DNA pioneer James Watson dies at 97
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8xdypnz32o
Posted by AnOrangeBeanbag
DNA pioneer James Watson dies at 97
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8xdypnz32o
Posted by AnOrangeBeanbag
12 Comments
Massive respect to him. Love to his remaining family. Thank you.
Pioneer, research thief – all the same, I guess. He never did acknowledge the woman who created the first visuals of DNA.
May his memory be a blessing.
Also, Rosalind Franklin’s memory, too.
> His honorary titles were stripped in 2019 after he repeated comments about race and intelligence. In a TV programme, he made a reference to a view that genes cause a difference on average between blacks and whites on IQ tests.
Noted racist dies.
We can celebrate his scientific achievements, sure, but celebrating a man who subscribes to nazi-like eugenics thoughts (especially given his scientific achievements) should not be.
Good genes to live that long, appropriately enough.
“His honorary titles were stripped in 2019 after he repeated comments about race and intelligence. In a TV programme, he made a reference to a view that genes cause a difference on average between blacks and whites on IQ tests.”
Alongside Crick and Franklin, Watson’s discovery of the structure of DNA enhanced and saved an immeasurable number of lives.
He was ostracised by the scientific community and subsequently fell into debt to the point of almost needing to sell his nobel prize medal.
In fact, Watson was citing evidence that apparently showed large differences between European and sub-Saharan African nations, mediated by genetic differences.* This response to Watson was the beginning of science entering an ideological/political phase, where greater weight was attached to subjectivity over objectivity.
Personally, I don’t care about the specific findings discussed by Watson and whether this was the right or wrong interpretation. I think this is irrelevant to the core issue that I do care about: academic freedom.
It’s inevitable that findings will contradict the prevailing narratives of the era in which the discoveries were made.
In the search for objective truth, we must allow ourselves to be uncomfortable when confronting opposing perspectives as an integral feature of scientific discourse.
This is the most effective strategy, which is conducive to developing the next wave of breakthroughs.
*
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306987708001540
“There’s a difference on the average between blacks and whites on IQ tests. I would say the difference is, it’s genetic”
For someone capable of such rare insights into science, he was, to put it very generously, quite naive about human nature.
Insane to think someone could live for over 60 years after winning a Nobel prize.
For all these people discussing his comments and whether or not he was a dickhead, my ex boss worked in the same department with him when he was at cold spring harbour, personally he was also a dickhead and disliked.
How can you discover DNA and be racist? At a fundamental cellular level, of all people he should know we are all the same lmao
My halls of residence at university were named after him until he made those racist comments, then the name was changed to honour Rosalind Franklin instead
During my Genetics degree the lecturers had to say that they did not condone Watson’s views every time we spoke about any research he contributed to. Maybe with him gone we can discuss genetics without having to discuss one man’s political opinion. No person should have control of an entire field of science like that.