If you’ve ever wanted a Nobel Prize, you can bid on one: James Watson is auctioning his off, with a starting bid of $2.5 million dollars.
He says he needs the money.
But really, it’s the most pitiful, pathetic whine. He’s distressed and resentful that he became an intellectual pariah with a series of racist and sexist lectures; he claimed that darker skin colors were associated with higher libido (isn’t that just classic racism?) and that Africans are genetically inferior and of lower intelligence than white people. I once had a very uncomfortable dinner with him in which he explained to me how the Scots/Irish people were superior human beings.
Mr Watson – who insisted he was “not a racist in a conventional way” – said it had been “stupid” of him to not realise that his comments on the intelligence of African people would end up in an article.
“I apologise . . . [the journalist] somehow wrote that I worried about the people in Africa because of their low IQ – and you’re not supposed to say that.”
In 2007, the Sunday Times ran an interview with Dr Watson in which 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”.
He told the newspaper people wanted to believe that everyone was born with equal intelligence but that those “who have to deal with black employees find this not true”.
Sounds like an entirely conventional racist to me. Now he regrets that he said those things out loud, not because he has changed his mind, but because all of his lecture invitations have dried up and no company wants a barking racist on their board.
Mr Watson said his income had plummeted following his controversial remarks in 2007, which forced him to retire from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York. He still holds the position of chancellor emeritus there.
“Because I was an ‘unperson’ I was fired from the boards of companies, so I have no income, apart from my academic income,” he said.
Poor, poor man…wait. Only his academic income? He’s a very senior faculty member at a prestigious institution, and I suspect he’s got plenty of cash socked away in investments, after decades on the boards of various companies.
He would also use some of the proceeds to buy an artwork, he said. “I really would love to own a [painting by David] Hockney”.
A Hockney can cost millions of dollars. Poor people don’t talk about desperately seeking quick cash so they can buy a valuable painting to hang in their hovel.
By the way, Watson is also an atheist.
Has he considered joining the Ferguson police force?
Holy fucking shitballs, Batman…
“I have no income, apart from my income” = Superior Scots logic.
CSHL, former hotspot of eugenics research, acts all surprised with grumpy old researcher says something racist. That’s almost funny.
I wonder if I can get a Nobel for playing a sub-atomic violin for him.
Hmm.
I would like to buy a painting.
–
I have no income, other than my other income.
–
I can haz millions now?
“darker skin colors were associated with higher libido (isn’t that just classic racism?) and that Africans are genetically inferior and of lower intelligence than white people.”
Who the heck cares for intelligence. Nature selects those with dark complexion. It is so ‘elementary’. Did Watson get that?
How awful that people were listening when he spoke his mind.
The rotters.
:Snort: What an asshole.
Hey, my only income comes from my job, too. I’d better auction off my 4th grade spelling bee first-place ribbon for $$$.
Jim does have his supporters, including most of the commenters at the Telegraph. Example: “A brilliant man torn down for daring to approach and tell the truth.”
They also seem to think that the racist content of his remarks was the product of careful scientific investigation.
It would seem Dr. Watson and George W. Bush have a lot to talk about.
I’m Irish. I believe that, despite the undeniable greatness of many of our past and present scientists, writers, scholars, artists, engineers and humanitarians, this little country holds an entirely disproportionate number of egregiously sly and greedy fucking idiots. We are a nation of willfully pig-ignorant gobshites and tricksters. When no one asks us, we boast and beat our chests and tell everyone “we are brilliant because we are tiny and yet look at all the great stuff we have done!” – and then when we are asked to step up to the plate and do our part globally on climate change or nature conservation or poverty reduction or human rights, or even when we are asked to reduce our massive impacts on our own green and pleasant land, we first see if there is any money or power in it for ourselves, and if not then we tell everyone “we are weak because we are tiny and can’t really do anything”, and when that isn’t convincing we point to Bono and say “he’s our go-to guy, talk to him because the rest of Ireland is busy walking to school in our bare feet and digging for stray potatoes in the fields with our bare hands because we too are poor”.
