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[Stet]

His work (even though he isn't the only one) enabled doctors to save thousands and thousands of people.
But yeah, fuck him for having a wrong opinion. Political correctness is more important than life itself for a lot of Americans after all.

On the plus side, this wrong opinion is held by someone who hasn't discovered shit!

 

[Orbis Tabula]

His work (even though he isn't the only one) enabled doctors to save thousands and thousands of people.
But yeah, fuck him for having a wrong opinion. Political correctness is more important than life itself for a lot of Americans after all.

No body is saying that we should throw out his work because he said something racist. We're not calling for his murder. We're just saying he's a bit of an ass.

 

[Air]

Sounds like he's just upset he got caught. This dude is a dick.

 

[Bedameister]

Not necessarily - the Nobel Prize can only be shared between three scientists, and the third recipient was her co-worker, Maurice Wilkins (who shared her X-ray crystallography image with Crick and Watson). Franklin was snubbed many times in her life due to sexism, and may well have been overlooked for the Nobel Prize too even had she lived.

Edit: And in fact, having just looked into this further, the rule about Nobel Prizes never being awarded posthumously was not actually implemented until 1974. Rosalind Franklin died in 1958, and Crick, Watson and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962. Franklin was never even nominated. Never mind, posthumous nominations were still not allowed - posthumous awards have occurred on a few occasions, such as Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961 and Erik Axel Karlfeldt in 1931, although in these cases their recipients died after being nominated.

Oh I didn't know that it were 3 people who got it. Thought it was only Watson and Cricket.
Nevermind then.

 

[Beelzebufo]

This is great news. Even without the whole stealing his greatest work and racism thing, apparently the guys a huge prick in real life. He has like a portrait of himself lol (well, maybe not anymore). Good to see he's fallen on hard times.

 

[wildfire]

A scientist relying on anecdotal evidence (and not even his own observations) to support his assertions.

Genius.

 

[Ol No Bones]

Guy seems like a scumbag

 

[Bedameister]

Hell they gave the president one so its not like the thing means anything.

You should actually read the thread before posting something like that.

 

[turtle553]

Kind of reminds me of when the president of Rutgers got in trouble twenty years ago:

Comments made in 1994, in which Lawrence urged that higher education should not be denied to disadvantaged students who might lack the "genetic, hereditary background" to perform well on standardized tests, were publicized in 1995.[4] The comments led to calls for his resignation, and student protests,[5] including one that brought a televised basketball game to a halt as protesters staged a sit-in on the court.[6] Lawrence repeatedly apologized for the comments which he said were a verbal slip that did not represent his views.[7]

 

[kruis]

Yep that's the thing. She probably would have gotten one if she would have been alive.

The Nobel prize went to Crick, Watson, and Wilkins because Franklin had died four years earlier and the Nobel committee doesn't give posthumous awards. Watson himself thinks ideally the prize should have gone to Crick and Wilkins.

Wikipedia:

Franklin was never nominated for a Nobel Prize.[135][136] She had died in 1958, and in 1962 the Nobel Prize was subsequently awarded to Crick, Watson, and Wilkins.[9][137][138] The award was for their body of work on nucleic acids and not exclusively for the discovery of the structure of DNA.[139] By the time of the award Wilkins had been working on the structure of DNA for more than 10 years, and had done much to confirm the Watson–Crick model.[140] Crick had been working on the genetic code at Cambridge and Watson had worked on RNA for some years.[141] Watson has suggested that ideally Wilkins and Franklin would have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.[8]

 

[Lamel]

Brilliant scientist, but definitely an asshole.

 

[genjiZERO]

Franklin wasn't robbed of anything. She's discussed in every biology classroom that goes over DNA structure, and is written about in every textbook I've ever read. Everyone knows who she is. The notion is as silly as complaining that no one remembers Wallace. Everyone freaking remembers Wallace because every teachers talks about forgetting him when talking about the history of evolution.

