By Sheeva Azma

This blog mentions Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal activities and may not be appropriate for all audiences.

On the day he was arrested by federal agents on sex trafficking charges, Epstein was traveling to grab lunch with James Watson, the Nobelist who lost accolades for decades of racist comments.

One of the last things Jeffrey Epstein did before he got arrested by federal authorities is make plans to get lunch with James Watson, a man who has had scientific accolades taken away because of things he’s said. 

Throughout all the controversies Watson stirred up in his lifetime with his inflammatory remarks, he got to keep his Nobel Prize for discovering DNA – whose work he stole from a woman in science.

Is it any surprise this man was a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein, a man who has made similar comments in the Epstein files?

Let’s talk about it all by unpacking James Watson’s mentions in the Epstein files.

The lunch that never happened

I recently reported in this Instagram reel (which is also on Facebook here) that on the day Epstein was apprehended by federal officials, he was on his way to have lunch with James Watson. Per the text messages in the Epstein files, Epstein wanted to invite Steve Bannon, a political advisor to President Donald Trump, along, but the plans never materialized.

Here are the text messages from JMail:

Who is James Watson and why is he such a controversial figure in science?

James Watson won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA thanks to stealing a photo of DNA’s structure taken by a woman in science, Rosalind Franklin, to make that happen.

Franklin died before Watson, Francis Crick, and her backstabbing colleague who shared her photo with Watson and Crick, Maurice Wilkins, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962.

“James Watson and Francis Crick determined the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953,” the Nobel Prize page for Watson writes.

However, what it omits is that, in May 1952, Rosalind Franklin (and her PhD student, Raymond Gosling) took a now-famous photograph of DNA’s double helix structure, called Photo 51, which took four days to develop after being exposed to X-rays for 62 hours, per King’s College London, which is where she did this work.

It is thought that Franklin’s early death to ovarian cancer at the ripe age of 38 was due to the X-ray exposure from taking this photo without proper X-ray shielding.

This story sounds like some kind of science fiction story, but it is a real life conflict between arrogant men who took credit for a woman in science’s work, and the woman who sacrificed her life just to never win the deserved recognition.

Despite James Watson’s public comments leading him to lose awards, he got to keep his Nobel Prize

“The Nobel Prize laureate is widely recognised as a great scientist, but his reputation has been tarnished by remarks he has made about race, women and gay people,” wrote Josh Gabbatiss in the UK publication The Independent in January 2019, a few months before this lunch was supposed to happen.

Sadly, James Watson’s views appealed to Epstein, who was concerned about the Nobelist’s health in 2019, as he was under federal investigation and about to head to jail, where he later died.

Among the controversial statements Watson’s made over his lifetime:

• “I think having all these women around [in science] makes it more fun for the men but they’re probably less effective,” Watson told the Euroscience Open Forum in Dublin, 2013: 
• Watson repeatedly talked about there are genetic IQ differences between races, per The Independent, which talks about a litany of racist comments Watson has made – that led him to lose scientific accolades. His comments are even in a 2019 PBS documentary, where he stated: “There’s a difference on the average between blacks and whites in IQ tests, I would say the difference is genetic.”
• “Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you’re not going to hire them,” Watson said at a talk at the University of California, Berkeley in 2000, per The Independent
• “People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great,” Watson said in 2003 about gene editing to boost women’s beauty
• Watson told Esquire in 2007 that “some anti-Semitism is justified…just like some anti-Irish feeling is justified. If you can’t be criticized, that’s very dangerous.”

He also had some unkind words to say about Rosalind Franklin in his 1968 book called Double Helix, according to Vox, quoting a Boing Boing article excerpting his book:

“By choice she did not emphasize her feminine qualities. Though her features were strong, she was not unattractive and might have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in clothes. This she did not. There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English blue-stocking adolescents. So it was quite easy to imagine her the product of an unsatisfied mother who unduly stressed the desirability of professional careers that could save bright girls from marriages to dull men.”

“He has since questioned [Franklin’s] intelligence and speculated that she may have had Asperger’s syndrome,” adds The Independent.

James Watson, by all accounts, sounds like exactly who you’d not want to encounter as a woman in science.

Despite that, in 1989, he became director of the high-profile Human Genome Project, a position he held only until 1992, when he chose to resign from this role when questions arose over whether he may have had conflicts of interest due to pharmaceutical investments. He continued to play a role in the Human Genome Project despite that.

Watson was affiliated with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York for years, but over time, his racist comments stripped him of administrative titles, and then later, of his emeritus status in 2019. However, an official statement from CSHL on his death in 2025 indicates that he and his family continued to live on the research institute’s campus after that.

James Watson got away with a lot of bad behavior in his lifetime! Add him to the list of toxic scientists who canoodled with Epstein.

It does not surprise me that he bonded so much with a trafficker and convicted sex offender. Both Watson and Epstein both used their privilege and status to be, in my opinion, terrible human beings.

Timeline of James Watson’s mentions in the Epstein files

James Watson has 109 mentions in the Epstein files. He’s a scientist with impressive accolades, who had literally won the Nobel Prize, and harbored sexist and racist viewpoints Epstein had also expressed to people in the files. In fact, Epstein defends Watson’s viewpoints to Noam Chomsky at one point, who disagrees with the two of them – but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Here’s a quick timeline of James Watson’s mentions in the Epstein files.

Epstein friend: Watson introducing “nemesis” at an awards ceremony

On June 30, 2012, a non-scientist who is well-connected in the academic community, John Brockman, emails Epstein about various updates. Among them is his news that Craig Ventner is getting a big award and being introduced by his “nemesis,” James Watson. The two were at odds in the era of the Human Genome Project, at time when Craig Ventner led a rivalling private-sector effort. Ventner described his relationship with Watson as a “love-hate” relationship at one point.