Superior? Superior con artists, yes, and with a superior line in avarice (two things Mr. Watson seems to have inherited, if he really wants to claim poverty while looking for millions to buy some fucking artwork), but generally superior to any other “race” or ethnic group, no.
(Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what I really think….)
Clearly not a humanist.
Seems like he didn’t get the memo on how the whole Civil War was caused by violent “Celts” from Scotland and Wales that settled in the South. And Irish people were considered “colored” in the US. Basically any ethnicity has racist legends about it.
That’s not saying much, so are Sam Harris, Michael Shermer and Richard Dawkins.
“(I) was made a pariah…became an unperson…was outed..was forced to retire… was set back.”
Notice the passive voice, universally used by those who wish to evade responsibility for their actions. Instead of “I made hideously racist statements and don’t want anyone to disagree with me.”
Then, there’s this: “Mr Watson said he hoped the publicity surrounding the sale of the medal would provide an opportunity for him to “re-enter public life”. Since the furore in 2007 he has not delivered any public lectures.” Because no one really takes blatant racism seriously. Why, some publicity is enough for everyone to forget about it!
No, no, #16, you don’t get it. That’s their strength.
As was explained to me at length, the Scots-Irish are not the smartest — that would be the Jews, of course — but they combined good intelligence with aggression & ambition & pluck, making them the possessors of the best possible combination of traits. Those other races, well, the word used was “shiftless,” so you know where he was coming from.
He told me the Nordic races, like my mother’s side of the family, were a good second choice, but they were unfortunately afflicted with a “cold passivity”, lacking the fire of the Celt.
Interesting, the CNN story has nothing of this, it mentions only funding philanthropic gifts to science.
Well, Deepak Chopra finally has his shot at getting a Nobel.
Jeremy Shaffer #21
Oh. Snap!
How can nominally sane and intelligent men like Dawkins and Watson hold such foolish and, frankly, reprehensible views? I know that in Dawkins case there is a lot of the programming from the upper middle class background and the public school education but Watson does not have that excuse.
Only fitting that he would want to sell off his Nobel. The burden of guilt that he used Rosalind Franklin’s work without crediting her, knowing full well that she was the first to obtain evidence that DNA was in the form of a double helix which he would then build “his” model from and win a Nobel prize with, and that he would be shielded from any repercussions by the overwhelming sexism of the his colleagues, seems to finally have caught up with him.
People love to think that all the nazis vanished into thin air in 1945.
You’d be surprised how much of their rhetoric was actually still going around for a couple decades more. It really wasn’t until the post-war generation started to be politically important that eugenics and horribly blatant racism stopped being generally acceptable.
Then there’s the fact that one of the major demands of the ’68 movement in Germany was getting the literal nazis out of government and high-level education. Really, that a man whose formative years were in the forties adheres to views like these shouldn’t be a surprise at all. That an intelligent man like Watson is careless enough to make them widely known – now that is a little strange.
Here comes the lynch mob again, trying to silence a good man just because he’s rich and white and stupid.
Zaratoothbrush
What makes an obvious and self admitted bigot a good man?
I want it clearly understood that he’s no relation of mine.
So, if he doesn’t get a $25M bid, do we get to start lower?
Watson is selling Franklin’s Nobel?
Wow.
Where will the money go?
Nerd
Please recalibrate your sarcasm detector.
If I could buy it, I would scratch his name off it and engrave Rosalind Franklin’s name instead.
Watson & Crick did not steal Rosalind Franklin’s Nobel in any way.
She died in 1958. The Nobel for DNA was awarded in 1962. It is never given posthumously.
The Old Boys Network was free & easy with her data, which was shameful, but she didn’t figure out the structure of DNA. Watson & Crick accomplished that, using the dimension data Franklin had determined with X-ray crystallography. That was acknowledged by the Nobel committee sharing the award with Wilkins for the crystallography work. Maybe if she’d lived, she would have gotten a share (although I wouldn’t guarantee it, since quite a few women have been screwed out of it). The myth that she was robbed of a Nobel really is a myth.
