A thoughtful summary which explains to me why I had a bipolar reaction to the reported comments of James Watson last week. His quoted comments are very close to the bone: but you have to do the “what if” test and see how you would react if you assume he is talking about religion, race or gender. So while I think he was foolish to say them, and that he comes over badly, this doesn’t mean that he should lose his career over it (or that he wasn’t trying to make a potentially serious point that the kerfuffle will have obscured).
