December 13, 2007--Elementary, My Dear Watson
James Watson, along with Francis Crick, is the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. Never mind that they failed to adequately acknowledge the essential contributions to their “discovery” of Rosalind Franklin, who worked largely unnoticed and did not share in their Nobel Prize. Big Science, especially when fame and fortune are at stake, can be quite a blood sport.
Not unlike many other scientists who do their best work when young and then drift off into relative obscurity, Watson and Crick, after their magnificent discovery, took up largely ceremonial or honorific positions on the margins of research. Crick then slipped even further away, never again breaking into the headlines.
But Watson, also like other aging Great Men, managed to step in it big time the other day when he speculated that Blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites.
He was quoted as saying, “All our social policies are based on the fact that [Blacks’] intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really.” (See “NY Times” article linked below.)
This could have been laughed off as the ravings of a besotted old man; but considering his stature in the very field of genetic research where such explorations—controversial as they might be—would appropriately occur, he had to be paid attention to and contradicted.
That would have been enough. After all, in America, we may be on the cusp of nominating a Black person to run for the presidency. But as it is in Watson’s case, sometimes the best justice is the poetic kind. So let’s pause for a moment to savor what happened to him.
As one of the founding fathers of DNA research, Watson placed his own genetic information on line for all the world to see. That felt charming enough until the other shoe fell. The company dCode Genetics of Iceland did an analysis of his DNA to see what it might reveal—a tendency toward having curly hair perhaps? (he is now quite bald); an inherent inclination to like sweets; the likelihood that he would develop Alzheimer’s (this is an easy one since we know that has already happened)? Bread and butter stuff of the kind that more and more people are learning about themselves when they have their own DNA analyzed.
But deCode discovered something much more ironically interesting: it seems that Watson has lots of Black “blood” mixed into his DNA. So much so that it is the virtual equivalent to having had a Black great-grandparent! How sweet it can sometimes be.
Maybe next we’ll find out that he’s related to Strom Thurmond or even Thomas Jefferson.
Not unlike many other scientists who do their best work when young and then drift off into relative obscurity, Watson and Crick, after their magnificent discovery, took up largely ceremonial or honorific positions on the margins of research. Crick then slipped even further away, never again breaking into the headlines.
But Watson, also like other aging Great Men, managed to step in it big time the other day when he speculated that Blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites.
He was quoted as saying, “All our social policies are based on the fact that [Blacks’] intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really.” (See “NY Times” article linked below.)
This could have been laughed off as the ravings of a besotted old man; but considering his stature in the very field of genetic research where such explorations—controversial as they might be—would appropriately occur, he had to be paid attention to and contradicted.
That would have been enough. After all, in America, we may be on the cusp of nominating a Black person to run for the presidency. But as it is in Watson’s case, sometimes the best justice is the poetic kind. So let’s pause for a moment to savor what happened to him.
As one of the founding fathers of DNA research, Watson placed his own genetic information on line for all the world to see. That felt charming enough until the other shoe fell. The company dCode Genetics of Iceland did an analysis of his DNA to see what it might reveal—a tendency toward having curly hair perhaps? (he is now quite bald); an inherent inclination to like sweets; the likelihood that he would develop Alzheimer’s (this is an easy one since we know that has already happened)? Bread and butter stuff of the kind that more and more people are learning about themselves when they have their own DNA analyzed.
But deCode discovered something much more ironically interesting: it seems that Watson has lots of Black “blood” mixed into his DNA. So much so that it is the virtual equivalent to having had a Black great-grandparent! How sweet it can sometimes be.
Maybe next we’ll find out that he’s related to Strom Thurmond or even Thomas Jefferson.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
10:08 AM
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