 

[Kill3r7]

Kind of reminds me of when the president of Rutgers got in trouble twenty years ago:

Kind of.

I thought president Lawrence's statement was generally a positive one or at least came from a positive place. Unfortunately, his delivery and word choice ("genetically, hereditary background") is what let him down. If you strike that portion of the statement out the rest of it still holds true today.

 

[bishoptl]

His work (even though he isn't the only one) enabled doctors to save thousands and thousands of people.
But yeah, fuck him for having a wrong opinion. Political correctness is more important than life itself for a lot of Americans after all.

and nothing of value was lost.

 

[Beelzebufo]

Now that everyone hates Watson, can we move on to not calling it Down's Syndrome anymore? Because that guy was like way more racist.

 

[AAAnonymous]

Maybe the painting is going to cover a hole in his house wall. So it could be practical, and improve the value of the house more than some plaster.

 

[Gully State]

The part about him not giving a talk since 2007 is wrong. I was at one of his talks at my institution a couple years back. But seriously, the man is a dick to the highest degree. It's such a strange sight to see throngs of researchers line up to hear him talk when a lot of what he spouts is shit these days anyways.

 

[zeemumu]

The Nobel Prize was invented because the guy who invented dynamite felt guilty, right?

 

[zer0das]

Not surprised. I read his book for a history of science class and after I finished I had a conversation with my teacher that went something like "I feel like the book was essentially, this problem is dauntingly unsolvable, but I solved it." And my teacher said "My impression was always he wrote the book to say "look how clever I am."

And I just nodded. He comes off as a massive narcissist without much anchoring him to reality. Doesn't even recognize how inane his statements sound.

 

[HK-47]

There are genetic differences. Take for instance health. Different races can respond differently on certain diseases. There's also the well known fact that lactose intolerance varies around the globe, western Europeans are almost all lactose tolerant, east asians are almost all lactose intolerant.



The Nobel prize for Literature is another laughable prize. The scientific Nobel prizes however are highly respected.

What is wrong with the Literature prize?

 

[Yrael]

Franklin wasn't robbed of anything. She's discussed in every biology classroom that goes over DNA structure, and is written about in every textbook I've ever read. Everyone knows who she is. The notion is as silly as complaining that no one remembers Wallace. Everyone freaking remembers Wallace because every teachers talks about forgetting him when talking about the history of evolution.

Watson and Crick's proposal in Nature didn't give credit to Franklin's crystallography, instead vaguely saying that they were "stimulated by a general knowledge" of Franklin's and Wilkins's work. The recognition she deservedly receives now was not given at the time.

(It might be said that she's since received even more recognition precisely because of the outrageousness of Watson's sexist description of her in his memoir in 1968:

"By choice she did not emphasize her feminine qualities. . . . There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English blue-stocking adolescents. So it was quite easy to imagine her the product of an unsatisfied mother who unduly stressed the desirability of professional careers that could save bright girls from marriages to dull men. . . . Clearly Rosy had to go or be put in her place. The former was obviously preferable because, given her belligerent moods, it would be very difficult for Maurice [Wilkins] to maintain a dominant position that would allow him to think unhindered about DNA. . . . The thought could not be avoided that the best home for a feminist was in another person's lab."

That's triggered quite a lot of anger, and quite rightly so!)

 

[Takuan]

Dude is flipping it for an expensive painting; he's not hurting for money at all.

Shame about his views, but the guy's studies have contributed to advances across the globe, I'm sure. He's done more for society than I ever will.

 

[Lonely1]

Watson has all the elements to profit form this. He could become the a Fox News Scientific analyst, for example.

"A brilliant scientist, shunned by the liberal academia for saying what they don't want you to hear, now on FN!".

