# Is Nobel Prize winner James Watson co-discoveror of the DNA helix a "disgraced" scientist? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 3, 2014, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194 "2014-12-03T03:21:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194/41 "2014-12-06T16:01:56Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > He is a scientist and has his reason for believing what he holds to be scientific truths. No non-scientist is qualified to hold him in judgment for that. If Watson (or another scientist) publishes a study employing rigorous genetic analysis and reproducible measures of intelligence, using the data to make careful, justifiable conclusions about race and I.Q., then non-scientists cannot debunk the study just by saying “You’re racist!”. But I don’t see that Watson has done such work or that opponents are attacking him for making science-based arguments. Watson doesn’t have credibility in the scientific community for his views or the evidence needed to justify the crudely racist statements he’s made. As to the claim that “only scientists can criticize other scientists” there are non-scientists who nevertheless possess the ability to analyze the quality of research and pick holes in it (check out for example Jon Entine’s analysis of Seralini’s rat GMO study). ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194/42 "2014-12-06T21:32:33Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > If Watson (or another scientist) publishes a study employing rigorous genetic analysis and reproducible measures of intelligence, using the data to make careful, justifiable conclusions about race and I.Q., then non-scientists cannot debunk the study just by saying “You’re racist!”. But I don’t see that Watson has done such work or that opponents are attacking him for making science-based arguments. > > Watson doesn’t have credibility in the scientific community for his views or the evidence needed to justify the crudely racist statements he’s made. > > As to the claim that “only scientists can criticize other scientists” there are non-scientists who nevertheless possess the ability to analyze the quality of research and pick holes in it (check out for example Jon Entine’s analysis of Seralini’s rat GMO study). All Watson did is express a personal opinion out loud. Apparently in order to avoid being disgraced one is not allowed to publicly express such opinions. All that is required to condemn an opinion as racist is to accept on faith that evolution would endow the Khoisan and the Han with functionally equivalent neurophysiologic genes despite thousands of years of separation and different environmental pressures and different phenotype expressions that make it obvious they do not have the same average gene pools. The inflammatory charge of racism quells further discussion. No matter that an opinion is an opinion. No matter that it is based on looking at the underlying likelihood of what is scientifically supported. We will happily disgrace you and your career if your opinion, even expressed as opinion, does not jibe with what we hope is reality. And the easiest way to do that is to attach an inflammatory label behind your name. After all, it is highly unlikely anyone who wants to believe the egalitarian narrative will familiarize themselves with facts which cast into doubt the Good Fairy who has demanded of Nature that she exempt neurophysiologic genes in humans (and only humans) from evolving. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194/43 "2014-12-06T21:58:49Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > All Watson did is express a personal opinion out loud. Apparently in order to avoid being disgraced one is not allowed to publicly express such opinions. > > All that is required to condemn an opinion as racist is to accept on faith that evolution would endow the Khoisan and the Han with functionally equivalent neurophysiologic genes despite thousands of years of separation and different environmental pressures and different phenotype expressions that make it obvious they do not have the same average gene pools. > > The inflammatory charge of racism quells further discussion. > > No matter that an opinion is an opinion. > No matter that it is based on looking at the underlying likelihood of what is scientifically supported. > > We will happily disgrace you and your career if your opinion, even expressed as opinion, does not jibe with what we hope is reality. And the easiest way to do that is to attach an inflammatory label behind your name. > > After all, it is highly unlikely anyone who wants to believe the egalitarian narrative will familiarize themselves with facts which cast into doubt the Good Fairy who has demanded of Nature that she exempt neurophysiologic genes in humans (and only humans) from evolving. **Chief Pedant** why do you think that for most of the Cold War era, East German IQ was significantly below West German IQ, but nowadays the two are on par? On a similar note, why do you think the longstanding and large intelligence gaps between the Irish and English, or between Southeastern