James Watson: Scientist loses titles after race claims

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American Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Watson was stripped of his honorific titles after commenting on race and intelligence.

In a TV show, the pioneer in DNA studies referred to a view that genes cause an average difference between blacks and whites in IQ tests.

The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory said the observations of the 90-year-old scientist were "unfounded and reckless."

Dr. Watson made similar claims in 2007 – and later apologized.

He shared the Nobel Prize in 1962 with Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick for his discovery in 1953 of the double helix structure of DNA.

Dr. Watson sold his gold medal in 2014, saying he had been banned by the scientific community after his comments on race.

He is currently in a nursing home recovering from a car accident and is said to have "very minimal" awareness of his surroundings.

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In 2007, the scientist, who once worked at the Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory, told the Times that he was "inherently gloomy about Africa's perspective" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that his intelligence it's the same". like ours – while the whole test does not really say ".

While his hope was for everyone to be equal, he added, "the people who have to deal with black officials think this is not true."

After these remarks, Dr. Watson lost his job as chancellor in the laboratory and was removed from all his administrative duties. He wrote an apology and kept his honorary titles as chancellor emeritus, Oliver R Grace professor emeritus and honorary honorary.

But Cold Spring Harbor said he is now pulling out these titles after he said his views did not change in the American Masters: Decoding Watson documentary broadcasted by PBS broadcaster earlier this month.

"Dr. Watson's remarks are reprehensible without the support of science," the lab said in a statement, adding that they effectively reversed his apology.

Dr. Watson became director of Cold Spring Harbor in 1968, its president in 1994 and chancellor a decade later. A school in the lab is named after him, according to the Associated Press.

In an interview with the news agency, his son Rufus said that Dr. Watson's statements "could make him a fanatic and discriminating," but that was not true.

"They just represent their rather narrow interpretation of genetic fate … My father made the laboratory his life, and now the laboratory sees it as passive."