{"id":336,"date":"2007-10-19T21:02:25","date_gmt":"2007-10-19T21:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/2007\/10\/new-wrath-over-%e2%80%98honest%e2%80%99-jim.html"},"modified":"2007-10-19T21:02:25","modified_gmt":"2007-10-19T21:02:25","slug":"new_wrath_over_honest_jim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/2007\/10\/new_wrath_over_honest_jim.html","title":{"rendered":"New Wrath over \u2018Honest\u2019 Jim"},"content":{"rendered":"

The scientific community shunned Nobel laureate James Watson, of double-helix fame, this week after he suggested that Africa\u2019s prospect is \u201cgloomy\u201d because blacks are not as intelligent as other races. Watson was quoted by the UK\u2019s Sunday Times<\/a> as saying, \u201cAll our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours \u2013 whereas all the testing says not really.\u201d<\/p>\n

The backlash was swift. On Wednesday, the Science Museum in London cancelled a sold-out talk Watson was scheduled to give this evening. A day later the board of trustees at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where Watson serves as chancellor, suspended Watson\u2019s administrative responsibilities. Watson, who had plans to tour the UK promoting his new book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science<\/em>, apologized and came home.<\/p>\n

As a scientist, Watson should know better than to make such sweeping generalizations. I can think of a few other reasons to be gloomy about Africa\u2019s prospects: AIDS<\/span>, a history of intense colonization, and the persistence of corrupt leadership, to name just a few.<\/p>\n

James Watson is wrong, but should he be silenced?<\/p>\n

Posted on behalf of Cassandra Willyard, Nature Medicine’s news intern.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The scientific community shunned Nobel laureate James Watson, of double-helix fame, this week after he suggested that Africa\u2019s prospect is \u201cgloomy\u201d because blacks are not as intelligent as other races. Watson was quoted by the UK\u2019s Sunday Times as saying, \u201cAll our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours \u2013 whereas all the testing says not really.\u201d  … Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":162,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-watch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/162"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}