The hounding of Dr James Watson is as much about warning other scientists not to research racial differences as it is about punishing the Nobel Prize winner for his remarks.
by Martin Wingfield
So Dr James Watson, the veteran Nobel scientist who helped to unravel the structure of DNA in 1953 has been forced to cancel his booked tour in Britain and return home to the United States. His research institute has suspended him from administrative duties as Chancellor pending further investigations into his comments suggesting that Africans were less intelligent than white people.
Yesterday Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, who lays claim to an ‘O’-Level in science, attacked Dr Watson, saying that the comments were racist propaganda masquerading as scientific fact. “Such discredited racist theories seek to establish a genetically based racial hierarchy of the human race and have been condemned by leading scientists throughout the world,” Mr Livingstone said.
“Such views are not welcome in a city like London, a diverse city whose very success demonstrates the racist and nonsensical nature of Dr Watson’s comments,” he said.Now many people might take issue with Ken on that and claim that London today actually goes to prove the reverse. But I was pleased to see some support for the beleaguered academic.
Professor Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research Council and a professor of neuroscience at Oxford University said: “It would be a sad world if such a distinguished scientist was silenced because of his more unpalatable views.”
Professor Richard Dawkins, who was due to conduct a public interview with Dr Watson next week in Oxford, condemned what he called ” . . the hounding, by what can only be described as an illiberal and intolerant ‘thought police’, of one of the most distinguished scientists of our time, out of the Science Museum, and maybe even out of the laboratory, despite him having devoted much of his life to building up a world-class reputation.”
The ‘illiberal and intolerant hounding’ of Dr James Watson is as much about warning other scientists not to research racial differences as it is about punishing the Nobel Prize winner for his remarks. In the world of the likes of Ken Livingstone everyone must believe that all races are the same and that black people are as intelligent as white people and that white people can run as fast as black people. Once those living in a multi-racial society start thinking otherwise, that society will start to fragment.
http://martinwingfield.blogspot.com/2007/10/white-men-are-just-as-fast-cameron.html