Watson said in an article for the Sunday Times Magazine published on October 14, 2007, that he is "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." He claims to hope that everyone is equal, but he counters that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true." He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because "there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level."[23]
"There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically," he writes. "Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."[24]
As a result of these comments, the London Science Museum cancelled a talk that Watson was scheduled to give on 19 October 2007. The museum spokesperson stated that "We feel Dr. Watson has gone beyond the point of acceptable debate and we are, as a result, cancelling his talk."[25] Additionally, the Board of Trustees of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory suspended Dr. Watson's administrative responsibilities in response to the comments, according to a public statement posted on the laboratory's website.[26]
Watson later apologized for his comments, stating, "To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief", and then, "I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said. I can certainly understand why people reading those words have reacted in the ways they have."[27][28] After the apology he added: "[29]
"Right now, at my institute in the US we are working on gene-caused failures in brain development that frequently lead to autism and schizophrenia. We may also find that differences in these respective brain development genes also lead to differences in our abilities to carry out different mental tasks."
This statement is consistent with his previous claims and suggests that he has not actually retreated from his views on genetic determinism. For instance, Hunt-Grubbe also reports that Watson has suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, hypothesizing that dark-skinned people have stronger libidos.[23][30] In 2000 Watson shocked an audience at the University of California, Berkeley, when he advanced his theory about a link between skin color and sex drive. His lecture, complete with slides of bikini-clad women, argued that extracts of melanin — which give skin its color — had been found to boost subjects' sex drive.
"That's why you have Latin lovers," he said, according to people who attended the lecture. "You've never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient."[31]
Watson has repeatedly supported genetic screening and genetic engineering in public lectures and interviews, arguing that stupidity is a disease and the "really stupid" bottom 10% of people should be cured.[32] He has also suggested that beauty could be genetically engineered, saying "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great."[32]
He has been quoted in The Sunday Telegraph as stating: "If you could find the gene which determines sexuality and a woman decides she doesn't want a homosexual child, well, let her."[33] The biologist Richard Dawkins wrote a letter to The Independent claiming that Watson's position was misrepresented by The Sunday Telegraph article and that Watson also considered the possibility of having a heterosexual child to be just as valid as any other reason for abortion.[34]
On the issue of obesity, Watson has also been quoted as saying: "Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you're not going to hire them."[35]
According to Watson at the 2003 conference,[36] "DNA: 50 years of the Double Helix," held in Cambridge, England, "Now perhaps it's a pretty well kept secret that one of the most uninspiring acts of Cambridge University over this past century was to turn down Francis Crick when he applied to be the Professor of Genetics, in 1958. Now there may have been a series of arguments which led them to reject Francis. But it really was stupid. It was really saying, Don't push us to the frontier. That's what it was saying."
Watson also had quite a few disagreements with Craig Venter regarding his use of EST fragments while Venter worked at NIH. Venter went on to found Celera genomics and continued his feud with Watson through the privately funded venture. Watson was even quoted as calling Venter "Hitler."[37]