Watson Condemned for Comments on Intelligence

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

James Watson visited the United Kingdom this month to promote his new book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. But the tour came to a premature and ignominious end last week after the 79-year-old Nobelist told a British newspaper that, in effect, blacks are less intelligent than whites. As Science went to press, Watson was back in the United States hoping to save his job as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in Long Island, New York.

Watson has been the lab's most public face for nearly 40 years, serving as director and then president before becoming chancellor in 2004. His current responsibilities include fundraising for the 117-year-old nonprofit and helping transform it into a university. But the lab's board of trustees, of which he is a member, moved swiftly to distance the institution from him after he was quoted in the 14 October Sunday Times as saying that he was "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."

Crossing the line? James Watson was suspended as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory following his remarks last week.
CREDIT: EDMOND TERAKOPIAN/PA PHOTOS/LANDOV

Watson's comments in "no way reflect the mission, goals, or principles of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's Board, administration, or faculty," explained CSHL President Bruce Stillman on 17 October. "Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory does not engage in any research that could even form the basis of the statements attributed to Dr. Watson." In a second statement the next day, the board said it was suspending Watson "pending further deliberation." As Science went to press, Jim Bono, a spokesperson for CSHL, said a decision was expected in the next few days.
Watson has a history of making sweeping remarks, including his suggestion in 2000 that libido is linked to exposure to sunlight. But this time he seems to have gone too far. "You get to the end of the rope at some point," says one trustee who spoke to Science on the condition of anonymity. "The feeling was that something very inappropriate had occurred and some action needed to be taken."

Watson has apologized for the remarks, which also prompted London's Science Museum to cancel a scheduled talk. "I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said," he told The Associated Press. "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." But in a 19 October commentary published in The Independent, Watson seemed also to put up a defense. "The overwhelming desire of society today is to assume that equal powers of reason are a universal heritage of humanity," he wrote. "It may well be. But simply wanting this to be the case is not enough. This is not science."

Neither were his own comments, says Harvard University psychologist Howard Gardner. "He has taken an extremely complex set of issues--what is intelligence, what is race, how valid are IQ tests--and reduced them to a provocative sound bite," says Gardner. As someone "of almost unique prestige in the scientific community," Gardner notes, Watson "has a special responsibility to watch his tongue."