The 1962 Nobel Prize in Biology Laureate drew criticism around the world with his 2007 statements about genetics, race, and intelligence. He then questioned the intelligence of the natives of Africa. And he still thinks that he is right about what the new documentary dedicated to him tells. The story of James Watson and his views is recounted by a reporter for The New York Times.
More than a decade has passed since the founder of modern genetics, James D. Watson, was sent into exile by the professional community when he suggested that black people are inherently less intelligent than whites.
In 2007, Dr. Watson, 1962 Nobel laureate for the description of the DNA double helix, said in an interview with a British journalist that he was “deeply discouraged about the prospects for Africa” because “our whole social policy is based on the fact that their intelligence is the same, like ours, while all the tests say it isn't."
Moreover, he added that while he would like everyone to be equal, "people who have to deal with black employees believe that this is not true."
Dr. Watson's comments went viral and he was forced to step down as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, although he still has an office there.
He publicly and “unconditionally” apologized, and in his subsequent interviews it sometimes seemed that he was playing the role of a provocateur - his trademark role - or did not understand that his comments would be made public.
Since then, 90-year-old Dr. Watson has barely appeared in public. He was no longer invited to perform. In 2014, he became the first living Nobel laureate to sell his medal, explaining that his income was depleted due to the fact that he was appointed “not-human”.
But his remarks have not changed. They have been used to justify their views by white supremacists, and when Dr. Watson's name appears on social media, he is regularly harassed by scientists.
Promotional video:
Last spring, Eric Lander, director of the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard, sparked an outcry by welcoming Dr. Watson's involvement in the early days of the human genome project. Dr. Lander quickly apologized.
"I reject his views as despicable," wrote Dr. Lander to the scientist. - They have no place in science, which should welcome everyone. I was wrong to say these good words, and I'm sorry."
Yet, recently given the chance to cleanse his tarnished legacy, Dr. Watson decided to reaffirm his opinion again, this time on camera. In a new documentary, American Masters: Decoding Watson, which airs on PBS on Wednesday night, he was asked if his views on the connection between race and intelligence.
“No,” said Dr. Watson. - Not at all. I would like them to change, for new knowledge to appear that will tell us that education is much more important than nature. But I don't see any new information. And there is a difference in the average IQ scores between blacks and whites. I could say it's a genetic difference."
Dr. Watson adds that he doesn't like the "difference between blacks and whites" and wants to avoid it. “It's horrible, just as horrible as it is for schizophrenics,” he says (his son Rufus was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager - author's note). Dr. Watson continues: "If there is a difference, we must ask ourselves, how can we try to make things better?"
Dr. Watson's remarks may well provoke a new flurry of criticism. At the very least, they will present a problem for historians when they need to evaluate this person: how should such fundamentally unfounded views be judged against the background of his extraordinary scientific contributions?
In response to questions from The New York Times, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said most intelligence experts “believe that any differences between blacks and whites on IQ test scores are mainly due to environmental factors. and not genetic reasons."
Dr. Collins said he was unaware of any credible research on which Dr. Watson's "deeply flawed" claim could be based.
"It is disappointing that the person who has made such a revolutionary contribution to science," added Dr. Collins, "has such scientifically unfounded and harmful beliefs."
According to family members, Dr. Watson is unable to comment. He made his final announcements last June during the last of six interviews with the film's producer and director Mark Mannucci.
However, in October, Dr. Watson was hospitalized after a car accident, and still needs medical attention.
Some scholars have argued that Dr. Watson’s recent remarks are noteworthy not because of what he’s made, but because they point to misconceptions that may even spread among scientists as entrenched racial bias clash with powerful advances. in genetics, allowing researchers to better understand the genetic basis of behavior and cognition.
“This is not an old story of an old guy with old views,” says Andrea Morris, director of career development at Rockefeller University, who became the scientific advisor to the filmmakers. Morris, PhD, said that as an African-American scientist “would like to think that he is demonstrating a minority opinion about who can do science and what a scientist should look like. At the same time, it seems very relevant to me."
According to Harvard geneticist David Reich, new methods of studying DNA show that some human populations have been geographically separated long enough to be likely to develop moderate genetic differences in cognition and behavior.
