NEW YORK
Dr. James D. Watson, famous for DNA research but widely condemned for recent comments about intelligence levels among Africans, retired Thursday from his post at a prestigious research institution.
Watson, 79, and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York announced his departure a week after the lab suspended him. He was chancellor of the institution, and his retirement took effect immediately.
Watson shared a Nobel Prize with Drs. Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins in 1962 for co-discovering the structure of the DNA molecule. He is one of America’s most prominent scientists.
In his statement Thursday, Watson said that because of his age, his retirement was “more than overdue. The circumstances in which this transfer is occurring, however, are not those which I could ever have anticipated or desired.”
Watson, who has a long history of making provocative statements, ran into trouble last week for remarks he made in the Sunday Times magazine of London. A profile quoted him as saying that he’s “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.”
He said that while he hopes everyone is equal, “people who have to deal with Black employees find this is not true.” He also said people should not be discriminated against on the basis of color, because “there are many people of color who are very talented.”
