Although his death received relatively little fanfare, scientist James Watson passed away earlier this month at age 97. Along with Francis Crick, Watson cracked the mystery of DNA, developing the famous double-helix model to explain its structure. Besides earning him a Nobel Prize in 1962 and making his a household name, this discovery was a massive breakthrough in biology and the other life sciences. He also wrote a bestselling book, Double Helix, which tells the story behind his discovery and has since been reprinted and expanded.
And yet, few people might remember what happened to James Watson after his great discovery, let alone even realize that he just died. This is because he was canceled in 2007 after expressing a politically incorrect opinion about Africans: “All our social policies are based on the fact that their [Africans’] intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really.” He immediately apologized for the remark, but was forced to resign his position and depart from the scientific arena forever.
As if this cancellation and exile were not enough, leftist academics have revised Watson’s history to completely negate his scientific achievement. Not content to call him an irredeemable racist, they wanted to tarnish him as an awful sexist who stole his ideas from a brilliant female scientist named Rosalind Franklin.
In their telling, Watson was dismissive of Franklin’s brilliance, used her data without permission, and just happened to beat her to the punch in figuring out the shape of DNA. Although Watson himself credited Franklin’s contribution to his discovery with Crick, he was also a sexist pig who called her “Rosie” and found her attractive.
Besides the fact that Franklin died in 1958 and never accused Watson and Crick of stealing her ideas or making her feel unwelcome, this narrative of stolen scientific valor is revisionist hogwash. As scientist Gavan Tredoux meticulously lays out, Franklin was a talented technician whose photograph of DNA helped Watson and Crick make their discovery. Although her personal notes show her working on the same questions about DNA, she never found the answer and moved on to a different project. It’s pure feminist projection to credit her with the double-helix theory, but the claim has now been repeated hundreds of times in every major publication.
In itself, the rough treatment of James Watson for being a white male who made a few gauche comments is reprehensible. He was a great scientist whose work has contributed to humanity in incalculable ways. He should be commemorated, and his death should prompt a renewed appreciation of his work. Moreover, his cancellation should be held up as a great injustice that should never be repeated.
However, it’s clear that Watson was only one among many scientists who have been discredited or blackballed in the interest of combating wrongthink and furthering DEI initiatives. In the past the hard sciences seemed well beyond the reach of trigger-happy ideologues, as opposed to the social sciences and humanities, which were already destroyed by such types. Sadly, this is no longer true.
In addition to sidelining scientists who fail to hold the party line on race and sex, hiring practices for important scientific positions and funding for scientific experiments are predicated on satisfying leftist priorities. This means it is much easier for women and people of color to be funded and/or hired than white males, and also that experiments challenging leftist assumptions about race, sex, or climate change will never receive a penny.
Unsurprisingly, this approach to science has wreaked havoc in the hard sciences and resulted in a decrease in discoveries and innovation in the United States. As the Scientific American reported last year, China “currently files more patents than the U.S. and hosts more than a quarter of the world’s clinical trials.” Although the scientists quoted in this essay discuss the decline in funding or the privatization of certain research, no one dares mention the elephant in the room: the systemic substitution of DEI concerns for actual merit.
This problem was on full display in a 60 Minutes segment last week that featured a Harvard scientist, Joan Brugge. Brugge claimed that cuts in federal funding have effectively halted her research, which she claimed had the potential to save millions of lives. Others have argued that this analysis of the effect of her findings is “a dramatic overstatement.” She has seemingly been doing this work for nearly five decades with little to show for her efforts.
The contrast with James Watson could not be any starker. On one side, an iconic scientist is forced to resign and turned into a pariah for being a white male who said mean things about Africans. On the other side, a mediocre scientist is propped up by America’s top university and funded for half a century despite apparently producing nothing.
Noticing this doesn’t mean that no good female scientists exist or that research on breast cancer doesn’t deserve funding. Nor does it mean that great scientists have carte blanche to openly slander other races or belittle the opposite sex. Rather, the treatment of Watson and the funding of Brugge should serve as a wake-up call for those who care about the sciences.
Far from pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and supporting dedicated professionals in their intellectual pursuits, today’s scientific institutions mainly serve to uphold the principles of DEI and give jobs to over-credentialed midwits. This precipitates widespread decline not only in all the sciences, but also in Western civilization as a whole.
Societies rise and fall based on how they treat their geniuses. When they patronize them, train them, and tolerate their eccentricities, they soar. When they marginalize them in the name of ideology and ignore their value, they fall.
