James D. Watson, RIP

The co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, who was cancelled for mentioning the existence of the racial IQ gap, has died at 97.

Along with the 2005 cancellation of Harvard president Larry Summers for telling the truth about male and female cognitive differences, the 2007 cancellation of James D. Watson, America’s most distinguished man of science, for telling the truth about racial cognitive differences was a catastrophic milestone in America’s descent into the anti-science hysteria of the Great Awokening decade (hopefully, now in our rear view mirror).

From the New York Times, here’s the front page headline for their 3,700 word obituary of Watson:

James D. Watson, Co-Discoverer of the Structure of DNA, Is Dead at 97

His decoding of the blueprint for life with Francis H.C. Crick made him one of the most important scientists of the 20th century. He wrote a celebrated memoir and later ignited an uproar with racist views.

By Cornelia Dean

Cornelia Dean, a science writer, was the science editor of The Times from 1997 to 2003.

Nov. 7, 2025

James D. Watson, who entered the pantheon of science at age 25 when he joined in the discovery of the structure of DNA, one of the most momentous breakthroughs in the history of science, died on Thursday in East Northport, N.Y., on Long Island. He was 97. …

Dr. Watson’s role in decoding DNA, the genetic blueprint for life, would have been enough to establish him as one of the most important scientists of the 20th century. But he cemented that fame by leading the ambitious Human Genome Project and writing perhaps the most celebrated memoir in science.

For decades a famous and famously cantankerous American man of science, Dr. Watson lived on the grounds of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which, in another considerable accomplishment, he took over as director in 1968 and transformed from a relatively small establishment on Long Island with a troubled past into one of the world’s major centers of microbiology. He stepped down in 1993 and took a largely honorary position of chancellor.

But his official career there ended ignominiously in 2007 after he ignited an uproar by suggesting, in an interview with The Sunday Times in London, that Black people, over all, were not as intelligent as white people. He repeated the assertion in on-camera interviews for a PBS documentary about him, part of the “American Masters” series. When the program aired in 2018, the lab, in response, revoked honorary titles that Dr. Watson had retained.

They were far from the first incendiary, off-the-cuff comments by a man who was once described as “the Caligula of biology,” and he repudiated them immediately.

No, as I explain below.

Nevertheless, though he continued his biological theorizing on subjects like the roles of oxidants and antioxidants in cancer and diabetes, Dr. Watson ceased to command the scientific spotlight.

He said later that he felt that his fellow scientists had abandoned him.

… But Dr. Watson’s racist remarks had “overshadowed his support of women in science,” Dr. Stillman said. …

Over the years Dr. Watson acquired a reputation for challenging scientific orthodoxy and for brash, unpleasant and even bigoted outspokenness. At one time or another he was quoted as disparaging gay men and women, girls who were not “pretty” and the intelligence and initiative generally of women, as well as of people with dark skin. At a lecture at Berkeley in 2000, he suggested a connection between exposure to sunlight and sex drive, saying it would explain why there are Latin lovers but not English lovers. And he once said that he felt bad whenever he interviewed an overweight job applicant because he knew he wasn’t going to hire someone who was fat.

Dr. Watson escaped serious consequences for his remarks until 2007, when he was traveling to promote his memoir “Avoid Boring People: Lessons From a Life in Science,” published that year. He was quoted in The Sunday Times as saying that while “there are many people of color who are very talented,” he was “inherently gloomy about the prospects of Africa.”

But of course since 2007, Africa has taken the lead in the development of artificial intelligence, thus disproving Watson’s view.

Oh, wait …

Paywall here.