Thursday Open Thread | 42 comments (42 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

More on James Watson, (4.00 / 4)

...the Nobel prize winner, who has now left the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in disgrace, after racist remarks he made during a visit to the UK were published in The Times. This comes from a reader of TalkingPointsMemo:

I went to a talk of his at Berkeley while I was a molecular biology grad student there, and he spoke for an hour in a public setting making completely fabricated scientific claims as to links between skin color, obesity, happiness and sex drive. With some misogyny thrown in (...). The whole thing was written up by the SF Chronicle at the time.

You're clearly a dangerous pinko commie pragmatist.

by Vagulus on Thu Oct 25th, 2007 at 08:00:39 PM EST

Re: More on James Watson, (none / 1)

Witnesses were flabbergasted when the 72-year-old discoverer of the double helix suggested there was a biochemical link between exposure to sunlight and sexual urges. ``That's why you have Latin lovers,'' Watson said. ``You've never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient.''
[...]
Then he launched into this whole thing about the sun and sexual drive,'' added Berkeley graduate student Jill Fuss. She said Watson showed slides of women in bikinis and contrasted them to veiled Muslim women, to suggest that controlling exposure to sun may suppress sexual desire and vice versa

The SF Chronicle piece is a riot. I am embarrassed to say I hadn't laughed this hard in quite some time.

by Fete des fous on Thu Oct 25th, 2007 at 08:32:41 PM EST
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Thursday Open Thread | 42 comments (42 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)