James Watson selling Nobel prize 'because no-one wants to admit I exist'
World-famous biologist James Watson said he is selling the Nobel Prize medal
he won in 1962 for discovering the structure of DNA because he has been
ostracised and needs the money
James Watson, the world-famous biologist who was shunned by the scientific
community after linking intelligence to race, said he is selling his Nobel
Prize because he is short of money after being made a pariah.
Mr Watson said he is auctioning the Nobel Prize medal he won in 1962 for
discovering the structure of DNA, because "no-one really wants to admit
I exist".
Auctioneer Christie’s said the gold medal, the first Nobel Prize to be sold by
a living recipient, could fetch as much as $3.5m (£2.23m) when it is
auctioned in New York on Thursday. The reserve price is $2.5m.
Mr Watson told the
Financial
Times he had become an “unperson” after he “was outed as believing in
IQ” in 2007 and said he would like to use money from the sale to buy a David
Hockney painting.
Mr Watson, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for uncovering the double helix
structure of DNA, sparked an outcry in 2007 when he suggested that people of
African descent were inherently less intelligent than white people.
If the medal is sold Mr Watson said he would use some of the proceeds to make
donations to the “institutions that have looked after me”, such as
University of Chicago, where he was awarded his undergraduate degree, and
Clare College, Cambridge.
Mr Watson said his income had plummeted following his controversial remarks in
2007, which forced him to retire from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on
Long Island, New York. He still holds the position of chancellor emeritus
there.
“Because I was an ‘unperson’ I was fired from the boards of companies, so I
have no income, apart from my academic income,” he said.
He would also use some of the proceeds to buy an artwork, he said. “I really
would love to own a [painting by David] Hockney”.
Francis Wahlgren, the Christie’s auctioneer who is handling the sale of the
medal, said he was confident it would fetch the $2.5m (£1,598347) reserve.
He said demand for memorabilia associated with genetic discovery had
“exploded” in recent years as the promise of biotechnology became apparent.
“The far-reaching aspects of their discovery affect everybody and are only
being appreciated now,” said Mr Wahlgreen.
The auctioneer said he did not expect the controversy surrounding Mr Watson’s
comments to deter potential buyers. “I think the guy is the greatest living
scientist. There are a lot of personalities in history we’d find fault with
– but their discoveries transcend human foibles,” he said
Auctions for memorabilia and art have been setting new records recently as
investors look for inflation-proof investments. Earlier this month
Christie’s brought in the highest-ever total for an auction at its
contemporary sale in New York. The sale grossed $852.9m across 75 lots,
including $25.9m for Jeff Koons’s Balloon Monkey sculpture.
Mr Watson – who insisted he was “not a racist in a conventional way” – said it
had been “stupid” of him to not realise that his comments on the
intelligence of African people would end up in an article.
“I apologise . . . [the journalist] somehow wrote that I worried about the
people in Africa because of their low IQ – and you’re not supposed to say
that.”
In 2007, the Sunday Times ran an interview with Dr Watson in which he said 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”.
He told the newspaper people wanted to believe that everyone was born with
equal intelligence but that those “who have to deal with black employees
find this not true”.
Mr Watson said he hoped the publicity surrounding the sale of the medal would
provide an opportunity for him to “re-enter public life”. Since the furore
in 2007 he has not delivered any public lectures.
“I’ve had a unique life that’s allowed me to do things. I was set back. It was
stupid on my part. All you can do is nothing, except hope that people
actually know what you are,” he said.
Prof Watson made his scientific discovery in 1953 at Cambridge University with
Francis Crick. They were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine
with Maurice Wilkins, from King's College London, for identifying the
elegant double helix in work that laid the basis for modern molecular
biology.
Mr Watson said he one day wanted his children to auction the handwritten
manuscript for his famous book, The Double Helix. “It will be worth a lot
more. We’d have a reserve of at least $10m,” he said.
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Truth is the biggest victim of political correctness.
Truth is the biggest victim of those who cite political correctness in order to validate falsehoods.
