“It’s not an old story of an old guy with old views,’’ said Andrea Morris,(right) the director of career development at Rockefeller University, who served as a scientific consultant for the film. Dr. Morris said that, as an African-American scientist, “I would like to think that he has the minority view on who can do science and what a scientist should look like. But to me, it feels very current.’’ …
But Mary-Claire King, a leading geneticist at the University of Washington who knows Dr. Watson well and is not in the film, suggested that the racially homogeneous culture of science also played a role in shaping Dr. Watson’s misconceptions.
“If he knew African-Americans as colleagues at all levels, his present view would be impossible to sustain,’’ Dr. King said.
If that is the case, it may not bode well for combating prejudice in biomedical research, where African-Americans represent just 1.5 
percent of grant applications to the N.I.H. Biases in hiring by medical school science departments are well documented.
“It’s easy to say, ‘I’m not Watson,’’’ said Kenneth Gibbs, (right) a researcher at the N.I.H. who studies racial disparities in science. “But one should really be asking himself or herself, ‘What am I doing to ensure our campus environments are supporting scientists from backgrounds that are not there?’’’