Commentary from By Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.
msnbc.com contributor http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22248094/
updated 8:36 a.m. ET, Fri., Dec. 14, 2007
"An Iceland-based genomics company, deCODE genetics, <BR>conducted an analysis of Watson's DNA, which Watson had<BR> allowed to be placed on the Internet, and found <BR>that 16 percent of his genes are likely to have come <BR>from a black ancestor.....<BR>
Indeed, the racial outing of Watson was quite a surprise —<BR> most likely to the 79-year-old Nobel-prize winner. <BR>This past October he was forced to cancel a tour <BR>promoting his new book in England after opining in a <BR>British newspaper that he felt “inherently gloomy about<BR> the prospects for Africa” because “all our social<BR> policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is <BR>the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really.” <BR> Jim’s fretting left him without a job at home — he retired from his job as <BR>chancellor at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New<BR> York — and no longer especially welcome on the<BR> speaking circuit anywhere serious. Finding out one has <BR>black genes seems especially inconvenient for somebody<BR> proclaiming blacks to be genetically inferior."<BR>