Nobel Racist

Nobel Prize winning biologist Jim Watson is being called to the carpet for his remarks regarding race, particularly the African and African-American races. The famed biologist is apologizing repeatedly for making this statement in the Sunday Times: He said 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." Mr. Watson also said that he felt there was no reason to believe different races separated by geography should have evolved identically, he continued on to say that while he hoped everyone was equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true."

I’m polishing the trophy and getting it ready. Mr. Watson, there is no doubt in my mind, you are today’s winner of the “Yo Ignant Ass” award, hands down! Regardless of your status as a Nobel prize winner, you have shown with this statement that it is YOUR intelligence that should be questioned.

Watson was scheduled to appear at London’s Science Museum, but due to his RACIST remarks, they have cancelled his appearance; Bravo for London’s Science Museum. David Lammy, British government's Skills Minister, who just happens to be Black (how could this be, he can’t possibly be intelligent enough if what Mr. Watson claims is true!), has said he finds the comments made by the Nobel prize winner to be “deeply offensive”.

This isn’t a one time slip for Mr. Watson; he has a history of saying controversial things that degrade certain groups of people. Britain's Sunday Telegraph ran a story in 1997 that quoted Watson as saying that if a gene for homosexuality were isolated, women who find that their unborn child has the gene should be allowed to have an abortion. In 2000 while lecturing on tour, he suggested there might be links between a person's weight and their level of ambition and between skin color and sexual prowess.

Because of his credentials in the scientific field and the fact that he is a Nobel prize winner, it is almost certain racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups will use his remarks as fuel power and a means to promote their ideologies. I am almost certain that Professor Watson, has harbored these sort of extreme views for a long time now. The fact that he has a Nobel prize should not distract from the fact that he has uttered a considerable amount of complete garbage throughout his long and very successful life. Watson has been a long-time supporter of genetic screening and genetic engineering and has made statements in public lectures and interviews, arguing that "stupidity" is a disease and that the “really stupid” bottom 10% of people should be cured. See article http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3451

Not even the handicap are safe from Watson, in 1996 Watson said in the annual report at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, that prospective parents should use genetic engineering to weed disabled persons out of society:"The truly relevant question for most families is whether an obvious good to them will come from having a child with a major handicap. Is it more likely for such children to fall behind in society or will they through such affliction develop the strengths of character and fortitude that lead, like Jeffrey Tate, the noted British conductor, to the head of their packs. . . . But we perhaps most realistically should see (the handicap) as the major origin of asocial behavior that has among its many bad consequences the breeding of criminal violence." To see Watson's unedited remarks, read the article at http://nucleus.cshl.org/96AnReport/essay14.html.

The remarks made by Watson show that the most intelligent of people, particularly scientists, quite often hold views which can be profoundly intransigent and offensive. If the remarks were being expressed by some racist moron, you would observe it to be an indicator of their stupidity. The credentials held by this man should not be a factor in his being deemed a racist. Regardless of his educational and career standing, this man is a moron and is officially today’s “Yo Ignant Ass” poster child.