January,14,2019

The American Nobel Prize winner James Watson, who was a pioneer in discovering DNA, lost his honorary titles after repeating racist remarks.

James Watson co-discovered the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953 and shared the Nobel Prize with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins in 1962. However, after he made a claim again in a TV program that genes resulted in some difference in IQ between the black and the white, he was deprived of his honorary titles by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). 

James Watson had been the director of CSHL from 1968 to 1993, the president from 1994, and the chancellor ten years later. He had made similar racist comments in 2007 and apologized afterwards, which made CSHL remove his administrative duties, but his honorary titles were retained. Later, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory decided to strip him of the honorary titles after he remarked that his opinion had not changed in the documentary aired on public broadcaster PBS of the US on January 2.