and Western Europeans, have been narrowed or largely closed within the last few decades? In the mid-20th century, Irish IQ was on par with African-American IQ today. Here’s a good article on the topic by Ron Unz, who is a race realist and a conservative but is skeptical of the ‘strong IQ hypothesis’. Clearly IQ is mostly innate and largely heritable, but that doesn’t necessarily tell us the causes of IQ differences between groups. Until we have a better sense of what caused the narrowing of the intelligence gaps between different European groups, I think we ought to remain agnostic about the causes of other racial gaps as well. > **[Race, IQ, and Wealth](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/race-iq-and-wealth/)** > > What the facts tell us about a taboo subject ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194/44 "2014-12-06T22:21:39Z")
Curiously enough, James Watson turned up in a Medscape article I was just reading (about antioxidant supplements being ineffective in preventing cancer and possibly _encouraging_ cancer growth}. \*"This issue of antioxidants being harmful to cancer patients was (discussed) last year by Nobel laureate James Watson, PhD, who is chancellor emeritus at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He described a new hypothesis on ROS (reactive oxygen species) that he considers is “among my most important work since the double helix.” Dr. Watson proposed that antioxidant levels within cancer cells are a problem and are responsible for resistance to treatment, and that the untreatable nature of late-stage cancer might be the result of “its possession of too many antioxidants.” “The time has come to seriously ask whether antioxidant use more likely causes than prevents cancer,” Dr. Watson said. Nutritional intervention trials have shown no obvious effectiveness in preventing cancer or in lengthening lifespan, and, “in fact, they seem to slightly shorten the lives of those who take them.” Dr. Tuveson, who works at the same institution, commented at the end of the interview that “Dr. Watson is usually a few steps ahead of the rest of us.”"\* (sorry, unable to link directly to the article) If only Watson would stick to subjects in which he has expertise and can make evidence-based conclusions, there’d wouldn’t be any question about his level of respect in the scientific community. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194/45 "2014-12-07T11:59:33Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > **Chief Pedant** why do you think that for most of the Cold War era, East German IQ was significantly below West German IQ, but nowadays the two are on par? \ We’ve discussed this elsewhere and this is not GD. The short answer to your question is that it has not been possible to normalize population-based average differences by equalizing know nurturing variables. Nature and nurture both play a role in outcomes. But there is obviously a component of what we call “intelligence” that is related to genes. After all, we are more intelligent than any other species, and the reason is genes. And among any given family raised in roughly similar circumstance, there are often marked differences in intelligence, even as measured by IQ. We can look at extremely wealthy groups and make a judgment that, if their performance is better on a standardized exam, perhaps their socioeconomic status is the cause. But if we normalize for that SES and a gap persists, then we have to start looking for other reasons. It is the strength (or weakness) of those other reasons that underlies the strength (or weakness) of opinions that the answer cannot be genetic pool differences. However an alternate way to consider the question is to look at human evolution and notice that nearly everything for separated populations has a different average. Why would neurologic functions be excepted from that general rule? It is far more likely than not that brains evolve differently just the way appearances and other physiologic functions do. When one considers that some population groups of humans have been separated by tens of thousands of years (for their average gene pools) and that some of those populations have even had gene introgression from archaic hominid lines, it is not much of a stretch to have an opinion that not every population’s (average) brains have the same average function. But I think the question in this thread is whether or not Dr Watson is “disgraced” because he holds an opinion, not whether or not the opinion is correct. It is considered disgraceful to hold an opinion that genes could drive neurophysiologic differences among populations. And this holds true even given the evolutionary considerations I note above. This disgracing is based on a contention–I would say, a hope–that has far less science in defense of it than does Dr Watson’s opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194/46 "2014-12-07T12:16:38Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > If only Watson would stick to subjects in which he has expertise and can make evidence-based conclusions, there’d wouldn’t be any question about his level