No, what’s really awful is the cavalier and sexist regard in which Watson held her. From his book:
So even then everyone knew that Watson was an asshole, and that it was quite uncontroversial in the era of Mad Men to be dismissive of women in general.
Watson was college roommates with one of the profs who I took several classes under and thoroughly enjoyed. As a favor to him, Watson came and gave a talk and then had a dinner with some of the grad students at my school. Afterwards, we all got together to compare notes and it was pretty much unanimous that he was awful. It’s something I add every semester to my DNA structure lecture for my own students.
Yet another lesson in the halo effect?
You can be a brilliant genius and a shitty human being at the same time.
We’ll learn this.
I find it fascinating that whenever “science proves that Group X is superior”, the person doing the study ALWAYS happens to be a member of Group X.
I wonder if Richard Dawkins will speak out against the outrage of James Watson having been “silenced.”
Watson’s gonna need the dough while he’s in the BURN unit.
Rob R @36:
Hmmm. Never thought about it, but I think you’re right.
****
screechymonkey @37:
Dawkins is still too wrapped up in whining about the feminazi thought police who are muzzling him to care about how others are being “silenced”. Perhaps one day he’ll get around to explaining how he’s been bullied and silenced.
****
odin @25:
“He’s a product of his time”? Sorry, that excuse doesn’t fly. There’s been ample time to amend his beliefs. There’s plenty of evidence out there that he’s wrong. There’s also been plenty of years of people fighting against racism for Watson to have been exposed to anti-racist views. And what about the people whose formative years were in the forties who don’t have views like that?
Here’s the thing about “product of his time” excuses.
He’s still alive. So his time includes NOW.
Christ, he’s an asshole.
From nutellas quote
Why do these people hate the free market?
Al Dente (#17) –
It still needs to be said. We can’t afford to be engaging in the same lies and tactics that the religious tell when one of their own does something deplorable (i.e. saying that a priest who rapes is “not a true christian!”). It’s the same with Shermer’s crimes, Dawkins’s sexism and Harris’s racism. If we want to claim to be better, we have to do better. Dishonesty won’t help.
Tony! @ 39
I’m sorry; I was not clear enough. My intent was not to excuse Watson’s attitudes; they are abhorrent, and their absence in many of his equals in age is a clear contradiction of any claim that “well, people back then were just racists”. Saying we should not be surprised that a man of his age holds these views is not quite the same as saying we should expect it, but I shouldn’t expect to be assumed to speak so precisely.
Although not marked as such (and I can’t for the life of me remember why), I was responding to what Intaglio said in comment 23. There is absolutely no correlation between being intelligent and being a decent human being. If we can understand Dawkins’ attitudes because of his background, then Watson’s are no harder to make sense of. But understanding where they come from is not excusing them; as you said, both of them have had plenty of time to revise their views, and they have not.
@Tony, Amphiox
I said the same about Dawkins and some people jumped down my throat for it and I still don’t get it.
No-one is “excusing” their views and behaviour by pointing out that it’s typical for their formative period and social class. We are (or at least I was) just suggesting that maybe the response shouldn’t be indignant surprise and bafflement at how all these “smart people” can hold such reprehensible opinions. Especially when we include an explanation of where these views come from and how common they were, as Odin did.
The point isn’t that their origin makes their views okay, it’s to gain some perspective on the time and place and social background these people come from, and maybe appreciate a bit more people with similar origins who AREN’T reprehensible. Like PZ, for example.
Because that’s a moral achievement. Watson and Dawkins are completely, depressingly normal for their generation, and the appropriate response to their wind expulsions is ridicule and contempt, not surprised outrage.
Hey, as long as he doesn’t use that dough to buy SHOES, eh?
‘By the way, Watson is also an atheist.’
It doesn’t need to be said; it’s irrelevant.
Maybe Dawkins can start a fundraiser for him?