 

[MIMIC]

Lol damn I read it as Jameis Winston.

xD

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

Franklin wasn't robbed of anything. She's discussed in every biology classroom that goes over DNA structure, and is written about in every textbook I've ever read. Everyone knows who she is. The notion is as silly as complaining that no one remembers Wallace. Everyone freaking remembers Wallace because every teachers talks about forgetting him when talking about the history of evolution.

Who's Wallace?

 

[genjiZERO]

Who's Wallace?

He hypothesised natural selection as the mode of evolution concurrently with Darwin. And I don't believe for a second you sat through a university level introductory biology course and they discussed the history of evolution, but failed to mention Wallace.

 

[dluu13]

He made such an important discovery that I can't dismiss him, no matter what he may have said. Let's not forget that he revealed the structure of DNA. It's a shame his racist views got him shunned, but we can't let that invalidate his accomplishments.

Here's an article posted onto my facebook a couple of days ago about this subject, and I think this passage is important.

Here’s our challenge: celebrate science when it is great, and scientists when they deserve it. And when they turn out to be awful bigots, let’s be honest about that too. It turns out that just like DNA, people are messy, complex and sometimes full of hideous errors.

from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/01/dna-james-watson-scientist-selling-nobel-prize-medal

As for him selling the medal, I can't imagine why somebody would buy one.

 

[Hoo-doo]

People that should know better because they should understand there isn't a genetic difference.

What you're saying is completely untrue though. There are definite genetic differences between people with different ancestries. In fact, skin color is one such an example of a genetic difference. There's thousands of other anatomical and physiological variables.

Dude is still a racist asshole though.

 

[Clydefrog]

I'm just imagining the rich person who buys the Nobel medal:

"Whoa! A Nobel prize medal! What did you do to get this??”

“I bought it *smug face*”

“…Oh”

 

[Kieli]

The Nobel Prize has been a joke for a long time so I can understand why he'd sell his

No.........................................................................................................................

The economic, literature, and peace prize maybe.

But science Nobel prizes are top, top, top tier. Highest honor you can get.

 

[Joni]

What you're saying is completely untrue though. There are definite genetic differences between people with different ancestries. In fact, skin color is one such an example of a genetic difference. There's thousands of other anatomical and physiological variables.

Dude is still a racist asshole though.

I should have added intelligence wise.
But even then, skin color is based on many different genes not matching up to 'races'.

 

[Stet]

No.........................................................................................................................

The economic, literature, and peace prize maybe.

But science Nobel prizes are top, top, top tier. Highest honor you can get.

What's wrong with the literature prize?

 

[Lemaitre]

He made such an important discovery that I can't dismiss him, no matter what he may have said. Let's not forget that he revealed the structure of DNA. It's a shame his racist views got him shunned, but we can't let that invalidate his accomplishments.

Here's an article posted onto my facebook a couple of days ago about this subject, and I think this passage is important.



As for him selling the medal, I can't imagine why somebody would buy one.

What do you mean you can't dismiss him? Can't dismiss his racist and bigoted views you mean? Not sure quite what you're saying here dluu13.

 

[Kieli]

What's wrong with the literature prize?

Those maybe aren't quite a joke. But the committee that chooses them have been criticized for being too eurocentric as well as missing quite a few prominent authors (Tolstoy immediately springs to mind).

 

[Gaz_RB]

So he's broke...so he's going to sell the prize...so he can buy a painting....

 

[Fugu]

Franklin wasn't robbed of anything. She's discussed in every biology classroom that goes over DNA structure, and is written about in every textbook I've ever read. Everyone knows who she is. The notion is as silly as complaining that no one remembers Wallace. Everyone freaking remembers Wallace because every teachers talks about forgetting him when talking about the history of evolution.

Franklin is discussed in every biology classroom and every textbook because she was so thoroughly robbed of due dignity during her lifetime that it is, frankly, the least we can do.

 

[ConfusingJazz]

He is a piece of shit.

Here is a great piece from Slate about it: http://www.slate.com/articles/healt...structure_discoverer_s_history_of_racism.html

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 ours—whereas 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.”

