PRINCETON, New Jersey — The intersection of genetics and intelligence is an intellectual minefield. Harvard's former President Larry Summers touched off one explosion in 2005 when he tentatively suggested a genetic explanation for the difficulty his university had in recruiting female professors in math and physics.
(He did not suggest that men are on average more gifted in these fields than women, but that there is some reason for believing that men are more likely than women to be found at both the upper and lower ends of the spectrum of abilities in these fields — and Harvard, of course, only appoints people at the uppermost end.)
Now one of the most eminent scientists of our time has blundered much more clumsily into the same minefield, with predictable results. In October, James Watson, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for his description of the structure of DNA, was in London to promote his memoir, "Avoid Boring People and Other Lessons From a Life in Science."