Double Helix Nobel Prize Winner Selling Nobel Prize Medal
James Watson, the American scientist who discovered the double helix DNA structure, is selling his 1962 Nobel Prize medal in order to “re-enter public life’’ after making controversial comments about race.
In 2007, The Independent reported that Watson told The Sunday Times he thought Africans lacked intelligence:
“He was ‘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 won the Nobel Prize with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins nine years after their breakthrough discovery.
According to The International Business Times, Watson has not given a public lectures since his comment, adding that “no one really wants to admit I exist.’’
Now, his medal will be for sale on Dec. 4 at Christie’s auction house in New York for somewhere between $2.5 and $3.5 million, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The Financial Times reported that when the medal is sold, Watson will donate some of the money to institutions that helped him along the way. Also according to The Times, Watson said his “income has fallen’’ after he made the remarks.
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