Nobel Laureate Suspended For 'Racist Remarks'

A United States Nobel Prize-winning scientist who triggered a storm with reportedly racist comments cancelled his British book tour Friday to return home, where his lab has suspended him from duty.

"The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Board of Trustees decided to suspend the administrative responsibilities of Chancellor James D. Watson, PhD, pending further deliberation by the board," the lab said in a statement.

Watson, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962 for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, had been in London for a book tour when an interview he gave to the Sunday Times sparked a furore.

He had been the number two at the Long Island laboratory, just outside New York. But the lab said Watson was suspended "after the board's public statement yesterday disagreeing with the comments attributed to Dr Watson in the October 14, 2007 edition of The Sunday Times."

Watson told the British weekly 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."

Lab president Bruce Stillman said the board of trustees "vehemently disagree with these statements and are bewildered and saddened if he indeed made such comments."

Such remarks were Watson's "own personal statements and in no way reflect the mission, goals, or principles of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's Board, administration or faculty," he said in a separate statement.

"Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory does not engage in any research that could even form the basis of the statements attributed to Dr. Watson."

Earlier Friday, Watson said in a statement that he was "mortified about what has happened."

"More importantly, I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said. I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have.

"To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief."

His publicist revealed that Watson, who arrived in London this week and had been due to take part in several events until October 25, had pulled out of the British book tour Friday and gone home. Kate Farquhar-Thomson, head of publicity in the academic division of publishers Oxford University Press, said Watson left because he "felt that he needed to go back to the States" for discussions with his laboratory.

Watson, the 79-year-old chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York state, had been due to give a series of lectures promoting his new book Avoid Boring People: Lessons From A Life In Science. But the Science Museum in London on Thursday cancelled his scheduled Friday talk, saying Watson's comments had "gone beyond the point of acceptable debate."

And the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), a leading US scientific organization, said it was "outraged" by the remarks attributed to Watson, describing them as "racist" and "vicious."

Professor Steven Rose, a neurobiologist from the Open University, told the BBC that Watson was "notorious over a long history of his life in shooting from the hip and making remarks which are racist, sexist, homophobic, profoundly offensive."

Watson reportedly whipped up a storm when he said women should have the right to abort their babies if tests could determine that their child carried homosexual genes. And the scientist considered "the grandfather of DNA" has also argued that one day it might be possible to modify the genetic code to make people more beautiful - especially women. (Independent Online)
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UPDATE: Nobel Winner Issues Apology for Comments About Blacks.