of respect in the scientific community. It is in the nature of an active mind to suggest and explore hypotheses for the world around us. There is no constraint to “stick to evidence-based conclusions.” In fact, scientific progress results from just the opposite. Good science requires that every supposition be questioned, and to the degree that a given musing about what might be causes disgrace, it should be the case that existing evidence is so abundantly clear, the muser is obviously ignorant. There is not a shred of evidence that evolution exempts neurologic function. There is not a shred of evidence that human populations have evolved in tandem. Average appearance and physiologic function differences have been described for thousands of measured variables. Gene clustering by self-identified “race” populations suggesting Darwinian selection has been shown for SNP mutations in 1,800 genes in [one study.](http://www.pnas.org/content/103/1/135.abstract) Those included genes for “host–pathogen interactions, reproduction, DNA metabolism/cell cycle, protein metabolism, and neuronal function.” Yet we are going to casually suggest that Dr Watson should stick to evidence (what evidence?), that he should be disgraced for opining that genes make a difference among populations, and that he is a racist to boot. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194/47 "2014-12-07T18:28:43Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Well, what is your issue about it then? That it’s a crying shame she doesn’t have one and a twat like Watson does. That is all. It would be the same if that XRD work was done by an unsung man. > [@](#): > > Why have you repeatedly brought the matter up? I think you’ll find I’ve “brought the matter up” a grand total of _once_. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194/48 "2014-12-07T19:38:24Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That it’s a crying shame she doesn’t have one and a twat like Watson does. That is all. It would be the same if that XRD work was done by an unsung man. Sorry, Nobel prizes are not awarded just for _not_ being a racist asshole. It isn’t a personality contest. Watson may be an asshole, but he undoubtedly made a huge and absolutely crucial contribution to the understanding of the structure (and thereby, the function) of DNA. Of all those involved, he was the only one who originally thought the problem was an important one, and he took considerable career risks to pursue it. Together with Crick (who he had recruited to work on the matter), he provided crucial and original conceptual insights that led to the solution. Franklin, by contrast, did nothing of any significant originality. She was a competent, experienced X-ray crystallographer, who worked on DNA not because she thought it particularly interesting, but because Wilkins (who was also working on it more by chance than because of any great conviction as to its importance) hired her to do so. Her work was basically routine, if skilled, applying well known techniques to a new substance, and she failed to see the significance of her own findings (she denied her own pictures showed evidence of a helix until confronted with Watson and Cricks full model). Watson and Crick _did_ see the significance of her results, and that played _a relatively small role_ in how they finally arrived at their successful model. Their knowledge of Chargaff’s ratios, and their long-standing conviction (based on broad theoretical considerations and the model of Pauling’s alpha-helix) that DNA had to be a helical molecule, were really much more significant than Crick’s ability to drive the correct implications from Franklin’s X-ray picture. (Even if, as seems fairly likely, Franklin had eventually arrived at a correct, i.e. helical, interpretation of her own data by herself, as she was unaware of the Chargaff ratios, and other significant chemical facts known to Watson and Crick, she would still have had no chance of finding the full solution by herself.) In short, Franklin’s contribution to the solution of the DNA problem was relatively minor, and the science she did contribute, though competent, was of a fairly routine sort, of no particular originality. She is a significant scientist at all, _only_ via her association with Watson and Crick. If she had lived long enough to eligible for a share in their Nobel prize, which _they_ clearly deserved, it remains an open question as to whether she truly would have deserved it. > [@MrDibble](#): > > I think you’ll find I’ve “brought the matter up” a grand total of _once_. :rolleyes: More like **six times** , not counting this last. (With your baseless assertions and out-of-context quotes each time debunked in detail by either **mozchron** or myself.) > [@MrDibble](#): > > Yes, he is effectively now considered just the drunken old uncle who pisses himself and mutters racist remarks at the Science family Christmas party. May have done great work in a particular niche of the field (even if the _primary_ research was actually done by a [Nobel-less woman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin)), but not