James Watson Thinks Africans/Black People are Less Evolved

"James Watson doesn't like black people," are probably the words Kanye West uttered when he heard the discriminatory statements made by Dr. James Watson.

The prolific scientist who co-discovered the double helix and headed the Human Genome Project recently said, in a Times of London interview, that he is “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 went on to say that it is his hope that everyone is equal, but he counters that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”. He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because “there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level."


In Watson's latest book Avoid Boring People, he writes: “there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."

Watson has since apologized for his remarks, saying "to all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief."

Despite Watson's attempt at atonement, The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has suspended the scientist from his duties as chancellor.

So what do people weighing in on the subject have to say?

JC writes, on the Wired message board, "how can the black people turn their backs on one of the leading scientists that made it possible to identify their 'baby daddies'?"

BTW: Asselin/Corbis nice use of negative space!