At a panel discussion at the New York Academy of Sciences, Watson let it all hang out, according to a post at Scientific American. While he said some good things, he veered toward the all-too-familiar barbs. According to Watson, young scientists should not be encouraged to be nice. "Christian values don't make any sense," he said, adding that young people should be selfish in their pursuit of science in order to beat out the competition. He also chimed in with his views on science teachers today: "Part of the problem is too many of our teachers are dumb," he said.
Speaking of science teachers, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown hopes to remedy the poor numbers of students studying math and science by announcing initiatives to encourage graduates with science, math, and IT degrees who lose their jobs during the recession to go into teaching, says a story in The Guardian. "The time has come to build a society that seeks high-value engineering, not financial engineering," he says.