...

One of his earliest sins: Watson didn’t credit Rosalind Franklin, a chemist also working on DNA at the time, for her crucial research on X-ray diffraction images, without which he and Francis Crick would not have been the first to discover the double helix structure. (Linus Pauling and others were right behind them and would have figured it out.) In Watson’s The Double Helix memoir, he calls Franklin “Rosy” (not a nickname she used), critiques her clothing and makeup, and characterizes her incorrectly as another scientist’s assistant.

...

Watson had a major insight 61 years ago about the physical structure of DNA. He is one of the founders of a very important but very specific subset of modern biology, and he devoted most of the rest of his career to the study of cancer biology. But he knows fuck all about history, human evolution, anthropology, sociology, psychology, or any rigorous study of intelligence or race.

The guy held back science by actively excluding blacks and women.

 

[Mesousa]

"I suspect that in the beginning Maurice hoped that Rosy would calm down. Yet mere inspection suggested that she would not easily bend. By choice she did not emphasize her feminine qualities. Though her features were strong, she was not unattractive and might have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in clothes. This she did not. There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English blue-stocking adolescents. So it was quite easy to imagine her the product of an unsatisfied mother who unduly stressed the desirability of professional careers that could save bright girls from marriages to dull men."

Racist AND Sexist.

 

[dluu13]

What do you mean you can't dismiss him? Can't dismiss his racist and bigoted views you mean? Not sure quite what you're saying here dluu13.

I should have made it a bit clearer. I suppose there's a lot of hyperbole, but there's some "fuck this guy" attitude. I don't condone his racism, but I wouldn't be so quick to just bury him and forget about him.

Basically, despite his views, "James Watson" is probably a name I'll remember for the rest of my life.

 

[Syph Medwes]

I'll be that guy and say the "Nobel Prize in Economics" isn't actually a real Nobel.

And I'll be that guy and call you out on your bullshit

 

[Sheytan]

And I'll be that guy and call you out on your bullshit

It's really not a official Nobel Prize, it was founded by the Swedish central bank

Relation to the Nobel Prizes
The Prize in Economics is not one of the original Nobel Prizes created by the will of Alfred Nobel.However, the nomination process, selection criteria, and awards presentation of the Prize in Economic Sciences are performed in a manner similar to that of the Nobel Prizes. The Prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences "in accordance with the rules governing the award of the Nobel Prizes instituted through his [Alfred Nobel's] will",which stipulates that the prize be awarded annually to "those who ... shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind"

 

[Pathos]

The Nobel Prize was invented because the guy who invented dynamite felt guilty, right?

Yeah he didn't want to be remembered as the guy who invented dynamite (as it killed people)

 

[Nabbis]

I have some doubt that a person with a scientific Nobel Prize is pulling things out of his ass. But IQ tests are highly flawed when trying to derive any contextual information and they are not testing intelligence itself in adequate manner. The only thing you can say about Africans is that they have done a pretty shitty job in general, there is little hard science on the "why" but i do suspect cultural beliefs, lack of education and continued fuckery by foreign interests.

 

[Valhelm]

Franklin wasn't robbed of anything. She's discussed in every biology classroom that goes over DNA structure, and is written about in every textbook I've ever read. Everyone knows who she is. The notion is as silly as complaining that no one remembers Wallace. Everyone freaking remembers Wallace because every teachers talks about forgetting him when talking about the history of evolution.

That's not true at all. You hear "Watson and Crick" ten times for every single mention of Rosalind Franklin.

 

[xbhaskarx]

My mom has met with Watson a few times (she also met Norman Borlaug in Africa)... she said he had a giant poster of Anna Kournikova hanging in his office.

 

[soul creator]

So he's admitting he's a racist, just a non conventional one?

So my question is, what the hell is a non conventional racist?

