“Father of DNA” Watson Passes Away, Had Multiple Controversies Over Discriminatory Remarks

The "father of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)", James Watson, passed away on the 6th of this month at the age of 97. This Nobel laureate's reputation was tarnished due to multiple statements involving racial discrimination.

This outstanding American biologist, along with Francis Crick, discovered the double helix structure of DNA in 1953. The two, together with Maurice Wilkins, were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962 in recognition of their groundbreaking achievements in the field of modern biology.

In 1953, the then 25-year-old Watson and 37-year-old Crick published a thesis of just over 1,000 words in Nature magazine. That single page report unraveled the secret of human genetics—the double helix structure of DNA—which, together with relativity and quantum mechanics, has been hailed as one of the three most important scientific discoveries of the 20th century.

Watson spent most of his career working at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory stated that Watson died at a hospice center in Long Island, New York.

In January 2019, in a PBS documentary about Watson, Watson told the interviewer that the main reason for differences in IQ test performance between white and black people was genetic factors. This statement, laden with racist and discriminatory undertones, instantly made him a target of widespread criticism.

In the same year, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory revoked all of Watson's honorary titles due to his "reprehensible" statements.

In 1997, in an interview with the UK's Sunday Telegraph, Watson said that if it were possible to discover the gene that determines sexual orientation, then if a woman decided she did not want a homosexual child, she should be allowed to have an abortion.