Oh, no! Yet another world-class scientist has entered his "Great Mind" phase. It's what happens to these guys after a lifetime of being told they're a genius...they decide that its unfair to the world to limit their genius to one field, that we must also benefit from their half-baked bullshit ideas about social/political/philosophical issues.

They say (by "they" I guess I mean "I") that the problem with Noam Chomsky is that he entered his Great Mind phase at the age of 30. Anyway, once it starts, it won't stop.

On the other hand, it's a bit rich of us to get all bitchy about his assertion that Ashkenazi Jews have a high mean intelligence. Jews have been congratulating themselves on this for ages. And there's been all sorts of media coverage of this, including a most e-mailed story in the NY Times and one article in our very own magazine. If we're happy to talk about it, then we might as well retire the whole indignation shtick when non-Jews discuss it, as well.

And I don't know what Watson means here by "antisemitism," but if he thinks it just means criticism of Jews (and he appears to, based on his Irish comparison), or Jewish culture, then of course he's right that he's entitled to make an "antisemitic" remark.

What about Rosalind Franklin, the chemist upon whose work Watson and Crick based their discovery and who never received proper credit for that? She was Jewish, by the way -- according to the Wikipedia entry, her great-uncle was Herbert Samuel, the first High Commissioner of the British Mandate here.

The NPR piece about Franklin, "Dark Lady of DNA," is here, and her entry in Wikipedia is here.

I'm the author of the above comment about Rosalind Franklin.

Rahel

Join the Jewcy community. Ban the Anonymous scarlet letter of your comments! Fraternity! Sorority! Solidarity!

Of course he proved that life could not arise spontaneously on Earth so therefore the space aliens seeded Earth. Where did the aliens come from? Oh since they were not on Earth and he is talking about the origins of life on Earth, he does not have to deal with it. However, that lets him claim that he "proved" that G-d does not exist. How does this connect with antisemitism?

Well if G-d does not exist then we have been lying all these millennia. That's right, blame it all on the Jooooos !!!!

If Ashkenazi jews are so intelligent, why is the State of Israel not the leading society of humanity?

what does 'leading society of humanity' actually mean?  sounds like Borat is frequenting Jewcy!

It was her work that actually made the work of Watson and Crick possible.  She also died very young of Cancer. There was a recent PBS special about her life.  Thank you Rahel for your post.  Its ironic that Mr. Watson would make these foolish anti-semitic comments, considering that he owes his life's work to a Jewish woman.

Looks like the old coot got himself in enough trouble that they forced him to quit his post as chief at Brookhaven labs.  He will join William Shockley as another great scientist whose racism tarnished their brilliant scientific careers.

Anyway, good riddance bozo.