In 2007, James Watson, Nobel Prize winner for the co-discovery of the structure of DNA, discussed his "gloomy" outlook for economic development in Africa:
all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really.
Today, we've learned that Watson is selling his Nobel Prize for cash.
Mr Watson said he is auctioning the Nobel Prize medal he won in 1962 for discovering the structure of DNA, because "no-one really wants to admit I exist".
Auctioneer Christie’s said the gold medal, the first Nobel Prize to be sold by a living recipient, could fetch as much as $3.5m (£2.23m) when it is auctioned in New York on Thursday. The reserve price is $2.5m.
Mr Watson told the Financial Times he had become an “unperson” after he “was outed as believing in IQ” in 2007 and said he would like to use money from the sale to buy a David Hockney painting.
Is it an act of desperation—or protest? Might Watson’s gesture really be a big, final FU to the scientific and media establishments?
It's hard to imagine a man better positioned—a man with better credentials and achievements—than Watson to challenge established opinion on the biological reality of race. If Watson isn’t credible, then who is?
Cases like this bring to the fore the hysteria surrounding the scientific study of race . . . as well as major institutions' willingness to silence dissidents.
Racial egalitarianism was once a marginal view. It became conventional wisdom and something like a modern myth. It is now a parody of itself, and its promoters are nothing less than paranoid and suffocating.
Are we set for a breakthrough?