James Watson's Nobel Prize Goes On Auction This Week

HughPickens.com writes: Nicholas St. Fleur reports at The Atlantic that James Watson, the famed molecular biologist and co-discoverer of DNA, is putting his Nobel Prize up for auction on Thursday. He's the first Nobel laureate in history to do so. In 2007, Watson, best known for his work deciphering the DNA double helix alongside Francis Crick in 1953, made an incendiary remark regarding the intelligence of black people that lost him the admiration of the scientific community. It made him, in his own words, an "unperson." That year, The Sunday Times quoted Watson as saying that he felt "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." Watson has a history of making racist and sexist declarations, according to Time. At a science conference in 2012, Watson said of women in science, "I think having all these women around makes it more fun for the men but they're probably less effective." To many scientists his gravest offense was not crediting Rosalind Franklin with helping him deduce the structure of DNA.

Watson is selling his prized medallion because he has no income outside of academia, even though for years he had served on many corporate boards. The gold medal is expected to bring in between $2.5 million and $3.5 million when it goes to auction. Watson says that he will use the money to purchase art and make donations to institutions that have supported him, such as the University of Chicago. He adds that the auction will also offer him the chance to "re-enter public life." "I've had a unique life that's allowed me to do things. I was set back. It was stupid on my part," says Watson. "All you can do is nothing, except hope that people actually know what you are."

Comments

there are lots of cultural reasons

[Chirs]

I lived in what is now the "Democratic Republic of the Congo" for three years, so I have at least personal anecdotal knowledge.

1) Relatively recent colonial history means that there was no native bureaucracy able to run the countries when the colonial powers left.
2) Dictators took over, and most dictators don't really want to make the country better, instead they just want power and money.
3) History of tribal politics means that when someone takes power they give rewards to their tribe at the cost of the other tribes.
4) Lack of national-level control means that it's difficult to exploit the natural resources.
5) Lack of government responsibility means that when countries do exploit the national resources very little of the money ends up in the hands of the workers (or the country).
6) Lack of government funding for educational facilities means that there is a continuing shortage of qualified local skilled labour. (It was quite common for teachers to charge students a fee to write finals, since the teachers got very little salary.)