‘I am an unperson’: ‘Racist’ DNA discoverer forced to sell Nobel Prize medal
Source: rt.com
The geneticist James Watson, who has been ostracized since public comments about black African IQ in 2007, is to auction off his 1962 prize for discovering the structure of DNA. It is expected to fetch in excess of $3 million.
“Because I was an ‘unperson’ I was fired from the boards of companies, so I have no income, apart from my academic income,” said the scientist of the aftermath of the incident seven years ago, which forced him to retire from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he had worked for four decades.
“No one really wants to admit I exist,” he told the Financial Times.
Despite his reduced circumstances – Watson has not been invited to give public lectures since 2007 – the American scientist is not living his life out in poverty. He said he plans to donate some of the proceeds of the sale of the medal to the “institutions that have looked after me,” including his alma mater, the University of Chicago, and Cambridge, where he met laboratory partner Francis Crick, with whom he shared the Nobel Prize.
The 86-year-old Watson also plans to purchase art.
“I really would love to own a [painting by English painter David] Hockney.”
The reserve price for the medal, which will be auctioned off at Christie’s in New York on Thursday, is $2.5 million, and there has been speculation that the final value could easily surpass $3 million. Crick’s medal – auctioned off last year to Jack Wang, a relatively obscure Shanghai biotech entrepreneur – fetched about $2.3 million.
“The far-reaching aspects of their discovery affect everybody and are only being appreciated now,” said Christie’s auctioneer Francis Wahlgren.
“I think the guy is the greatest living scientist. There are a lot of personalities in history we’d find fault with – but their discoveries transcend human foibles,” Wahlgren added.
The sale of Nobel Prizes is a recent phenomenon, with Watson’s being only the fourth to go on sale – and the first while the recipient is still alive. The medal awarded to Aage Bohr, the son of Niels, in 1975, attracted a winning bid of about $50,000 in 2012. Notably, American writer William Faulkner’s 1950 medal failed to pass the reserve price at an auction last year.
But for Watson, this is not just a chance to acquire money, but also to “re-enter public life.”
“I’ve had a unique life that’s allowed me to do things. I was set back. It was stupid on my part. All you can do is nothing, except hope that people actually know what you are.”
The iconic image of Watson and Crick giving a presentation on DNA in 1953 at Cambridge University.
Despite a long-standing reputation as an outspoken scientist who sometimes professed eccentric views – such as those linking sunlight and libido – Watson’s downfall was swift.
In October 2007, Watson said to the Sunday Times that he was “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 later waded into even more dangerous territory, suggesting that anecdotal reports said that black employees were less intelligent, and that there were no talented black scientists who could be recruited to work in his laboratory.
While Watson’s racial theories of IQ have some academic support, such as in Richard J. Herrnstein’s and Charles Murray’s controversial book ’The Bell Curve,’ this remains one of the most contentious areas of scientific research. Following Watson’s crude remarks, most of the scientific community turned on him, accusing him of prejudice.
It is a charge he rejects to this day.
“I am not a racist in a conventional way,” he told the Financial Times.
“I apologize...the [Sunday Times] journalist somehow wrote that I worried about the people in Africa because of their low IQ – and you’re not supposed to say that."
Source: rt.com
Scientist who discovered DNA forced to sell his Nobel prize after being shunned for inflammatory race comments
From: dailymail.co.uk
A scientist who was part of the team that discovered DNA has been forced to sell his Nobel Prize after he was shunned by the scientific community for comments that linked race and intelligence.James Watson sparked an outcry in 2007 when he suggested in an interview with the Sunday Times that people of African descent were inherently less intelligent than white people.
The American scientist said he had become an ’unperson’ since making the controversial remarks and is now selling his prize in a bid to ’re-enter public life’.
The medal, the first to be auctioned by a living recipient, is expected to fetch as much as £2.5million when it goes under the hammer at Christie’s in New York next week.
Dr Watson shared the 1962 Nobel Prize, awarded for uncovering the double helix structure of DNA, with British scientists Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick. The discovery was made by Watson and Crick, who used experimental data that had been gathered by Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin.
Dr Watson, 86, said that he was fired from the boards of a number of companies after making the inflammatory race comments, adding that he has not given any public lectures since.
He told the Financial Times: ’No one really wants to admit I exist’.
He said he would use the money from the sale of the medal to supplement his income, which now comes solely from academic institutions.
Dr Watson added that he would use some of the proceeds to give back to institutions that have supported him, including the University of Chicago, where he was awarded his undergraduate degree, and Clare College, Cambridge.
He revealed that he would also like to buy an artwork, telling the newspaper that he would like to own a piece by David Hockney.
He admitted that the comments had been ’stupid’ on his part, and insisted he is not racist ’in a conventional way’.
He said: ’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.’
Pioneers: Dr Watson (left) shared the 1962 Nobel Prize, awarded for uncovering the double helix structure of DNA, with British scientists Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick (right)
Auctioneer Francis Wahlgren told the Financial Times he did not expect Dr Watson’s previous remarks to affect the sale.
He said: ’There are a lot of personalities in history we’d find fault with - but their discoveries transcend human foibles.’
The auction includes papers belonging to Watson, including handwritten notes for his acceptance speech.
The Comments That Sparked an International Race Row:
In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine on 14 October 2007, Dr Watson was quoted as saying he is ’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 said he hoped everyone was equal, but added: ’People who have to deal with black employees find this not true.’
The views were also included in a book, published that week, in which he wrote that ’there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically’.
He said: ’Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.’
Four days later, the scientist was banned from speaking at London’s Science Museum.
At the time, a spokkesman said: ’The Science Museum feels that Nobel Prize winner James Watson’s recent comments have gone beyond the point of acceptable debate.’
Days later, the scientist attempted to justify his theory that there is a genetic basis behind differences in IQ.
He told The Independent: ’I have never been one to shy away from stating what I believe to be the truth’. He added, ’this has, at times, got me in hot water.’
That week, Dr Watson was forced to cancel a book tour of the UK and fly back to the US after he was suspended by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Long Island.
Since the race row erupted, Dr Watson claimed that he was fired from the boards of a number of companies.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
