Dr James Watson stripped of titles over racism

Controversial Nobel Prize-winning biologist Dr James Watson has been stripped of his honorary titles for repeating discredited claims on the link between race and intelligence.

In a recent interview recorded for a US documentary on his life and work, the 90-year-old said he stood by his past comments that black people were inherently less intelligent than whites, despite previously apologising for them.

“There’s a difference on the average between blacks and whites on IQ tests. I would say the difference is genetic,” he said.

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Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, where Watson served as chancellor until 2007, said it would be stripping him of his titles of chancellor emeritus, Oliver R Grace Professor Emeritus, and honorary trustee over the “unsubstantiated and reckless” claims.

In a statement, the institute said it condemned “the misuse of science to justify prejudice”.

Watson is “undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest living scientists”, says The Independent. In 1962, he won a Nobel Prize, alongside colleagues Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkin, for their groundbreaking work identifying the double helix structure of the DNA molecule.

However, his recent remarks “are the latest in a series of racist and homophobic statements that have tainted Watson's career”, says CNN.

In 2007, he told The Times that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospects 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”.

However, “the relevance, usefulness, and legitimacy of the IQ test is still hotly debated among educators, social scientists, and hard scientists”, writes Daphne Martschenko, a PhD candidate specialising in genetics and education, in The Conversation.

Furthermore, “there is a consensus among scientists that race is a purely social construct, with no evidence to suggest distinct genetic differences between individuals from different populations”, says Al Jazeera.

The American-born scientist has also been accused of defending anti-Semitism and anti-Irish bigotry, and has argued that women should be free to terminate their pregnancies to avoid having gay children if future prenatal testing can identify genes predicting sexuality.

In 2014, he sold his Nobel medal, “saying he had been ostracised by the scientific community” for his views, says the BBC.

Watson, who is being cared for in a nursing home following a car crash, has not responded to the latest developments. His son, Rufus, said his father currently had “minimal awareness of his surroundings”.