Watson’s Racism A Disservice to Science
James Watson’s remarks in the October 14 edition of the Sunday Times magazine suggesting that Africans are less intelligent than other humans were not just tragic and racist, they were also an abuse of his eminent scientific stature.
As Federation of American Scientists points out in a press release today, “At a time when the scientific community is feeling threatened by political forces seeking to undermine its credibility it is tragic that one of the icons of modern science has cast such dishonor on the profession.”
Watson is not the first scientist of stature to use his or her notoriety to advance spurious ideas that fly in the face of scientific research. But when professional science already faces so many politically-motived obstacles, it is all the more unfortunate that a Nobel laureate would parade personal prejudice as scientific fact.
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