VFR oct 2007
Up to this point, the hysteria against James Watson for telling a British newspaper that blacks are on average less intelligent than whites had seemed to be exclusively a British phenomenon. But yesterday, the board of trustees of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, of which Watson since 1968 has been the director, then president, and now chancellor, suspended him from his administrative responsibilities. And they did it notwithstanding the retraction and apology he issued a couple of days ago.
This is much worse than the canceling of Watson's speech by the Science Museum in London. This is Watson's own organization, the organization he leads, suspending him from his job for expressing an opinion--a scientifically true opinion--on racial differences in IQ, and it did so with extraordinary dispatch, only a few days after he made the objectionable statement. Think of it. You're one of the most famous scientists in the world, you occupy a position of respect and authority in the scientific establishment, then you say in an interview that blacks are less intelligent than whites, and boom, you're out of your job. Off-hand, I can't think of a politically correct incident to equal it.
