James Watson

1928 – 2025

James Dewey Watson was an American molecular biologist who, with Francis Crick, deduced the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, drawing critically on the X-ray crystallography of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, and shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Across the decades that followed he made repeated public statements asserting that genetic differences explained racial gaps in intelligence, ultimately leading to his suspension from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2007 and the rescinding of his honorary titles there in 2019 after he reaffirmed those claims on television. He died in November 2025 at age 97.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM