(Newswire.net — November 30, 2014) — American scientist James Watson, worked alongside British scientist Francis Crick at Cambridge University. Watson and Crick shared the Nobel Prize in 2007 for discovering the double helix structure of DNA. What should have been the highlight of his carrier turned into a nightmare in 2007, after he told the Sunday Times in an interview, that black people were not of equal intelligence to white people.
As a result of linking race with intelligence, Watson got fired from his position, banned from the scientific community, and became ‘persona non grata’ in the community at large.
For the past seven years, Dr. Watson has not given any public lectures. “No one really wants to admit I exist,” he said.
He told the Financial Times: “I apologise … (the journalist) somehow wrote that I worried about the people in Africa because of their low IQ – and you’re not supposed to say that.”
He admits it had been stupid on his part and insisted he is not racist “in a conventional way”.
After seven years of humiliation, somehow he realized that money would heel all the wounds, and Watson got the ‘brilliant’ idea to sell his Nobel Prize medal and try to ‘grease’ his fortune a bit.
According to The Guardian, Dr. Watson’s plan is to buy some art, supplement his income and donate to some of the institutions he is associated with including Clare College, Cambridge.
Auctioneer Francis Wahlgren told the Financial Times he did not expect Dr. Watson’s previous remarks to affect the sale.
“There are a lot of personalities in history we’d find fault with, but their discoveries transcend human foibles,” Wahlgren said.
The medal is scheduled to be auctioned on Thursday in New York, with a reserve price of £1.6m.