Dr D's column: Nobel-winner drowned in gene pool controversy
The DNA scientist James Watson was stripped of the honour after racial remarks.
By ET Bureau | Updated:
Agencies
Dear Dr D,
I won a Nobel for my discovery of DNA and this opened up the field of genetics. I am now 90 and vastly more experienced in the matters of how biology affects human behaviour.
On the basis of my experience and observations (Aristotle did see the merits of inductive reasoning) I came to the following conclusions and offered them to the world: - “There are links between a person’s weight and their level of ambition and between skin colour and sexual prowess. That’s why you have Latin lovers.”
- “Stupidity is a genetic disease and should be treated.”
- “Sunlight enhances sex drive and that’s why bald men have better sex.”
- “While I hope everyone is equal, people who deal with black employees know that this is not true.”
Recently, several top executives in global companies have had to face the music for being racially offensive.
Here are some who had to pay for their words or actions with their jobs.
(Text: Rashmi Menon)
- “I am 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.”
I said this, and more, and now I am ostracised and stripped of my honours. But why? My reasoning fails me: can you tell me, Dr D?
J Watson, Oxbridge
Dear Watson,
It’s elementary.
(The author is one of the leading doctors in the country. He values his privacy, but not of his clients.)
STATUTORY WARNING: This humour column is not for the weak-kneed or the thin-skinned.
I won a Nobel for my discovery of DNA and this opened up the field of genetics. I am now 90 and vastly more experienced in the matters of how biology affects human behaviour.
On the basis of my experience and observations (Aristotle did see the merits of inductive reasoning) I came to the following conclusions and offered them to the world: - “There are links between a person’s weight and their level of ambition and between skin colour and sexual prowess. That’s why you have Latin lovers.”
- “Stupidity is a genetic disease and should be treated.”
- “Sunlight enhances sex drive and that’s why bald men have better sex.”
- “While I hope everyone is equal, people who deal with black employees know that this is not true.”
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Here are some who had to pay for their words or actions with their jobs.
(Text: Rashmi Menon)
- “I am 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.”
I said this, and more, and now I am ostracised and stripped of my honours. But why? My reasoning fails me: can you tell me, Dr D?
J Watson, Oxbridge
Dear Watson,
It’s elementary.
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(The author is one of the leading doctors in the country. He values his privacy, but not of his clients.)
STATUTORY WARNING: This humour column is not for the weak-kneed or the thin-skinned.
This year’s Nobel in Literature was cancelled after Jean-Claude Arnault, a French photographer and the husband of a member of the Swedish Academy, was convicted of rape.
A look at other times a scandal rocked the coveted award.
(In Pic: Jean-Claude Arnault on the left, and the seal of the Nobel Prize on the right.)
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