{"id":1853,"date":"2007-10-17T16:00:54","date_gmt":"2007-10-17T16:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2007\/10\/17\/james-watson-and-uncle-al\/"},"modified":"2007-10-17T16:00:54","modified_gmt":"2007-10-17T16:00:54","slug":"james-watson-and-uncle-al","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2007\/10\/17\/james-watson-and-uncle-al\/","title":{"rendered":"James Watson and “Uncle Al”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Separated at birth<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\n

James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America’s leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.<\/p>\n

The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when “testing” suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Come to think of it, has anyone seen James Watson and “Uncle Al” in the same place at the same time?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Really, there’s not much to say about this whole sorry business. Watson’s comments are deplorable, and part of a long pattern of saying asinine things about race, gender, and genetics. He’s more proof, as if any were needed, that dynamite money doesn’t make you a good person.<\/p>\n

I just couldn’t help noting the similarity between Watson and everybody’s favorite comment troll. Though, to be fair to “Uncle Al,” he generally has the decency to put a little “crypto-” with the “racist,” which Watson didn’t bother to do.<\/p>\n

(Whether “Uncle Al” is doing that intentionally or not is open to debate…)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Separated at birth? James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America’s leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London. The 79-year-old… Continue reading James Watson and “Uncle Al”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}