But in his recent book Who We Are and How We Got Here, he unequivocally rejects Dr. Watson's suggestion that such differences "fit long-standing popular stereotypes" because they are "inherently guaranteed are wrong."
Even renowned behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin, who argues that nature is decisively more important than nurture when it comes to humans, rejects speculation about average racial differences.
"There are powerful methods for studying the genetic and ecological causes of individual differences, but not for studying the causes of average differences between groups," writes Dr. Plomin in an afterword to be published this spring in the reprint of his book The Detailed Plan: How DNA Makes Us the One who we are”(Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are).
Whether Dr. Watson was aware of any of these scientific advances is unclear. In the film, he seems to look increasingly isolated. He mentions the missing Francis Crick, his associate in the race to decipher the structure of DNA.
“We liked each other,” Dr. Watson says of Dr. Crick. "I couldn't get enough of his company."
As history now knows, in 1953, the duo was able to solve the puzzle of characteristic cardboard and metal models only with the help of another scientist, Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray photograph of the DNA molecule was shown to Dr. Watson without her permission.
The molecular biology tools discovered by their discovery have since been used to trace humanity's prehistoric era, develop life-saving therapies, and create Crispr, a gene-editing technology that has recently been unethically used to alter the DNA of human twin embryos.
And Dr. Watson became perhaps the most influential biologist of the second half of the 20th century. His textbook "Molecular Biology of the Gene" helped define a new scientific field. First at the lab at Harvard and then at Cold Spring Harbor, he trained a new generation of molecular biologists and used his stellar power to advocate projects such as the first sequencing of the human genome.
“When you heard it, you felt like you were at the beginning of a revolution in understanding,” says Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studied with Dr. Watson in the 1960s, in Understanding Watson. "You felt like you were part of this tiny group of people who saw the light."
Mannucci, director and producer of the film, the theme attracted certain similarities with the "story of King Lear." He added that "this man was at the peak of his strength, and due to his own shortcomings, he was thrown down." The film underlines Dr. Watson's penchant for provocation, as exemplified in his candid 1968 memoir The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, which chronicles the race to decipher the structure of DNA.
Subsequently, even before his 2007 comments, Dr. Watson began making offensive statements about various groups of people, arguing, among other things, that exposure to sunlight in equatorial regions increases sexual desire, and that well-fed people are less ambitious than others.
"He was semi-professional and reckless," said Nathaniel Comfort, a science historian at Johns Hopkins University. "We become prisoners of our own personalities." In the film, Dr. Comfort also suggests that Dr. Watson's views on race are the result of a genetic filter he applies to the world: "There is a risk of thinking about genes all the time."
But Mary-Claire King, a senior geneticist at the University of Washington who knows Dr. Watson well and is not in the film, suggested that a racially homogeneous culture of science also played a role in shaping Dr. Watson's misconceptions.
“If he knew African Americans as his colleagues at all levels, his current point of view would be impossible,” said Dr. King.
If so, it doesn't bode well for tackling prejudice in biomedical science, where African Americans submit only 1.5% of grant applications to the National Institutes of Health. Prejudice in hiring research departments in medical school is well documented.
"It's easy to say, 'I'm not Watson," says National Institutes of Health researcher Kenneth Gibbs, who studies racial inequality in science. that our campuses support academics from backgrounds that aren't represented there?"
Understanding Watson is the first time that Dr. Watson and his wife, Liz, have publicly announced that their eldest son, Rufus, has schizophrenia. Rufus and his brother Duncan also starred in the film, but Mannucci said other people close to Dr. Watson refused to participate in the project.
Some have said in interviews with The New York Times that they believed Dr. Watson did a disservice by speaking publicly at this stage in his life.
Nonetheless, Mannucci reported that during the making of the film, he asked Dr. Watson several times about race and intelligence to find out his real views. “I would not like to think that this is the result of age, or to take it at its word, trying to piss someone off,” he said.
Sometimes it seems that in the film, Dr. Watson himself takes up the explanation of his own views on issues of race and intelligence. He mentions that he is a "product of the Roosevelt era" and that he always believed that genes were important.
“To the point where it hurt people,” he said. "Of course I'm sorry about that."
Amy Harmon is a journalist covering the intersection of science and society. She is the recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes: for the series of articles "DNA Age" (The DNA Age), and together with colleagues for the series "How Race Is Lived in America".