He isn't the first person to be fooled by group differences in IQ
test results. It takes more than a number-cruncher's data collation
skills to realize there's too much circumstantial effect on individuals'
test results arising from non-biological group-based differences (such
as class, culture, environment and other factors), to be able to claim
the variations are biologically based.
Anyway, he's from the time
when the fact of that sort of eugenics-based nonsense was accepted as a
given in much of the West, so a deep delve into the data seemed
unnecessary. Just goes to show that the smartest among us are still just
people, and are going to say and do stupid things just like the rest of
us.
This is easy to say if you are sitting in the West, where people of
the 70 IQ level are a minority. What would you do if, say, faced by
classrooms of Africans, Asians and Whites in Africa. You would find that
Africans of any economic level sift to the bottom, Asians are very
variable, and Whites cluster at the top in general. You would also find
that mixed-race people tend to fit somewhere near Asians by-and-large.
And this situation obtains across the economic spectrum. If you see this
situation year after year, what are you to make of it? Ignore it?
Pretend it doesn't exist?
What I do is recognize that IQ test results measure the ability to
take IQ tests, and that the tests are skewed to the benefit of those who
share irrelevant characteristics with those who create, administer and
interpret those results.
What you do, based on your feed, is look for
reasons to consider blacks inferior, and then promote those reasons.
Whether those reasons are reality based seems not to matter.
But then why do Japanese and Koreans outperform whites, who created
the tests? As an educator, I have noted that there is a correlation
between IQ scores and the ability to reason through problems, and
function well in life generally. It is not a perfect correlation, but it
does exist. Pretending it doesn't exist in order to fit in with what is
currently "cool" or "trendy" doesn't really cut it. As a scientist, it
would not be seemly to do that.
But I would really like to know how you explain the fact that Orientals outperform whites. That is an important question.
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'The Bell Curve' published in 1994, also showed the African race is less intelligent than the European race:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-C9-3...
On
the pro side, you could extrapolate from that, in general, the most
intelligent half of the black race, are only as intelligent as the least
intelligent half of the white race
one problem... you are too stupid to realize there are NO HUMAN RACES, there is THE HUMAN RACE.
There is NO speciation in our peoples, just genetic variances.
At one time, the English were called a race, the Scots, and even the
Northumbrians. Now they are trying to tell us there is one race.
Absolute social marxist rubbish, lies built on lies, for which the only
purpose is to justify their living among us to improve their standard of
living.
Dreamr Okelly, you are confusing the word "race" with the word "species."
There
is only ONE human species (all of humanity.) The word "race" refers to a
sub-species or if you prefer, a population sub-group within the human
species.
For example, think of different breeds of dogs. German
Shepherds and Chihuahuas are both DOGS but that doesn't mean there's no
such thing as German Shepherds and Chihuahuas!
So if you don't like the word "race" that's fine, just use the word "population sub-group."
The word "race" has had different meanings over time. Race was used
to describe religions, or even families. It has a particular meaning
with regard to speciation, as you say, but that is not the meaning with
which the word was originally imbued. Therefore it is not wrong to use
the word as it is used colloquially, because everybody understands its
meaning.
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I wish him the very best and offer nothing but contempt for the forces that continue to demonise him.
The average IQ of the nations have been determined, and African
nations inhabit the bottom of the table, along with African colonies in
the Carribean. The only controversy, is this fact does not reflect
incumbent social marxist political ideology.
National IQ table:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/im...
Keep the gunpowder medal, hang out in metro UK and sell loose fags
(cigarettes) on the street at pick-a-dilly.. the bobbie cops over yonder
pond don't carry guns for the most part, so i hear, and beating or
shooting the Elderly, Infirm or Obese, Ethnics, Women and Minors for
petty infractions, Issues resolved by verbal warning or written ticket.
.genetic engineering and the double standard paradox. Clone Sheep, not
Heroes.. Use Batons not Bullets .the mind is a terrible drug to waste.
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The police were following your Marxist Mayor's orders, fool.
Resist arrest- face the put-down.
