Sohini Ramachandran and C. Brandon Ogbunu Publish Op-Ed on Scientific Racism in Boston Globe

Dr. Sohini Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Computational Molecular Biology and Associate Professor of Computer Science and of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, was recently published in the Boston Globe alongside C. Brandon Ogbunu, a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University. Their article was about the legacy of the recently deceased James Watson, who made incredible scientific discovery, but also encouraged scientific racism throughout his career.

There’s also an implicit subtext. What we think of as scientific prowess is something that depends on a multiplicity of factors including not only the basic abilities to think analytically and symbolically, but also background, life station, and the greater societal milieu to name a few.  The world had been ready for DNA for a while.  Watson and Crick got there first, but it is remarkable (in both the colloquial and scientific sense) how quickly they wed genetic determinism to supremacy. Given the world and times in which they lived, there were (and still are) all too many topers of this evil brew.

Put another way, we all must be wary of at least two things:

• projecting our discoveries past their foundations with little or no evidence
• forgetting that the reductionism necessary to ply our trade can make us forget it’s a complex world out there.

Thanks to these authors for the incredible conversation they’re inviting us all to join, and congratulations.