Simon’s Blog

The James Watson story has moved on since I wrote about it a few days ago (see Is James Watson Senile, Or Just Stupid?). Watson’s employer, Cold Spring Harbor, in New York has suspended him from his position as Chancellor with immediate effect, pending investigations into his behaviour. This is the right thing to do. Watson has also been forced to leave the UK, because, in general, the British people have little time to listen to bigotted views being expressed. I am shocked, however, to see two highly distinguished British scientists - Colin Blakemore and Richard Dawkins - failing to condemn the views allegedly expressed by Watson. I’ll have more to say about these two later in this blog entry.

In the days after I wrote the original blog, I have read and heard several stories (including new information in the comments on this blog) about Watson, that lend credence to the idea that the most recent alleged comments are entirely in keeping with his previous alleged modus operandi. Watson is now claiming that he “can’t remember” making the remarks about black people. Given his track record, it seems possible that Watson is simply lying in an attempt to try to salvage his reputation and his job. It’s also possible, of course, that his views have been misrepresented. As of now, though, the balance of probability seems to be that James Watson believes that:

• Black people are intrinsically less intelligent than white people, and that black people should be handled with care and not given too much responsibility
• Hitler had the right idea in trying to create a master-race through acts of killing six million Jews and sterilising Jewish women to prevent further growth of the Jewish population (the right concept that is, not necessarily the right methods)
• A genetic test for homosexuality on unborn babies would be a benefit to mankind because pregnancies could, and should, be terminated in the case of the baby being homosexual
• Technologies should be developed so that females could be specially bred that would be especially sexually attractive to Watson

There seems to be a rather obvious pattern in these views, and a rather obvious agenda that lies behind them. No intelligent person should have time for views like this in 2007 - they have little-to-nothing of value to contribute to society. I hope and expect that the Board of Trustees of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory will investigate fully, and should these reports prove to be accurate (at the moment, they’re merely allegations, and there’s every possibility that they don’t accurately reflect his views), remove him permanently from his position. Of course, he shouldn’t be fired if he doesn’t hold these kind of views. Cold Spring Harbour needs to be squeaky clean on this one, given its history in eugenics.

Now, to return to Colin Blakemore and Richard Dawkins. Colin Blakemore is a professor of neuroscience at the University of Oxford, and formerly Chief Executive of the UK Medical Research Council (MRC). Richard Dawkins holds a prestigious named professorship, also at the University of Oxford. In the Independent newspaper, Blakemore is quoted as saying,

Jim Watson is well known for being provocative and politically incorrect. But it would be a sad world if such a distinguished scientist was silenced because of his more unpalatable views.

Why would it be sad? It might very well be the right thing to do; and it’s no great loss - Watson would clearly be a fool if he held the views attributed to him.

Richard Dawkins’s comments are even worse (unsurprisingly, some might say). At least Blakemore appears to be able to see that Watson’s views are unpleasant, even if most will find his understanding of the scale of the unpleasantness more than a little wanting. Dawkins’s judgement, though, appears so out of whack, that he thinks that it’s those that are taking an anti-Watson stance that are in the wrong here. He is quoted in the same Independent article as saying,

What is ethically wrong is 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

Oh really? It can be described only as an illiberal and intolerant thought police, can it? Hmm… the word “bollocks” comes to mind. Dawkins is on occasion amusing, but someone really should call this guy out - his arguments on this topic aren’t self-consistent, so they’ve a way to go before many will categorize them as intelligent. Mind you, perhaps it’s not a surprise - this is a man that thinks being an intellectual is compatible with selling asinine T-shirts on his web-site (yep, that’s what Dawkins does). He’s a professor at Oxford for God’s sake (reference intended) - what on earth does he think he’s doing? As my old Professor at Cambridge once said to a colleague that didn’t impress him too much - some of us prefer to spend our time pursuing intellectually demanding research…

So, it’s been good news and bad news. On the one hand, the Cold Spring Harbor Board of Trustees has demonstrated some good judgement in their handling of Watson. That is, they take the allegations seriously, and are investigating to find out whether or not they are accurate. On the other, the University of Oxford’s and the MRC’s reputation have now been damaged by two senior figures that seemingly blindly believe Watson is one of the “good guys”, and appear to ignore the allegations made against him. Now, of course, it’s possible that both Blakemore and Dawkins know Watson well, and know that he doesn’t hold these views; that is, they know that Watson has been misrepresented. However, that’s not what they say. They both appear to take the view that we should spend time debating these views, even when there is not a single shred of scientific evidence to suggest they might be valid.

This isn’t a matter of stifling serious scientific debate, even of topics that are massively politically charged. It is a matter of not wasting time on people with transparent agendas that have been been formed from ideas that are so overly simplistic as to have a close-to-zero chance of furthering scientific understanding. What next? Debating whether Princess Diana has been abducted by aliens? I mean, it’s possible… but the probability is vanishingly small… just as, for example, the probability that the economic, political and social problems faced by Africa are related to genetics is vanishingly small… or the probability that ridding the world of homosexuals would be a net benefit to society is vanishingly small… So why senior Oxford professors would think this kind of idiocy is worthy of debate mystifies me. And by the way, even if there was serious, modern, scientific evidence informing these kind of ideas (which there isn’t), why senior Oxford professors believe that it’s only the scientific aspect of the debate that matters is another mystery; that isn’t the way to successfully lead a debate on such a sensitive topic and win over public opinion.

Speaking as someone whose career has been helped by both of these great and historic institutions (I have held a personal MRC fellowship at the University of Oxford) , I must confess to being particularly disappointed that both the University of Oxford and the MRC are having their good reputations tarnished by two senior figures failing to condemn the comments allegedly made by Watson when given the opportunity. Pretty amazing, given that James Watson himself now says that there is no scientific evidence to support the comments he allegedly made.