James Watson made his brilliant discovery using Rosalyn Franklin's
data which they stole. Interested people may refer to their book The
double helix. A brilliant scientist and a bad man. I wonder what he
thinks of Carver.
old, broke and in need of money..hmm. yet,desires to sell his token
of genius medal to buy a piece of ad-hockney art at some inflated price,
and also contribute to, those who once looked after him until 2007
institutions in gratitude, long after his 15 minutes of fame were over,
becoming a washed up-has been brainiac and an UnPerson living on
Institutional welfare/fanfare must be horrible and degrading.. somehow
makes sense that geniusboy was/is also a sexist and likely stole and/or
took credit for a womans discovery and work...very 1960's and a good
excuse for those times.., very caucasian in tactical thinking ( not to
be confused with critical thinking) and pathetic behavior for such a
self proclaimed intelligent pariah.. there was a caucasian comedian
named Mork who recently committed suicide because he was going broke,
desperate times require desperate actions, The funnyman was down to a
reserve of $50 million net worth, being just another has-been, waning
in popularity he couldnt face the facts being a Unperson , a forgotten
funnyman has been., he was also oversexed and fueled by cocaine ,
alcohol and fame,,which pumped his ego and all these years later he was
still paying dearly for it, alimony and rehab, he also had excessive
body hair and was likely an entitled caucasian genetic primate>
throwback with a trainable brain.. His fans called him a comic genius, i
think he was as intelligent and Ignorant as his contemporary african
funnyman named Bill Cosby another so called comic genius who reflects
the society that both creates perpetuates and patronizes such ignorance,
garbage and research as racial humor or psuedo intelligence..
caucasians are great at creating weapons, machine guns to atomic and
hydrogen bombs and biological blunders as weapons, and selling their
genius creation crap to people they consider as inferior beings..also
the inventers of unsustainable lifestyles and throw away packaging aka
no deposit no return humanity Africans as well as all people of color
and of coarse women have invented alot more than peanut butter, give
credit where credit is due..
There is a caucasian reality TV show
called Survivor-boy-man where groups of superior white people have to go
into the wilderness and survive by their nimwits while competing for a
predetermined amount of time for some monitary reward/ noble prize..
strange show.. the indigenous people of color seem to have no problem
surviving in the natural world for time immemorial.. only the pale
civilized TV genuises have to struggle against nature , their own brand
of drama and control freak insanity and insecurity for the simpliest of
creature comforts...
i apologize to all the grammer Nazis out
there who read this and cringe at my spelling in this lame blog. i'm a
caucasian halfbreed sub-genius who lives with a few disabilities, i bred
with a woman of color and my children have brains that do work, do not
need comedians to laugh at their own social or genetic shortcomings
despite the predjudice they must live with and endure,they have no
scruples with race and care for the less fortunate of all races in their
carreers of choice..(they are nurses).. anyway i hope this Noble prize
dipstick James the Unperson gets his asking price for his token genius
medal. and can buy his art piece and die of old age knowing he didnt die
broke and unknown.. pathetic science,, but what does one expect of a
prize created by one of the inventors of weapons of mass destruction..Mr
Nobel and his guilty conscience. Rant on
Deny the facts all you want.
Ranting moron.
And this, kids, is why you should steer clear of drugs! [In reference to your comment.]
It's almost fasinating in a disturbing way, isn't it!
"I Q" is a disputed fact and involves various parameters in judging human intelligence.
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Indeed. And it is as simple as this. There is not one culture of
learning, there are several. African culture does not value typical
capitalist mentality. It is more tribal and more family focused. It is a
struggle much more than the rat race.
Countries that have a
history of good, distributed free public education are at the top of
that IQ list and countries that are more verbal and tribal are at the
bottom of the list.
IQ seems to be a matter of being able to read and write.... go figure.
This is simply not true. Go to Africa, and see how they suffer and
struggle with problems that White or Chinese people are able to solve.
The world is not what it was in the Stone Age, when an IQ of 70
sufficed. Nobody is pleased about the fact that blacks have not been as
well endowed intellectually, it is tragic. Africa's situation is dire
because the Left insists they should compete the same as others, which
they simply can't. Africans in many cases inherited infrastructure, but
it has simply gone to rack-and-ruin. It doesn't do them any good to make
excuses all the time. The problem must be acknowledged and faced. It is
cruel not to do so.
