JAMES WATSON APOLOGIZES FOR RACIST REMARKS

James Watson, the 79-year-old geneticist who discovered the double-helix structure of DNA, has apologized for his controversial comments last week that blacks are less intelligent than whites.

"I am mortified about what has happened," Watson said Thursday through the publicist for his British publisher. "More importantly, I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said.

"I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have," he continued. "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."

Watson, a Nobel Prize winner in 1962 for his work in DNA, made his inflammatory comments in an interview with the Sunday Times of London. The newspaper quoted him as saying he's "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."

While he hopes everyone is equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true," Watson continued in the interview. He also said people should not be discriminated against on the basis of color, because "there are many people of color who are very talented."

Watson's Sunday Times interview was to promote his new book, "Avoid Boring People: Lessons From a Life in Science." The comments, reprinted Wednesday in front-page articles in another British newspaper, The Independent, provoked London's Science Museum to cancel a sold-out lecture he was to give there Friday (Oct. 19).

The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said his comments "represent racist propaganda masquerading as scientific fact. ... That a man of such academic distinction could make such ignorant comments, which are utterly offensive and incorrect and give succor to the most backward in our society, demonstrates why racism still has to be fought."

In the United States, the Federation of American Scientists said it was outraged that Watson "chose to use his unique stature to promote personal prejudices that are racist, vicious and unsupported by science."

The renowned Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on New York's Long Island, where Watson serves as chancellor, suspended his administrative responsibilities Thursday following the outcry, the laboratory said in a news release. The board and administration of the privately run research facility said he wasn't speaking for the lab and commented that they "vehemently disagree with these statements and are bewildered and saddened if he indeed made such comments."