A Slate article casts doubt on the claim that James Watson is 16% African.
The company that did the sequencing claims that each base was read an average of 7.4 times, but Kari Stefansson, whose company assessed Watson's heritage, says he found enough errors in the public genome to have doubts about whether the 16 percent figure will hold up. For example, he says there are places where it appears that Watson has two X chromosomes, which would make him a woman. [Link]
James Watson reportedly has the genetic makeup "you would expect in someone who had a great-grandparent who was African."
Can you name his eight great-grandparents?
(For the sake of this challenge, let's assume that none of his recent ancestors was the product of a back-door romance.)
James Watson—who helped discover the structure of DNA, and suggested recently that black people are genetically inferior to whites—has had his own genome sequenced.
An analysis of his genome shows that 16% of his genes are likely to have come from a black ancestor of African descent. By contrast, most people of European descent would have no more than 1%.Based on Watson's own arguments, this means that he is 16 times more likely to say stupid things about race and intelligence than the average person of European descent.
The study was made possible when he allowed his genome - the map of all his genes - to be published on the internet in the interests of science.
“This level is what you would expect in someone who had a great-grandparent who was African,” said Kari Stefansson of deCODE Genetics, whose company carried out the analysis. “It was very surprising to get this result for Jim.” [Link]