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If we are born with genetic predispositions toward some diseases why then would this not apply to intelligence?
Sure. That is a valid hypothesis.
But millions of Africans die
due to diseases like Malaria, AIDS, cholera. Yet it is obvious to us
that fact is down to socioeconomic and environmental factors rather than
genetics. The same also applies to intelligence.
Also IQ tests
are far from an established science. There are countless other factors
at play. The jury is still out on this one.
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You are INSANE. Lower Black IQ and a less developed pre-frontal
cortex are 2 MAJOR reasons why Blacks cannot build 1st world
civilizations. Again, You are INSANE, and have been brainwashed by the
largely Jewish controlled media.
http://pastebin.com/8bGequQ2
Not sure whether your being a troll or sarcastic, but here's a comic
strip that westerners who are over-arrogant of their achievements would
do well to read : -
http://abstrusegoose.com/507
Steady on- we'll be hearing crys that sickle cell anemia is WRACIST next... ;-)
Or was invented in a CIA laboratory.
Because no one knows how "intelligence" is determined genetically nor
how to measure it phenotypically. Intelligence does not reside on a
particular gene that can be analyzed. People everywhere are born with a
wide continuum of cognitive abilities and no genetic background can
predict who will be a great runner, a brilliant artist or skilled
surgeon. None of those people are racially or personally superior in any
way, as humans, to the merely average among their peers.
But IQ predicts success in life. There is a strong correlation.
Solving the type of problems in IQ tests means you can solve problems
that present themselves in life. I know it is easier to blame everything
on anything other than genetics, but we have too many studies with
twins to suggest it is all simply nurture. We can't all be Einstein,
just as we can't all be black, Jamaican athletes.
Genetic predispositions towards some diseases are not racial. In the
same race you will see lot of fluctuation depending upon your ancestors.
Different diseases, different language genes, different genes that affect brain size, hormone levels, etc.
Society is a racial construct.
http://pastebin.com/8bGequQ2
Jews have a strong tendency to Tay-Sachs and breast cancer.
Ever heard of Sickle Cell Disease? Or the heart medication that was
made specifically for blacks and approved by the FDA because
conventional heart medications do not work as well for them? What about
the fact that mixed race individuals who are in need of organ
transplants, such as bone marrow transplants, have a much more difficult
time in finding suitable donors due to their mismatched genetics?
Obviously, genetics/DNA are much more significant than you would like
them to be. It's people like you who deny the obvious who are a burden
to the advancement of the fields of science and medicine, as well as
society in general.
It's people like you who are responsible for the outcasting of Mr. Watson for simply stating the TRUTH.
Watson made himself an outcast by speaking like a racist fool who
knows nothing about how intelligence is determined genetically.
Different genetics does not mean inferior. People carrying the
sickle-cell trait have superior resistance to malaria, which is why the
gene persists in African people and endemic areas. People without the
sickle-cell gene are much more likely to get infected and die from
malaria.
I think Watson understands how sickle-cell persists. I also think he
isn't afraid to rattle the PC cage. Science is science. If you see that
over many, many decades blacks all over the world score in a certain
way, and whites in a certain way, and Chinese in a certain way, you try
to understand the phenomenon. Steve Biko himself said that blacks aren't
much good at maths and science, if you respond to appeals to authority.
Blacks are best in running owing to certain types of muscles (why do
white people who have all the advantages not win on the athletics
track?) and Orientals or whites dominate in other, intellectual fields.
That is the reality of life.
None of those things makes a particular race superior in any way from
another. Science does not concern politics in any way. That is a
product of politicians. All mammalian muscles work identically. Are
white people worthy of a head start if they are too slow and poorly
trained? Are blacks the only race capable of leading, since they are the
fastest? Different is not superior, it's just different. Variation and
differential survival is the way species evolve. The fact that we're all
here is proof that every race of our species is perfectly adapted, yet
independently and differently from each other.
You seem caught on this superior and inferior differentiation. Nobody
is suggesting that individuals should be discriminated against owing to
their race, as far as I know. Statistics deals with aggregates and
large sets of data. It is how we work out the viability of drugs, and
expenditure of resources, for instance. The whole point is that people
cluster around certain characteristics that are imbued genetically as a
consequence of isolated breeding and differing evolutionary patterns.
