Watson retires

Why did James Watson need to retire?
Because he got well known facts exactly backwards:
The problem with the human race is not that we have subgroups that are too different from each other, but that overall, we have too little genetic diversity.
Most of our genetic diversity is in Africa, so making generalizations about Africans vs. others does not make sense.
He does, or at least used to, like controversy, so making the obvious point that we need to help all ethnic groups in Africa to thrive, in order to preserve our diversity (which may be vital if we mess up the environment badly enough) didn't appeal to him.
It's too bad that his very successful career as an administrator and fundraiser at Cold Spring Harbor had to end this way.

Watson's Letter
Political dissection of his remarks