Nobel laureate James Watson, whose co-discovery of DNA revolutionized the field of genetics, has provoked a scientific controversy by suggesting there are biochemical links between skin color and sexual activity and between thinness and ambition.

Watson advanced his thesis during a guest lecture at the University of California at Berkeley last month, prompting several faculty members to brand his remarks as racist, sexist and unsupported by any scientific data.

Witnesses were flabbergasted when the 72-year-old discoverer of the double helix suggested there was a biochemical link between exposure to sunlight and sexual urges. ``That's why you have Latin lovers,'' Watson said. ``You've never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient.''

In a lecture hall jammed with more than 200 Berkeley students and faculty members, Watson showed a slide of sad-faced model Kate Moss to support his contention that thin people are unhappy and therefore more ambitious.

``Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you're not going to hire them,'' Watson said.

Even those who chalked up Watson's remarks to his penchant for deliberately stirring things up were concerned that hearing such views expressed by a Nobel laureate would fuel irresponsible speculation about how genes might influence behavior.

``Doesn't a guy like Jim Watson have the responsibility to make this not ugly?'' asked UC Berkeley biologist Michael Botchan, a Watson protege. ``Yes. But I cannot tell Jim Watson to change his ways.''

Watson, who shared a Nobel Prize for his role in figuring out the structure of DNA in 1953, and who launched the Human Genome Project in 1990, declined to answer questions about his lecture.

However, a spokesman at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research institute on Long Island where Watson serves as president, confirmed the gist of his remarks and said Watson has voiced similar sentiments at other scientific gatherings.

Berkeley biology professor Susan Marqusee walked out about a third of the way through Watson's hourlong lecture, titled ``The Pursuit of Happiness: Lessons from pom-C.''

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/James-Watson-Racist-Sexist.htm