - October 25 - James Watson resigned today from his position at Cold Harbor.  He did not directly reference the controversy in his resignation statement but did mention "events" that led to his decision.  "The circumstances in which the transfer is occurring are not those which I could ever have anticipated or desired," he said.

Read the CNN.com story here.

Comments

[p.selvaraj]

enough proof to show that there are and can be idiot-scientists ;portals of learning should accept the limits of science and technology.

[Colin]

Good job misquoting James Watson and taking him out of context. No record even exists of him making the "black employees" comment that I have seen. The rest is all out of context. He was discussing melanocyte hormones and made a joke something along the lines of "this pigment makes people horny" (a true statement) followed by the joke "maybe that's why you have Latin Lovers but only English Patients."

He was simply joking during an otherwise boring lecture. Stop being so PC, thought police.

[Alan Riley]

Colin,

Thanks for your comment. You are wrong both in your facts and your conclusions. If, as you say, I quoted Watson out of context, why did he not bother to explain that in his "apology," or in his subsequent resignation? The comments that you say no record exists of were made - as was the assertion that black people are "less intelligent" - in an interview with the London Sunday Times published on Oct 14.

(See for yourself: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2677098.ece)

If Watson was merely "joking" as you assert, the board at Cold Spring Harbor made no effort to explain those extenuating circumstances when they repudiated his remarks on October 17 or when they suspended him from his duties as Chancellor on the following day. Nice try, but he was not "taken out of context" or bringing levity to a boring lecture. The remarks that got him repudiated and ultimately removed from the research facility he founded were made in a one-on-one interview and were very clear and consise in their context.

I am not the thought police. I have no way to enforce my will on anyone, nor would I want to. I do have a right to my opinion, and that opinion is and remains that Watson is a brilliant scientist who holds stupid, bigoted views about black people.

Alan