Is bigotry in his DNA?
The recent offensive comments made by the Nobel Prize Laureate James Watson revealed his irrational prejudice. It’s a shame that such a prominent scientist would make such unfounded and unscientific remarks. He said 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.” He went on to say he hoped that everyone was equal, but he countered that “people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true.”
Watson is no stranger to irrational annotations and controversies. He and Francis Crick relied in part on Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction data to determine the structure of DNA. They could not have proposed the correct structure as early in 1953 as they did without access to Franklin’s data. When they were awarded the …show more content…
The only justification he reportedly gave for his bizarre actions was that he wanted to gain more time to prepare for tests. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to wrap our minds around his real intentions. As a result of his irrational behavior, the student is now facing eight charges, each serious enough to keep him incarcerated for a number of years.
I happen to know this student very well. He was my student for two semesters and worked with me as a lab assistant for six months. We remained acquaintances for almost eight years. He was a very industrious and diligent student who settled for nothing less than an A. He was an overachiever. As a lab assistant, he was a perfectionist, a hard worker and very serious about his job. As another acquaintance described him, he was “very intense.” He was also a loner who felt isolated and unable to depend upon or trust people around
The recent offensive comments made by the Nobel Prize Laureate James Watson revealed his irrational prejudice. It’s a shame that such a prominent scientist would make such unfounded and unscientific remarks. He said 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.” He went on to say he hoped that everyone was equal, but he countered that “people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true.”
Watson is no stranger to irrational annotations and controversies. He and Francis Crick relied in part on Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction data to determine the structure of DNA. They could not have proposed the correct structure as early in 1953 as they did without access to Franklin’s data. When they were awarded the …show more content…
The only justification he reportedly gave for his bizarre actions was that he wanted to gain more time to prepare for tests. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to wrap our minds around his real intentions. As a result of his irrational behavior, the student is now facing eight charges, each serious enough to keep him incarcerated for a number of years.
I happen to know this student very well. He was my student for two semesters and worked with me as a lab assistant for six months. We remained acquaintances for almost eight years. He was a very industrious and diligent student who settled for nothing less than an A. He was an overachiever. As a lab assistant, he was a perfectionist, a hard worker and very serious about his job. As another acquaintance described him, he was “very intense.” He was also a loner who felt isolated and unable to depend upon or trust people around