relevant anymore and with some truly repellant ideas. > [@MrDibble](#): > > So much a myth even Crick fell for it? To quote him “However, the data which really helped us to obtain the structure was **mainly obtained by Rosalind Franklin** ” An opinion confirmed by Watson later. > [@MrDibble](#): > > No, she was ineligible _for the 1962 Nobel_ that Watson, Crick and Wilkins got. She was not “never - ever - eligible” for a Nobel at all. > [@MrDibble](#): > > IMO, the significance of the work should have been obvious by '55, '56 at the outside. But I’m not a geneticist. > [@MrDibble](#): > > Did I blame Watson anywhere for Franklin not having a Nobel? > [@MrDibble](#): > > I didn’t mean to imply what you’re inferring. I’ve never said she was deliberately cut out of the Nobel, but that seems to be what you’re reading into my posts. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194/49 "2014-12-07T20:17:58Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Sorry, Nobel prizes are not awarded just for _not_ being a racist asshole. It isn’t a personality contest. :rolleyes: I’m aware of this. I said it’s a crying shame, not a miscarriage of Nobel procedure. > [@](#): > > More like **six times** , not counting this last. If you can’t tell the difference between “bringing something up” and “responding”, I don’t see any further use in interacting with you. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2014, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194/50 "2014-12-08T03:22:20Z")
Brief highjack, but I’ve always griped that the Nobel went to Penzias and Wilson, who observed background cosmic radiation, and not to Gamow, Alpher, and Herman, who predicted it. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2019, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194/51 "2019-01-12T02:34:48Z")
Updating this thread: > [@](#): > > James Watson, the Nobel Prize-winning DNA scientist who lost his job in 2007 for expressing racist views, was stripped of several honorary titles Friday by the New York lab he once headed. > > Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory said it was reacting to Watson’s remarks in a television documentary aired earlier this month. > > In the film, Watson said his views about intelligence and race had not changed since 2007, when he told a magazine 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 — where all the testing says not really.” [https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/lab-revokes-honors-controversial-dna-scientist-watson-60320972](https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/lab-revokes-honors-controversial-dna-scientist-watson-60320972) Here is the PBS documentary: > **[American Masters | Decoding Watson | Season 33 | PBS](https://www.pbs.org/video/decoding-watson-ua6jjx/)** > > Scientist James Watson, the man behind the Double Helix, confronts his complex legacy. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2019, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194/52 "2019-01-12T14:23:27Z")
Good. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194/53 "2019-01-13T07:32:07Z")
> [@mozchron](#): > > Yes, Franklin’s role in the discovery was tragically minimized, in part to sexist attitudes of the day. History has in part restored her place. But to deify her and state that she was cheated out of the Nobel is just nonsense. Note that the same would have been true for any (male) junior in the laboratory. I don’t know what the American system was like at the time, but in the English system, the lead/head researcher took all the authority, all the responsibility, and all the glory. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194/54 "2019-01-13T08:22:45Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Watson is just one of a disturbingly long line of scientists honored for distinguished work who later succumbed to [the Nobel disease](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nobel_disease). Remember that Watson was very young (25) when they got the DNA structure, and he’s one of the ten youngest Nobel laureates (34). If you meet him, you soon realize that for his entire life, everyone he has met has just genuflected and let him talk for as long as wants, about whatever he wants, without interruption or criticism. He never had any filter. I asked him directly in 2008 what on earth he was thinking in the original furore, with the public comments he made about “the low black IQ” (his words). He rambled on in general terms about the bug up his ass over “political correctness gone mad”, in the sense of shying away if scientific evidence leads to unpalatable conclusions. He clearly had the notion that he was fearlessly saying something that he supposed everyone knew but was afraid to say. But he was just non-responsive on the critical question of what supposed evidence he based these views on. It’s hard to understand this bigotry in any typical way you can pin down. A clueless old man losing his grip on reality, unfortunately. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-co-discoveror-of-the-dna-helix-a-disgraced-scientist/706194.md?page=2)