Nobel Laureate James Watson is an out-and-out eugenicist who has urged that genetic engineering be used, for example, to rid the world of stupid people, and said that "some anti-Semitism is justified." None of his eugenicist comments put him in bad odor with the science crowd, but now he has stepped in it by making what sure appears to be racist comments. From the story:

DNA pioneer Dr Watson, who discovered the double helix with Briton Francis Crick, has been roundly condemned for saying he was "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"... Dr Watson has courted controversy before, saying darker-skinned people have a higher sex drive and that women should hypothetically have the right to abort fetuses that "may have a tendency to become homosexual."

The man may have been a brilliant scientist in his day, but as I have written previously, that is no reason to give Watson's moral philosophizing any respect. Indeed, the time has come to acknowledge that whatever he once was, Watson has devolved into a mere crank.