Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr James Watson has apologised "unreservedly" after suggesting that black Africans were less intelligent than white people.
Dr Watson, a 79-year-old scientific icon made famous by his work in DNA, set off an international controversy after making comments to a London newspaper about intelligence levels among blacks.
Dr Watson, who won a Nobel Prize in 1962 for co-discovering the structure of DNA, apologised and said he was "mortified."
A profile of him in the Sunday Times Magazineof London quoted him as saying that he's "inherently gloomy about the prospect of 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".
Dr Watson is quoted as saying that although he hopes everyone is equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true". He also said people should not be discriminated against on the basis of colour, because "there are many people of colour who are very talented."
The comments were reprinted Wednesday in a front-page article in another British newspaper, the Independent, and London's Science Museum cancelled a sold-out lecture he was to give today.
The chancellor of the renowned Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York has a history of provocative statements about social implications of science, but several friends denied he is a racist.