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Academic uproar
Nobel laureate stripped of honours
after ‘reprehensible’ statements.
I
n 2007 James Watson, the Nobel Prize
winner who co-discovered the structure
of DNA, said that people of African
descent were intellectually inferior. In an
interview with The Sunday Times Magazine,
he voiced that he was “inherently gloomy
about the prospect of Africa” as “all our
social policies are based on the fact that
their intelligence is the same as ours,
whereas all the testing says not really”.
Due to the resultant uproar, his academic
tenure at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
(CSHL) was suspended. Following an
apology, he was reinstated – this time,
as chancellor emeritus, Oliver R Grace
professor emeritus, and honorary trustee of
the New York-based private research facility.
Twelve years later, the now 90-year-
old is once again infamous. In a PBS
documentary aired in the US this month, he
doubled down on his original view. “There’s
a difference on the average between blacks
and whites on IQ tests. I would say the
difference is ... genetic,” he said.
This position has been widely discredited
by a majority of the global scientific
community for decades on the basis that
it lacks evidence, and that at present, it is
impossible to extricate genetic variances in
intelligence (defined as IQ) from people’s
different environmental influences. For
example, in 1994, in response to The Bell
Curve, a controversial book that made
the discussion and promotion of scientific
developments. Now, according to many
Indian scientists, it is a farce.
Image: Hindustan Times
Congress ‘disgrace’
Scientists outraged by outlandish
remarks made at annual meeting.
Y
ou would be forgiven for thinking
you misheard certain comments at
the latest Indian Science Congress.
Among them: Einstein’s theory of relativity
was “a big blunder”; gods created dinosaurs;
and gravitational waves should be renamed
‘Narendra Modi waves’.
Opened by Indian prime minister
Narendra Modi, the congress, now in its
106th year, is supposed to be a forum for
2
Please do rename this mega science
event as the ‘Indian Superstition
Congress’. Since over the past few
years the congress has become a
stage to glorify superstitions and
myths, why don’t they rename the
event as well...
— Remi Raji (@remirehi)
This #IndianScienceCongress is
a disgrace to the Indian research
community. It makes us look very bad
in front of the world. The world over
scientists want to move ahead and
develop new technology. In India we
are obsessed with old religious story
books. Shameful.
— Nikhil S. Bardeskar (@NSBardeskar)
Many say the comments reflect India’s
‘saffronisation’ – its swing towards Hindu
religion – and that they are influenced
by the event’s political ties. It is the
only national scientific conference that
Modi attends.
such a claim, the American Psychological
Association stated that “at present, this
question has no scientific answer”.
Last year Kevin Mitchell, an associate
professor of genetics and neuroscience
at Trinity College Dublin, refuted The Bell
Curve‘s premise: “There are unlikely to be
stable and systematic genetic differences
that make one population more intelligent
than the next.”
In response to Watson’s comments in
the film, CSHL revoked his honorary titles
and cut all ties with him.
“Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
unequivocally rejects the unsubstantiated
and reckless personal opinions that
Dr James Watson expressed on the
subject of ethnicity and genetics during
the PBS documentary American Masters:
Decoding Watson,” the president
and chair of the board explained in a
statement.
“Dr Watson’s statements are
reprehensible, unsupported by science, and
in no way represent the views of CSHL, its
trustees, faculty, staff or students.
“The Laboratory condemns the misuse of
science to justify prejudice.” ■
It is okay to be angry and
embarrassed about the buffoonish
claims that have been made at the
#IndianScienceCongress, but this is
really not the first time.
We have heard about controversial
claims being made at every science
congress ever since the Hindutva
[Hindu nationalism] forces came
to power.
— Manimugdha Sharma
(@quizzicalguy)
Modi’s principal scientific adviser
savaged the dubious claims made at
the congress. Referring to the talks in
general, he said, “A few are superb, some
good, many unremarkable, and ... one
or two outright preposterous. The last
part gets disproportionate national and
global attention.”
The Indian Science Congress Association
similarly criticised the outlandish
comments. General secretary Premendu
Mathur, a biochemistry and molecular
biology professor and the vice-chancellor
of the Kalinga Institute of Industrial
Technology, assured critics that congress
speakers would be vetted in future. ■