Zeppelin @45:
Amphiox’s explanation of the problem with ‘product of their time’ arguments holds for me too. Watson is a product of all the years of his existence, not just one particular time frame.
@49, Thanks Tony! — for every uncle who embarrasses us at the dinner table, there are three uncles and five aunts who don’t. Who stopped using certain words by the 60s and other words by the 80s, who evolved with their changing times. The ones whom we excuse as a product of their time and social class are technically known as “assholes”. Their refusal to change is a privileged Fuck-You to common decency, and they should always be held accountable, at age 15 or age 75.
By the way, on a related note, a certain Nobel Prize winner was all hands with two of my (much) older sisters, who meandered in his social/academic periphery in the early-to-mid 1960s. My only evidence is their testimony, so I won’t name his name, which is neither Francis Crick nor Sherlock Holmes, but will just note that racism isn’t the only -ism he suffers from.
Watson could well be on his way to taking the prize for biggest asshole to win the Nobel. Right now it looks like Bill Shockley is still safe though.
Would be rather funny if Hockney painted a picture of an asshole for him.
I once (1990’s) met him briefly and was so overawed I couldn’t think of anything to say to start a conversation, e.g. “What do you think of the way Jeff Goldblum portrayed you in Life Story?” I regretted this for a long time, but not any more. I happen to have met a good number of Nobel Laureates and many (but I hasten to add, not all) have an excessively high opinion of themselves – even given their achievements – and think that everyone should listen to their views on subjects well outside their expertise. See also Linus Pauling on vitamin C…
PS #33 PZ – it was fibre diffraction, not crystallography, but your point stands
PPS # 50 Crick was also alleged to be a bit touchy-feely…
zaratoothbrush@26 wrote:
Nohhhhh, He’s not “stupid”, say no more… but “racist”, certainly. Remember: Stupid =/= racist, nor vice versa.
But to paint him as an innocent victim of this “lynch mob”; may I suggest: “…because he’s rich and white and opinionated.”
.
“”…so I have no income, apart from my academic income,” he said.”
of course! everybody knows, that academia pays ‘peanuts’; barely liveable income, that will only let him buy bread and milk to live on. (and Long Island is very expensive, donchanoe?)
For a while I honestly wanted to believe Watson misspoke/was taken out of context and didn’t really mean it this way. I’ve been on his lecture a couple of years ago and left with the impression that his wits aren’t exactly what they used to be, so it seemed like a plausible scenario. I also seem to recall that in his “DNA: the secret of life”, he went into great detail how eugenics was evil and how ignoring socio-economical factors when judging the IQ of an ethinc group is a basic error (the prime example being the discriminatory policies of English towards the Irish). Oh well – so much for wishful thinking. At least Crick was also an atheist and not a douche…
Dawkins actually defended Watson from the “thought police” when Watson’s racism first came to light.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/oct/21/race.research
Jake P @54
Of course to Watson discrimination against the Irish is evil and a completely different thing from discrimination against black people. My group is deserving of every consideration but you people over there? No way.
Unfortunately a very common attitude.
Improbable Joe,
I don’t want to turn this into another thread about RD, so I’ll comment in the Thunderdome.
Improbable Joe @55:
Thanks for that link!
How likely is it that Watson hasn’t been exposed to this information?
How should we react? The same way we react when anyone makes racist statements. You condemn the statements. It shouldn’t matter if the person making the comments is famous or not. You shouldn’t get a “get out of criticism” free card just bc you have a Nobel Prize. Given how Dawkins has reacted to criticism, I can understand why he supported Watson.
I think they made a good choice. His comments were racist. He didn’t back down from them or apologize (he kinda/sorta apologized, but he claimed “This is not what I meant”, so I’m not counting that as a genuine apology) or show that he understood why his words were harmful.
Let the people decide for themselves? Um, hadn’t people already done that in the wake of his comments? He said some racist, unevidenced bullshit and he was criticized by people for that. What more do people need to decide? Why did the Center For Life think that he needed a fair hearing? Did they think there was some merit to his claims? Did they think this was something that should be up for debate?
