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Thread on James Watson's death and racism in biology

David George Haskell · 7 Nov 2025

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  1. Biology education should face up to the field's troubled roots.
  2. All science is embedded in and shaped by cultural context.
  3. Pretending that Watson was an outlier does not help. Let's recognize that he stood firmly within an established racist tradition, then chose a different direction for the future.

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