NOBEL LAUREATE WATSON RETIRES

Scientist Watson quits post after race remarks

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nobel prize winner James Watson, renowned for describing DNA's structure, quit on Thursday as chancellor of a leading U.S. research facility after being quoted as questioning Africans' intelligence.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory said Watson, 79, retired after nearly 40 years of serving the institution, located in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. He served as president of the laboratory until 2003 and since then had served as chancellor.

"Closer now to 80 than 79, the passing on of my remaining vestiges of leadership is more than overdue. The circumstances in which this transfer is occurring, however, are not those which I could ever have anticipated or desired," Watson said in a statement provided by the laboratory.

Watson said he is retiring immediately from his position as chancellor as well as his post on the laboratory's board.

The laboratory said last week its board had suspended Watson from his duties following his remarks to a British newspaper.

"For over 40 years, Dr. Watson has made immeasurable contributions to the laboratory's research and educational programs," Eduardo Mestre, chairman of the board of the laboratory, said in a statement.

"The board respects his decision to retire at this point in his career," he added.

The laboratory's statement announcing his resignation did not mention the controversy over Watson's comments.

In an interview published in the October 14 edition of The Sunday Times, Watson was quoted as saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa."

"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 was quoted as saying.

Watson shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Francis Crick and Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins for the description of the double helix structure of DNA. He had been associated with the laboratory since 1948.

In the aftermath of the published remarks, Watson told an audience in London: "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."

Laboratory President Bruce Stillman said on October 17 that the board, leadership and faculty of the institution "vehemently disagree" with Watson's statements "and are bewildered and saddened if he indeed made such comments."

Fellow scientists condemned Watson's comments. The Federation of American Scientists called them "noxious." In the days after his remarks were published, Watson cut short a book tour in Britain and returned to the United States.

In his statement on Thursday, Watson said, "As an educator, I have always striven to see that the fruits of the American Dream are available to all. I have been much blessed."

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is a private research and education institution whose scientists study molecular biology and genetics to gain insight into cancer, neurological diseases and other maladies.



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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."

DNA PIONEER SAYS BLACKS ARE GENETICALLY LESS SMART

Watson of Watson & Crick tells UK newspaper whites are more intelligent.

James Watson, the man who along with Francis Crick won the Nobel Prize for discovering the double-helix structure of DNA, is facing backlash in Britain after claiming that black people are genetically less intelligent than whites.


In an interview with The Sunday Times to promote his new book "Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science," the 79-year-old geneticist said he was pessimistic about efforts to raise the standard of living in Africa.

“All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really,” Watson told the newspaper. He recognized that the prevailing belief was that all human groups are equal, but that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true."

He told the interviewer, a former student of his, that he had recently inaugurated a DNA learning center near Harlem and would like to have more minority researchers at his lab - and "just accepted a black girl" – but “there’s no one to recruit.”

As a result of his comments, the British Science Museum has cancelled the geneticist's scheduled speech.

"We know that eminent scientists can sometimes say things that cause controversy and the Science Museum does not shy away from debating controversial topics,” the spokesman told the BBC. “However, we feel Dr. Watson has gone beyond the point of acceptable debate and we are as a result cancelling his talk.”