If you feel like owning a Nobel Prize laurel wreath , now is your luck . And not just any Nobel Prize either . The one to be betray on Thursday is the1962 prize awarded to James Watsonfor the discovery of the structure of DNA , the fundament of the subsequent familial revolution .
However , while the meaning of the accomplishment is not in doubt , for some buyers the context in which the sale is being made may taint its value .
Nobel decoration have fetched a hefty monetary value before , even if they’rehard to take through drome surety . So far , all former cases of a Nobel laurel wreath being sold were by inheritors after the receiver had died .
Watson has express an intention to donate some of the money raised to “ institutions that looked after me , ” such as the University of Chicago and Clare College , Cambridge . He also wants to corrupt a painting by notable artistDavid Hockney . While Hockney ’s oeuvre has sold for as much as $ 7.9 million , Christie ’s auction houseanticipates the medal will bring in in $ 2.5 million to $ 3.5 million , which should encompass one of his lesser works with something to part with . Watson is also offer his handwritten notes for his credence talking to and a draft of a lecturing the undermentioned daytime .
Watson charge his unpopularity in certain circles on being “ out as believing in IQ . ” This is a creative interpretation of his statements thatAfricans were less reasoning than Westerners . He told the newspaper that people like to believe that every somebody is born with adequate intelligence , but that " those who have to address with fatal employees find this not true ” . While Watson has since issued a sort of apology for the statement , hedoes not appear to have rethink his position , only the wisdom of stating it publicly . He has also suggested that people with dark-skinned peel have high libido .
It is far from rare for great minds to express unintelligent opinions in their old eld , but Watson has draw in criticism almost since his rise to celebrity . The explanation for the social organisation of DNA offered by Watson and Francis Crick depended on the salient X - ray diffraction images taken by Rosalind Franklin . Crick and Watson usedunpublished photographs and ideas by Franklin without her consentto embodiment their cerebration .
Franklin did not share in the Nobel Prize , andmany people have arguedthat this was a result of measured efforts by the other inventor to minimize her share , credit it instead to Maurice Wilkins . Thedescriptionof Franklin in Watson ’s bookThe Double Helixhas since enhanced the credibility of those suspicians that the sidelining of Franklin was incite in part by sexism , although the two worked constructively on subsequent projects .