For Africans, athletic ability was more important in their particular
environment, and so that became the determinant of fitness for
procreation purposes (i.e., those athletically proficient were most
sought-after as breeding partners). In Europe, athletic ability was less
important, whilst intellectual activity became more important, because
forward-planning was required. In Japan and Korea, this was even more
pronounced. When you have these evolutionary pressures for 500,000
years, differences between human population groups emerge. When you then
mix these people together again, the differences become quite
noticeable and important. In athletic endeavour in general, whites as a
group cannot compete with blacks as they have evolved differently; in
intellectual endeavour, blacks cannot compete with Japanese or Koreans
or whites, because they have evolved differently. However, individuals
can always buck this. Chihuahuas cannot compete in running with
Greyhounds, just as Border Collies are brighter than Newfoundlands.
Nurture plays a role, but the basic genetic scaffold is what sets
limits, unfortunately, for us all, in differing ways.
The thing
is, I am sure you know all this, and can think it through, but don't
seem to want to do so. You are reacting to it ideologically, from a
Leftist position, which actually confounds the problem with something
else, which is the treatment of people in society. Science is not
politics.
So, you think that believing that the proposition that all people are
created equal, as put forth in the US Constitution, is a leftist
position? I have to agree with you there. Right-wingers have always been
ready to defend regressive policies like fascism, ethnic cleansing,
segregation, slavery, voting restrictions on blacks and women and Jim
Crow laws. The major flaw in your silly thesis is that intellectual
ability can't be measured or timed like a race or weightlifting contest.
Culture plays a dominant role in shaping how intellect is used. Our
president, raised in Hawaii, is clearly a lot smarter, successful and
accomplished than both of us, despite being one-half Kenyan (lol). All
normal human brains have essentially equivalent potential and are shaped
by the environment they develop in. Stating that "an individual can
buck this" kind of blows your theory to hell.
You must educate yourself on statistics, and outliers. It is vital to
your education. And surely you can understand the difference between
difference in law and difference in physical reality? A man of 6'6" is
not the physical equal of a man of 4' tall, although they are equal in
law. There is a difference between the laws of nature and the laws of
humanity. I can't believe you are unable to discern this difference?
And
as for Obama being smarter than me, I dispute that most vehemently.
Luckily, though, I am not an American, so excuse myself from whatever it
is that drives your "argumentation" forward.
Move along, you apologist troll.
So he get's treated like a pariah for his IQ comment, but not for
stealing the X-ray data used to prove the shape of DNA from a female
scientist without giving her any credit for the discovery because she is
a woman?
It seems to me that the IQ issue is rather easily
solved. You just sample the population and sort the people by IQ
score..... and let the chips fall were they may.
The data will prove him correct or prove him wrong. He may be right or he may be wrong. Proving it is a simple matter.
And of course our liberals friends will accept the outcome right, no matter what it is..... because they are all about science.
IQ is garbage and an invalid and non-scientific way of assessing
intelligence. Why waste anyone's money and time? Problem IQ issue
doesn't exist!
IQ tests of this scientist's era were (and many today are still)
inherently flawed by the biases of the creators of the tests. Its
textbook example of how bias works in most intro to psychology classes.
Black
people only score worse than white people on IQ tests designed to test
intelligence based on white cultural perceptions of intelligence.
And these self same ''white cultural perceptions'' are also the reason why Asians come out top of the class.
Thanks for the laugh.
So he "stole" the results of someone who ran an x-ray crystallography
experiment for him? Sounds more like he just didn't make her an
author-- it's not like she had any real input, she just collected the
data on the single crystal for him, and that is not worthy of a claim of
discovering anything.
She ran her own research in another lab. She was the one to make the
crystal and analyze it for her own work, not Watson. Her data was
reviewed without her knowledge and co-opted. Her input data was
essential to verifying the structure. Yes, co-authorship was absolutely
due for her contributions, since she proved the structure.
© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2014
...and I am Sid Harth
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