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A LEADING British scientist has criticised the Science Museum for banning a speech by Dr James Watson, the Nobel prize-winning geneticist, for suggesting that races might differ in intelligence.

Colin Blakemore, former chief executive of the Medical Research Council and now professor of neuroscience at Oxford University, described the decision as “outrageous”.

Watson, who was one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA in the 1950s, was due to address an audience at the Science Museum last Friday as part of a speaking tour of Britain in support of his new book, Avoid Boring People.

However, Professor Chris Rapley, director of the Science Museum, decided to cancel the event after Watson gave an interview to The Sunday Times magazine suggesting black Africans had lower average intelligence.

Rapley said in a statement that Watson’s comments had gone “beyond the point of acceptable debate”. That decision has privately infuriated many British researchers.

They say scientists should be free to raise such questions, however unpalatable, provided they are scientifically justified, so that they can be subjected to scientific and public scrutiny.

This weekend Blakemore was the only researcher willing to speak out publicly in support of such hallowed academic freedoms. Lord Rees, the current president of the Royal Society, and Lord May, his predecessor, both refused to comment.

Last week Watson cancelled his tour and flew back to America after being suspended as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York state over the remarks.

Blakemore said it was clear that there were genetic differences between people from different parts of the world and these needed to be studied and understood, not used as a basis for prejudice.

He added: “It’s outrageous to ban someone based on newspaper reports of their views. Jim Watson is well known for being provocative and politically incorrect. But it would be a sad world if such a distinguished scientist was silenced because of his more unpalatable views.”

In his interview Watson had said that he was “gloomy about the prospects for Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really”.

He also said he opposed discrimination and that he hoped all races could be equal, but added: “People who have to deal with black employees find this not true.”

Blakemore said that Watson’s interpretation of such tests was too simplistic and his conclusions were too stark — but that he should be forced to defend them in public, not banned from speaking.

Watson, 79, has since apologised for giving offence.

He said: “To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly.”

The row has caused severe embarrassment at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory which has spent decades trying to live down its past as a leading centre for eugenics.

The Eugenics Record Office which it ran from 1910 to 1944 provided some of the “scientific” justification for European fascist movements such as the Nazis to persecute Jews, homosexuals and gypsies.

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