Posted on 11/08/2025 5:28:43 AM PST by sopo
James Watson, who co-discovered the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, has died at age 97.
Born in Chicago in 1928, Watson made the groundbreaking discovery at just 24 years old alongside British physicist Francis Crick. Watson died in hospice care after a brief illness, his son confirmed Friday, according to The Associated Press.
"As a scientist, his and Francis Crick’s determination of the structure of DNA, based on data from Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins and their colleagues at King’s College London, was a pivotal moment in the life sciences," Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Watson’s former research institution, said in a statement Friday.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
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Pattern recognition is “racism” and “bigotry” to many people, unfortunately.
All patterns belong to us.
Debate and/or dispute are perfectly fine with me.....
How would I do demographics? By area, and the smaller being more granular so detail leaps out. And by behavior, such as sexual practices or buying patterns and the like. The root 'demos' means people, after all. How does a group of people behave? Some prosper with little. And some fail with a lot. Some get sicker than others.Asking why is a reasonable question. So a group will tell much of itself, unless too granular or too diffuse.
Watson's remark was about "testing," and that was enough to make liberals soil themselves. Ditto with Murray and others.
But attempting to use skin color is foolish, given a Clarence Thomas and a Ketanji Brown Jackson sit only chairs apart, but are worlds apart in terms of politics. And good sense.
Best wishes.
Watson’s general comment about Africa policy was true when he said it and remains true today.
We can debate why it was true—given the obvious wide variety of people who live in Africa—but his point deserved serious discussion instead of banishment and turning him into a non-person for daring to have the discussion.
When I was in high school we were given The Double Helix to read.
Too problematic. They're trying to figure out how to properly eulogze such a massive scientist who dared say this:
"I'm 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."
The quote above ruined him, left him destitute, and all of his accolades and awards negated.
Just one other thought—almost all generalizations of science and politics for that matter start to fall apart when placed under the microscope.
Our language is imperfect—and much of what is taught in school is an oversimplification of a ridiculously complex real world.
That does not make generalizations useless—but they are most valuable when used with proper care and disclaimers as appropriate.
He was correct on his statements of IQ and race.
Grok: On October 2007 (leading to the 2008 consequences), during an interview with The Sunday Times to promote his memoir Avoid Boring People, James Watson expressed pessimism about Africa's future, stating: "I am 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 elaborated that he was "gloomy about Africa" due to perceived lower intelligence among Black Africans compared to Europeans, implying genetic causes for IQ differences.In January 2019, during the PBS documentary American Masters: Decoding Watson, Watson was asked if his views on race and IQ had changed since 2007. He replied, "No. Not at all," adding, "I would like for them to have changed... But I haven’t seen any knowledge." He reiterated: "There’s a difference on the average between blacks and whites on IQ tests. I would say the difference is genetic." CSHL condemned these as "reprehensible, unsupported by science" and "reckless," revoking his emeritus titles and severing all ties in January 2019 (often referenced as the 2020 action in summaries, though the documentary aired in late 2018 and response was prompt). The lab emphasized that such views contradicted evidence showing IQ disparities stem from environmental, cultural, and socioeconomic factors, not genetics, and that race lacks a clear biological basis for such claims.
But don't forget Psychologist Jordan Peterson: Peterson explicitly distinguishes IQ from wisdom, arguing that high intelligence does not guarantee wise decision-making, ethical judgment, or life success. He describes wisdom as a separate trait, often acquired through experience, moral reflection, and humility, with zero correlation to IQ—not even a weak one.
High intelligence enables the acquisition of power, but without wisdom, conscientiousness, or moral grounding, it becomes tyrannical or destabilizing. He explicitly rejects the idea that "the smartest should rule" (a technocratic or Platonic philosopher-king model), calling it dangerous and historically refuted.
IOW, you can have super high IQ and be a total failure. We've entered the realm of politics, the struggle for understanding what is important. Totalitarion politics is a forceful imposition of a preferred pattern deemed important. Appeals to science, when convenient, often consider DNA or IQ more important than what is more important.
So happy our founding documents were based on “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. “ No action of government nor debate of science should shake anyone from that core principle.
Indeed, and it now applies rather sadly but nicely to inner cities in our own United States courtesy of teachers' unions and grade inflation and tests showing reading and math scores dropping precipitously. So something unifies these, one might argue.
---- "...his point deserved serious discussion instead of banishment and turning him into a non-person for daring to have the discussion."
A well-taken point, and the parallel to turning over the chessboard before your opponent checkmates, or in shouting down when arguments' logic fail. Ergo the recent "cancel culture" games, which are essentially about avoiding reasoned debate relying on reasonable sources.
---- "Our language is imperfect—and much of what is taught in school is an oversimplification of a ridiculously complex real world."
A fair observation, we'll agree. Oversimplifying makes for easy lessons, and easy lessons come to be hard lessons in the end.
--- "That does not make generalizations useless—but they are most valuable when used with proper care and disclaimers as appropriate."
Herein we might see things differently. The kind of manipulative politics we have seen from the Left speaks specifically to your remark. The intention of generalizations in their ruthless hands is that they NOT be "used with proper care and disclaimers as appropriate."
Ted Kaczynski - killer IQ (pun intended); little if any wisdom.
“you can have super high IQ and be a total failure.”
True statement on an individual level.
The problem is that if you have most of your population in a country/area with “low” IQ—however we may wish to define that—it has major impacts on public policy.
We can debate what those might be—but it would be unwise to ignore them completely.
What could it mean? In fact, the concept was 18th century: John Locke said atheists need not be tolerated.
"Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of toleration."
Ouch!
They should have cloned him.
wy69
"In a primitive society, if you saw that a baby was deformed, you would abandon it on a hillside. Today this isn't permissible, and with our medicine getting better and better in the sense of being able to keep sick people alive longer, we are going to produce more people living wretched lives. [...] If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice that only a few are given under the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so chose and save a lot of misery and suffering."Prism, Volume 1, Number 2 (May 1973), page 13. The magazine was an AMA initiative to explore the socio-economic implications of medicine, and the interview is archived in the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Archives Repository, where Watson served as director.
I guess there’s a better than even chance, not knowing his history, Watson was an atheist. Still he had the right to express his opinion without the sanctions these groups imposed on him. Or they should give up their government funding. They can call him a dope if they want to. A free press not constrained by progressive PC can report his accomplishments, criticize his failures, as they see them, but cancelling him disregards the boundary should be there for everyone.
Some time ago National Review dismissed John Derbyshire for his views on race. Should he have gotten some government protection? Doesn't the Establishment Clause prohibit that?
May his Memory be Eternal! (However, he was an atheist, and no friend of the Orthodox Church, or even the Lutheran Church!)
I was in his department in Harvard grad school. He would not accept me as his student! (Anti-Christian bias?) However, I was accepted by someone at least as good, and received my PhD.
And I attended (and presented at!) Cold Spring Harbor Symposia as a faculty researcher. They served frog’s legs, which I loved!
Jim Watson was nasty all his life. But I believe that Cold Spring Harbor was wrong to dismiss him for racism. A simple antiracist statement would have been enough! After all, Jim Watson BUILT the modern-day Cold Spring Harbor!!
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