Ah, I see the trademark Dawkins hyperbole existed in 2007. Watson wasn’t prevented from addressing the public or confronting his critics. Social media existed in 2007, so he could easily have addressed his critics. He could have written on a blog. Hell, Dawkins probably would have let him guest post something on his blog. The man wasn’t silenced. He was criticized. No law enforcement official monitored his thoughts to ensure he was “thinking correctly”. No law enforcement official swooped in to arrest him after he made his racist statements. He wasn’t terrorized or tortured. All he got was criticism. By claiming that Watson’s critics are the equivalent of the “thought police”, Dawkins once again shows that he thinks some people should be above criticism.
Speaking of Thought Police:
Yeah, social justice advocates are just like the Thought Police. ::fatal eyeroll:
Sastra wrote,
Does anyone want to bet that Watson’s favourite scientific charity isn’t himself?
Argh. I didn’t know that about Dawkins. Or, more likely, I suppressed the memory.
Viking?
Berserk?
This is way too easy. :-S
Funny how privileged white men with access to the world’s press any time they want it, always jump to Orwell when they want to complain how oppressed they are.
Wow, no one wants to admit that James Watson exists? I mean, I guess it has been fifteen years since I read The Double Helix in my high school biology class. (I wrote a report on it and got an A.) Still, I had no idea he was a pariah.
But fuck, it’s just so obnoxious to see someone complaining that they “only” have their academic salary to live on. When I was an adjunct, I was dreaming of a full-time academic salary. And then, with low enrollment and cutbacks, I was dropped. (Not laid off, of course, because adjuncts don’t have job security anyway.) Ugh. Fuck you, Watson, you’re the worst kind of ivory tower asshole.
(Oh look, Dawkins, I’m silencing a poor persecuted white man! The horror!)
Not true. For example, in “The Bell Curve,” Charles Murray, probably the most famous proponent of group IQ differences in the USA, claims the evidence supports higher IQ for Asians and (especially) Jews than for white Europeans. Murray is neither Asian nor Jewish.
http://books.google.com/books?id=s4CKqxi6yWIC&pg=PA275&dq=charles+murray+jewish+asian+iq&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kWh6VJj7K4jpiAKY7YC4Cg&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=charles%20murray%20jewish%20asian%20iq&f=false
I knew a man who was the ‘product of his time’ (born 1913). This was back in the early 90s. Yes, sometimes when telling a story of something that occurred ‘way back when’ he’d slip and use an offensive term. However, if he didn’t catch and correct himself and someone pointed it out to him, he’d immediately apologize and try to do better, asking how to improve if he didn’t already know.
If a man who never graduated college and was starting to suffer the effects of senility could handle it, what’s Watson/Dawkins’ excuse?
ed johnson #63
What is your point?
Especially since the Bell Curve is thoroughly refuted with better evidence and is racist to boot.
@twas brillig #53
Nohhhhh, He’s not “stupid”, say no more… but “racist”, certainly. Remember: Stupid =/= racist, nor vice versa.
Actually you’ve got that backwards. He did some scientific research that was important and figured out some clever things. This is important and even brilliant. But he’s still an idiot.
Ignorance is one thing, and might be an excuse, but we know for a fact he’s a man of learning. He has encountered these opposing ideas and chosen to reject them out of internalized biases.
It’s possible to be smart about one thing and stupid about others. It’s possible to be smart and become stupid. It’s possible to be both at once, even on a single subject.
This discussion is not about organic chemistry or genetic biology, which makes any credentials he may have as an intellectual invalid. It does, however, mean he has ample opportunity to prove himself a jackass.
How nice it would be to believe that. Current anecdata on prominent atheists suggests otherwise.
Surprising no one, but thank you very much for confirming our suspicions of shittiness. That is really important to know.