Racism directed by SWERY

 

[Nabbis]

So yeah, Africa is fucked, but they didn't do it to themselves.

In general, i do agree. But there is lot's of cultural practices that are a significant obstacle for progress towards western ideals. Though it being a bad thing depends if they wish to shape their societies in such a fashion.

 

[kruis]

What's wrong with the literature prize?

It's a total crap shoot who gets a prize. The latest winner was a French writer even many French hadn't heard of. On a literary forum I frequent the few French speakers hardly knew him.

Why You Haven’t Heard of Patrick Modiano, Winner of the Nobel in Literature

Megan Gibson @MeganJGibson

Oct. 9, 2014
A French novelist just won the most prestigious literary prize in the world, but many English-speaking book lovers haven't read him

( ... )

So why does it seem that so few in the English-speaking world have actually read his work? Though the Swedish Academy has always seemed to swing between wildly popular writers (William Golding, Gabriel García Márquez and Toni Morrison) and those who are more niche (Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson), this year’s choice seemed to have confused even the most well-read. Soon after Modiano’s name was announced, much of the literary world — including critics — took to social media in order to ask, essentially, “Who?”

The puzzlement could have to do with the fact that despite Modiano’s prolific output — with more than 30 books and screenplays to his name — less than a dozen of his works have been translated into English, and even several of those are now out of print. Even Englund noted that many people outside of France would likely be unfamiliar with Modiano and his work. “He is well-known in France, but not anywhere else,” he said in an interview on Thursday, before recommending that newcomers should start with the English-translated novel Missing Person.

This is not the first time that the Swedish Academy has left scores of readers in the English-speaking world puzzling over the winner or, perhaps, even privately worrying about their own literary credentials. In 2009, when the Romanian-born German novelist and essayist Herta Müller was awarded the prize, many people were unfamiliar with both her work and her name. Literary critic and Yale professor Harold Bloom told the Washington Post, “[I have] nothing to talk about because I have never heard of this writer” when he was asked to comment on Müller’s win. And, like Modiano, only a fraction of her work had been translated into English, though the New York Times also noted at the time, that “[e]ven in Germany, Ms. Müller is not well known.”

The scene was something of an echo of 2004, when Austrian novelist and playwright Elfriede Jelinek was named the Nobel winner in recognition for her “musical flow of voices and countervoices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society’s clichés and their subjugating power.” Yet many state-side announcements of her win made sure to note her low-profile outside the German-speaking world.

(...)

Modiano, who? French minister unable to name book by Nobel winner

When the French novelist Patrick Modiano won the Nobel prize for literature this month, the international reaction could be summed up in two words: who he?

France’s ambitious new culture minister, Fleur Pellerin, apparently shares that view. Despite telling a television interviewer that she had enjoyed a “wonderful” lunch with the author, she was unable to name any of his books.

Since making the embarrassing admission on Sunday, Pellerin, 41, has been pilloried on social media.

Pellerin told the Canal+ presenter, who had asked her to identify her favourite Modiano book: “I’ve no problem in confessing that I’ve not had any time to read for the past two years. I read a lot of notes, a lot of legislative texts, news, AFP stories, but I read very little.”

She visibly squirmed, however, when it was pointed out to her that it was “important to read” in her job.

 

[curlyfriski]

I have some doubt that a person with a scientific Nobel Prize is pulling things out of his ass. But IQ tests are highly flawed when trying to derive any contextual information and they are not testing intelligence itself in adequate manner. The only thing you can say about Africans is that they have done a pretty shitty job in general, there is little hard science on the "why" but i do suspect cultural beliefs, lack of education and continued fuckery by foreign interests.

He also thinks sunlight and dark skin cause a higher libido, which is why Latins are known as lovers. The guy just has some old timey racist views. Being a brilliant scientist doesn't keep you from being a moron on other issues.

 

[FairyD]

and said he would like to use money from the sale to buy a David Hockney painting.

Yeah he's not hard up for money.