What Josh said.
Given his statements sad is not the right word. But bizarre certainly and a weird coda to the career behind one of the great discoveries of the 20th Century: DNA. James Watson, who along with Francis Crick discovered DNA, the core building block and information transmitter of life on earth, has been forced to retire as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island. This, of course, comes after last week when Watson told an interviewer that he is not optimistic about the future of Africa since, he believes, Africans have a lower average intelligence than whites.
Adding ... I had reserved comment on this issue as it was personally very disturbing that someone you have idolized in your career can be so wrong about other things. I hoped that it was just him being a crazy old man, but then remembered a talk he gave at Berkeley that was quite misogynistic and contained bizarre slides of scantly clad women. The only consolation is that he does seem very sorry for his remarks, but hopefully not just sorry he got caught.
Photo by Flickr user Gaetan Lee used under a Creative Commons license
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