@Improbable Joe #55
Its amazing that Dawkins would say that Watson is being silenced by the thought police but i suspect he would have absolutely no problems if say a creationist were to be denied an opportunity to speak-in fact he is always at the forefront condemning anyone who gives a platform for creationists to spout their nonsense. If you look at it there isnt much difference scientifically between what Watson says about race and IQ and what creationists say about evolution. Also I suspect Dawkins’ reaction would be much different if Watson was say a right wing Christian saying this.
steve bruce @69 – not to mention that Dawkins has no problem silencing other people, such as the time he effectively stopped Rebecca Watson speaking at a (?) conference where they were both to appear, by throwing a tantrum over it.
The hypocrisy and double standards that RD constantly displays are a demonstration of how rational and clear a thinker he is.
steve brice. 2kittehs, azhael
You’re forgetting that Doctor Professor Richard Dawkins FRS etc. is the most rational person who ever existed and anyone who doesn’t appreciate his supreme rationality is overly emotional and merely working for blog hits. Just ask him, he’ll tweet you confirmation.
James Watson – year of birth 1928
Martin Luther King Jr – year of birth 1929
Q E D
WithinThisMind, Maureen Brian
My grandpa, year of birth 1921
Education: 8 years of public school
Managed not to be an asshole to oppressed people until he died
Tony! @ 49; anbheal @ 50; Maureen Brian @ 73:
Saying “it is not surprising that they hold these views in light of their background” is not the same as saying “we should expect them to hold these views in light of their background”; neither necessarily implies “we should not censure them for their attitude”. I’ll readily admit that it is often intended to be read as implied; I explicitly stated in a clarification that it was not, and Zeppelin said that from the start. You are providing counterarguments to a position that is simply not being advanced here.
What is being said is that expressions of indignant surprise that an intelligent person with a given background could hold such views are not the correct response. Intelligence has nothing to do with this. Background and personality do. Watson’s background helps us understand how he came to hold such views; the fact that he maintains them in face of everything gives us ample reason to dislike his personality. (On the flip side, King’s background as part of the oppressed group also helps us understand how he came to form his views; it also helps us understand the enormous strength of character needed to defend those views against the dominant force.)
Odin
I don’t think that anybody here is actually surprised.
The word you’re looking for is “angry”
Just a thought. Would it be worth dropping a message or two in the direction of David Hockney to inform him about this potential customer?
odin @ 75,
I agree. Date of birth has nothing to do with it. Then why on earth mention it, except as a distraction, a red herring? Why bring into the discussion when it is something which you would know has often been used by others as an excuse?
My dad was born in 1897 and was so concerned with economic justice, so socially liberal that some, at least, of you guys would have thought he was a socialist.
It is perfectly reasonable of me to say, though, that here are two men – both highly intelligent, both famous for what they achieved – born into the same country at almost the same time, one long dead by assassination, the other complaining that the world no longer pays him megabucks to spout dangerous and hurtful crap. The elephant in the room is racism and I will stick, if you don’t mind, to my policy of rejecting all attempts to explain it away or to give someone extra licence because reasons.
You are not obliged to agree with me. Just stop quibbling when I do it.
mywall @ 77,
I wouldn’t bother with alerting Hockney – he’s too much of a lefty to be interested!
Giliell @ 76:
Perhaps. What set me off was this line, by Intaglio @ 23:
It reads to me like, as I said, indignant surprise. It was in an attempt to answer that question that I brought up the fact that views like this didn’t go away with the nazi regime. The question spins off an assumption that ‘intelligent’ doesn’t go with ‘bigoted and (wilfully) ignorant’. It’s that assumption that I really dislike. There is absolutely nothing strange about intelligent people holding reprehensible views.
If ed johnson had a point, it could be that the Jewish World Conspiracy has every right to exterminate the white race because, after all, Jews are only executing the will of god, or alternatively, evolution, given that they are (according to TBC) intellectually superior and whites only on third place. So, white supremacists, stop whining about North America and Europe being swamped by brown and gay people thanks to the machinations of “Cultural Marxism” (= Jews!): your race is rightfully doomed, according to your own fucking “logic”.