James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers | He co-discovered DNA’s structure but later engaged in rank racism and sexism
https://www.statnews.com/2025/11/07/james-watson-remembrance-from-dna-pioneer-to-pariah/Open linkView original on slrpnk.net218
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He was a guest speaker at our Medical college back in 2010ish.
Someone asked him about Rosalyn Franklin afterwards, and he said "...she was better to look at, than to listen to" clearly thinking it was a delightful joke.
Yep, this guy was massive prick.
The Dark Lady of DNA is a pretty good biography of Rosalind Franklin. Watson was a piece of shit.
Whenever someone asks why women haven't made any great contributions to science, he's part of the reason we don't hear about them.
Imma 'bout to go toss an irradiated, used tampon on his grave.
that is true, people like curie wasnt recognized until very recently. although her issue is all the way from ww2, a colleague stole her work. its definitely changing now, more woman are getting BS for bio and then Grad degree more than men. i assume other stem fields also seeing similar results, although it has to do with so many factors that are helping them intentionally.(example they made up majority labs in universities, preferred over men in probably hire situations as part of thier "demographic" goals.
Curie was recognized in her lifetime, she won a ton of awards, including two nobel prizes. The enormity of her contribution to physics and chemistry compared to her co-winners has been slowly revealed over time, but she was considered a brilliant scientist during her life.
A better example could be Lise Meitner who, while in exodus from Nazi Germany, essentially figured out what fission was just by learning about the results of early nuclear physics experiments. But when people list the big names in nuclear physics, she's not one of them.
According to a number of sources on STEM statistics worldwide in 2025, women still occupy less than half of all STEM positions. A higher percentage of female nurses is why there's a majority in "life sciences." Women hold fewer higher level/higher paid positions than men in all STEM fields as well, and minorities are still demographically under-represented across the board.
First person to win two Nobel prizes and the only person to win the Nobel prize in two different scientific fields.
Combined with their last two sentences
Their comment reads a bit like "how do you do fellow
kidsnon-misogynists"yes i know that about women, but i think thats changing in the coming decades, as women are also in biotech/research in larger numbers than men, and the men currently in those exclusive positions are from a time when it was easier for them to achieve it.
You don't know it because that's not what you said.
According to the latest research on PubMed and Statistics provided by UNESCO, women do not outnumber men in any stem position except life sciences, which includes healthcare nurses. No one disagrees that the gender gap is closing, but to say women hold more positions than men because of demographic goals is wrong as hell.
She was famous in her own time.
No wonder, he looks like he was on death's doorstep!
picture is 21 years old
O_O
Oh! Glad to hear his horrible attitude is no longer with us.
I must have missed this in the wake of Cheney's retirement from the living realm.
leaving the mortal coil.
A new public bathroom was built
Classic case of Nobelitis
was he the one that wrong the pseudoscientific paper on why women or pocs cant get into stem fields.
So, there's this phrase in my country. I can't help but feel that it fits perfectly here: Al chile qué bueno