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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJames Watson rakes in nearly $4.8 million in auction of his Nobel prize
However broke "the father of DNA" actually was before this week, he's now almost $5 million less broke than that.
James Watson, known for his contributions to the discovery of DNA's double-helix shape, announced his intention to sell his Nobel prize earlier this week. He told the media he was selling his prestigious award -- even though no recipient has ever done so (though several have been sold posthumously) -- because he'd been shunned from most academic circles, and lost income as a result.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/12/05/james-watson-rakes-in-nearly-4-8-million-in-auction-of-his-nobel-prize/
And this is a terrific article about why he's such a repugnant figure despite his magnificent achievement:
Jim Watson is one of the most important scientists of the 20th century. He is also a peevish bigot. History will remember him for his co-discovery of the structure of DNA, in 1953. This week, Watson is ensuring that history, or at least the introduction to every obituary, will also remember him for being a jerk.
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This is not about the Hockney. Selling the medal is Watsons way of sticking his tongue out at the scientific establishment, which has largely shunned him since 2007. Watson had been making racist and sexist remarks throughout his career, but he really outdid himself seven years ago when he told the Sunday Times that 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 ourswhereas all the testing says not really. He further said that while we may wish intelligence to be equal across races, people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.
Finally, for once in his life, Watson didnt get away with making ignorant, prejudiced statements. The board of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which he had led for almost 40 years, fired him (although hes still chancellor emeritus). The president of the Federation of American Scientists said, He has failed us in the worst possible way. It is a sad and revolting way to end a remarkable career. The director of the National Institutes of Health, where Watson ran the Human Genome Project for many years, released a statement saying Watsons comments are wrong, from every point of viewnot the least of which is that they are completely inconsistent with the body of research literature in this area.
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Watson was also famously insulting and arrogant as a professor at Harvard, even for a professor at Harvard. Fellow faculty member E.O. Wilson described Watson in the 1950s and 60s as the Caligula of biology for his contempt of scientists who studied anything other than molecules. Wilson wrote that, unfortunately, due to Watsons stroke of genius at age 25, He was given license to say anything that came to his mind and expect to be taken seriously.
In 2000, Watson told an audience at Berkeley that there was a link between sunlight exposure and libido, and therefore Thats why you have Latin lovers. In the same speech, reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, he said that thin people are ambitious. Whenever you interview fat people, Watson said, you feel bad, because you know youre not going to hire them.
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http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/12/james_watson_selling_nobel_prize_dna_structure_discoverer_s_history_of_racism.html
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)"Lost income?" He could have shilled for the RW think tanks, kept his "intellectual freedoms", and gotten paid more than he'd earned anywhere else...
hunter
(38,264 posts)Personally, I wouldn't be so kind.
cali
(114,904 posts)but there is no doubt that his was a remarkable career.