MIND YOUR MOUTH: Words That Made James D. Watson, The DNA Man, Broke

Russian Billionaire Buys Nobel Medal Of Ostracized DNA Scientist… To Hand It Back

This image released by the Christie's auction house in New York, shows the Nobel Prize medal auctioned by Christie's on December 3, 2014.(AFP Photo / Christie's Images)

The geneticist James Watson was ostracized since public comments about black African IQ in 2007. The Nobel Prize was awarded to Watson in 1962 for discovering the structure of DNA. However, the scientist claims he was forced to auction off the prize after being ostracized for seven years, following his public comments about black African IQ in 2007, which were widely deemed racist. Here's what he said that got him into a corner.

In October 2007, Watson told the Sunday Times in an interview that he was “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.”

Since then, Watson has not been invited to give public lectures.

While Watson’s racial theories of IQ have some academic support, such as in Richard J. Herrnstein’s and Charles Murray’s controversial book 'The Bell Curve,' this remains one of the most contentious areas of scientific research. Following Watson’s crude remarks, most of the scientific community turned on him, accusing him of prejudice.

It is a charge he rejects to this day.

“I am not a racist in a conventional way,” he told the Financial Times.

“I apologize...the [Sunday Times] journalist somehow wrote that I worried about the people in Africa because of their low IQ – and you're not supposed to say that.”

“Because I was an ‘unperson’ I was fired from the boards of companies, so I have no income, apart from my academic income,” he explained before auctioning off his Nobel Prize.

Watson said he had plans to donate some of the proceeds of the sale of the medal to the “institutions that have looked after me,” including the Universities of Chicago and Cambridge. 

American geneticist James Dewey Watson (AFP Photo)

Russia’s richest man Alisher Usmanov has bought the auctioned Nobel Prize medal of publicly-shunned American geneticist James Watson. He says he plans to return the medal to its owner.

Usmanov’s bid of US$4.1 million won the medal at the auction, USM Holdings group, of which the billionaire is the largest shareholder, said on Tuesday.

“In my opinion, a situation in which an outstanding scientist sells a medal recognizing his achievements is unacceptable,” Usmanov said in the statement. “Dr. Watson’s work contributed to cancer research, the illness from which my father died. It is important for me that the money that I spent on this medal will go to supporting scientific research, and the medal will stay with the person who deserved it.”

The auction took place on December 4 at Christie’s in New York.

Alisher Usmanov. (Reuters/Maxim Shemetov)

Usmanov is worth US$15.8 billion, according to Forbes magazine. He is also a major shareholder in Arsenal Football Club. The Sunday Times named him the second-richest man in Britain in 2014.