DNA pioneer and Noble Prize winner Dr James Watson has sparked outrage again with a deriding rant about his former colleagues.
The scientist, who uncovered the DNA structure that forms the basis of modern genetics, described those who aided him with the discovery as ‘losers’ and ‘autistic’.
During a speech in Paris, the 90-year-old called his former supervisor at Cambridge a ‘dinosaur’ with a ‘seductive wife’, and claimed another eminent geneticist ‘had probably always been half-insane’.
Watson, one of the founding fathers of modern genetics who revolutionised biology, is no stranger to comments that land him in hot water.
The researcher once argued Africans are inherently less intelligent than Europeans and that ‘some anti-semitism is justified’.
His remarks about African IQ forced him to retire from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and later auction off his Nobel Prize medal as he struggled to find work.
Watson’s latest comments were primarily aimed at Rosalind Franklin and British scientist Francis Crick, with whom he uncovered the double-helix structure of DNA in 1958.
While Crick and Watson shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery in 1962, Franklin’s contributions remained largely unrecognised for decades.
Her influence has since been acknowledged and the scientist, who died in 1958, is the subject of several biographies and an award-winning West End play.
During a speech at the Paris-based Collège de France on May 23, Watson seemed to retract previous comments that Franklin deserved a share of his accolades.
‘There was no reason to give her the Nobel Prize,’ he was quoted as saying in French news outlet Le Monde.
Watson’s latest comments were primarily aimed at Francis Crick and Rosalind Franklin, with whom he uncovered the double-helix structure of DNA in 1958. Pictured is Watson in 1957 holding a model of the double-helix structure
WHAT OUTRAGEOUS COMMENTS HAS JAMES WATSON MADE?
Dr James Watson (pictured) won the Nobel prize and has made controversial comments in recent years
Dr James Watson received the Nobel prize in 1962 for co-discovering the structure of DNA.
He published a book in 1968 that developed a reputation as a provocateur and an outspoken scientist, called ‘The Double Helix’.
In 2007, at the age of 79, he tainted his legacy and cast a dark shadow over his scientific success.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, he made comments that have been labelled as racist and homophobic.
Since then, he has also made besmirching comments about Rosalind Franklin, the female scientists who used X-ray crystallography to help discover the double-helix structure of DNA.
The fallout from his comments has been significant, and he was forced to sell his Nobel medal in 2014 due to financial hardship.
It went for $4.1m (£2.6m) and was the first Nobel prize to ever be sold by a living recipient.
Racist
In the 2007 interview, he spoke about people wanting to think that all humans are born with the same level of intelligence.
Dr Watson disagreed, and said: ‘[People] who have to deal with black employees find this not true’.
He continued, saying that 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’.
Dr Watson added: ‘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.’
Homophobic
A decade before his derogatory comments on race pertaining to a person’s skin colour, he did an interview with The Sunday Telegraph.
Dr Watson reportedly said that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual.
Sexist
Dr Watson called his Cambridge supervisor a ‘dinosaur’ and said he also had a ‘seductive wife’.
In his 1968 memoir, he made an assessment of Rosalind Franklin based on her appearence.
He said: ‘Though her features were strong, she was not unattractive, and might have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in clothes. This she did not.’
Rosalind Franklin
Dr Watson has been scathing in his opinion on Rosalind Franklin, the co-discoverer of DNA.
In an interview with The Big Think, Watson says he thought she had Asperger’s syndrome and was ‘paranoid’.
He continued: ‘I don’t think her name deserved to be on the paper… because of her failure to interact effectively, it was hard to know how bright she was.’
He spoke to an audience at the Collège de France in Paris this month and said: ‘There was no reason to give her the Nobel prize. She was a loser.’
In private letters, Dr Watson often referred to Dr Franklin as ‘Rosy the witch’.
Linus Pauling
Linus Pauling was a scientists who was also trying to discover the structure of DNA in the 1950s.
His theory centred around a triple-helix.
Dr Watson had a low opinion of his fellow scientist. He said: ‘[Pauling] had probably always been half-insane’ and came up with a theory that was ‘a load of crap’.
Anti-semitic
In an other interview from 2007, this time with Esquire Magazine, Dr Watson made comments appearing to condone anti-semitism.
He said: ‘Some anti-Semitism is justified. Just like some anti-Irish feeling is justified.
‘She was a loser.’
He suggested that Crick, who died aged 88 in 2004, may have been ‘a bit autistic’.
The genticist also set his sights on Linus Pauling, one of only four scientists to have won Nobel Prizes in two separate disciplines.
Prior to Watson’s double-helix work, Pauling had suggested that DNA was structured as a three-strand helix.
While Crick and Watson shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery in 1962, Franklin’s contributions remained largely unrecognised for decades. In this image Crick accepts his Nobel Prize medal from the hands of his majesty king Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden
Of his work, Watson said: ‘I saw immediately that it was colossally wrong … I have never understood how Pauling, who declared himself to be the world’s best chemist, could have proposed such a load of cr*p … He was probably always half-insane.’
The American molecular biologist is also said to have claimed that Catholics are more forgiving than Jews.
The claims made in Le Monde have not been independetly verified and Watson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During his speech the Paris-based Collège de France on May 23, Watson suggested that Crick, who died aged 88 in 2004, may have been ‘a bit autistic’. Pictured is Crick in 1993
Watson published a book called The Double Helix in 1968 that developed his reputation as a provocateur and an outspoken scientist.
In 2007, at the age of 79, he tainted his legacy and cast a dark shadow over his scientific success.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, he made comments that were labelled as racist and homophobic.
Watson was commenting on people wanting to think that all humans are born with the same level of intelligence.
The scientist disagreed, arguing: ‘[People] who have to deal with black employees find this not true’.
He said that he was ‘inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa.’
Waton is also said to have claimed that Catholics are more forgiving than Jews. This image shows Nobel Prize winners Francis Crick (left) and James Watson (right)
In the same interview, Watson said that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual.
Watson has also made number of besmirching comments about Franklin, whose painstaking X-ray crystallography helped him discover the structure of DNA.
In an interview with The Big Think, Watson said he thought she had Asperger’s syndrome and was ‘paranoid’.
He continued: ‘I don’t think her name deserved to be on the paper… because of her failure to interact effectively, it was hard to know how bright she was.’
The fallout from his comments has been significant, and he was forced to sell his Nobel medal in 2014 due to financial hardship.
It went for $4.1m (£2.6m) and was the first Nobel prize to ever be sold by a living recipient.