Epstein parrots Watson’s racist views to cognitive scientists Noam Chomsky and Joscha Bach in 2016

By now, it’s well-known that Epstein was obsessed with eugenics and told scientists that he wanted to have a baby farm on the Epstein ranch to spread his DNA. It turns out that James Watson was a great person to talk shop with on those specific pet projects of Epstein’s.

In February 2016, Epstein is chatting with Noam Chomsky about how much fun it was to connect at a recent dinner when Epstein seems to parrot James Watson’s views.

“The test score gap amongst African-Americans is well-documented. 20 years of testing. Many countries. James Watson had some of his private views made public and hence his dismissal from society. He told me that after one sentence he became an un-person. Making things better might require accepting some uncomfortable facts – you told me that,” Epstein says, seemingly trying to get Chomsky to accept his own racist views.

You can read the full conversation between Chomsky and Epstein here. I will give Chomsky the benefit of the doubt here in that he doesn’t seem to think this idea has scientific merit.

In his response to Epstein, he talks about the barriers people like Condoleeza Rice have faced amidst “the constant legacy of miserable racism,” and also states that, “simply as a matter of biology, the capacities involved are so deeply embedded that it would be quite surprising if an evolutionarily brief period that has produced only superficial changes would have affected them.” It’s not clear to me what, exactly, he means by that.

What he says next makes his statement much more clear: “But in any event, I don’t see the importance (except on ugly assumptions), any more than it would be important to show that tall people with blue eyes on average do better (or worse) in answering questions on tests,” Chomsky says. 

Epstein seems to completely ignore what Chomsky just told him about this type of work being useless, and replies, “I am aware of the potential for abuse. However, imagine that a set of genes used for working memory, like the ones for Tay-Sachs, could be found and adjusted. Not looking seems cruel.”

Then, Chomsky’s tone changes to agree with Epstein: “Almost inconceivable. But if it could be done, I think there would be far more important uses — like changing the genes for dedicated savagery and lack of concern for the welfare or even security of the population on the part of

that sector of educated elite that reaches positions of power.”

It’s an ironic quote from the Epstein class…but there’s a bit more here.

“Agreed. Genetic altruism,” Epstein replies, having moved this discussion from one nefarious point to the next. Mother Jones has referred to this quote as referring to eugenics with a “a Silicon Valley–pilled name.”

Later on at the end of July 2016, Epstein cites this as a research question he is willing to fund: “Is intelligence really just a self-organized, layered probability engine?”

Just a couple of weeks earlier, in July 2016, Joscha Bach had chatted Epstein up about some of Chomsky’s theories about language development in children.

Bach writes to Epstein and says, “Thank you for your support and encouragement, even where I fail. Sorry for being such an embarrassment today. I will spell out today’s argument a bit better and cohesive when I get to it. Also, I should have recognized that the main point I tried to make would trigger Noam…”

Bach is a cognitive scientist whose staff position at the MIT Media Lab Epstein paid for, to Bach’s great gratitude. After that, Bach sort of becomes a yes-man to Epstein.

After a tangent about his growing up in East Germany, and his love of the TV show “The Man in the High Castle,” Bach continues to Epstein about his worldview: “I find your ‘political incorrectness’ very fascinating. In the beginning, I thought it is a form of costly signaling, but now I think you are simply entirely unconstrained in your thoughts.

These ideas are part of a larger discussion in the email on what he calls “mind and individual differences,” which Bach has his own theories about.

Bach had actually started this email agreeing with Epstein about something (“Exactly.”) – it’s not clear what – related to a study of Black kids’ intelligence.

Here’s what he said about that, and it’s pretty racist:

Bach affirms the idea that gender and sex differences may include genes and IQ – which are some of Watson’s key ideas. It’s a bit convoluted, but you can read the discussion between Bach and Epstein in 2016 here.

Epstein ends up replying, rather coldly, saying: “Money, people, concepts – if they are all math, then political correctness and their structures are only subsets of a larger group of thoughts. It’s not emotional for me.”

I previously did an Instagram reel, by request, on racism in the Epstein files. The requester told me to look up the n-word in the Epstein files, which I did – I found 54 instances. In that reel, I also talk about the fact that I found at least one other scientist besides Watson talking about eugenics with Epstein.

To sum it up, Epstein’s embracing of Watson’s views led to him having literally racist conversations with scientists who, if not fully accepting and engaging with these ideas under the guise of science, still advanced them by adding their own expertise and insights.

A pianist lives with James Watson

A redacted person writes Epstein and says, “Got the material on the pianist; are you around next week in NYC?”

“He lives with James Watson,” Epstein replies.

“We will try to use him,” someone labeled as “President” writes back. What the pianist will be used for, it’s not clear.

Epstein touts “dinner … with the guy who discovered DNA”

In November 2015, Epstein invites Soon-Yi Previn, Woody Allen’s wife, to dine with James Watson: “if you like dinner eithr the 19th or 20th with the guy who discovered DNA”

Previn replies, “Does the important guy have a name?”

Epstein writes back, “james watson.”

Epstein invites various people to dine with himself and Watson over the next few years.

On February 23, 2017, Epstein tries to get Tom Pritzker, then executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels Corporation, to get lunch with him and Watson, but Pritzker can’t make it – he’s “working on a situation.”

In July 2017, Epstein writes Peter Thiel and asks him if he’d like to meet with James Watson or Larry Summers. Thiel can’t make it – he had just wanted to run something by Epstein.

On August 23, 2017, Epstein writes to Peter Thiel again about Watson: “james watson coming for lunch on friday. you are welcome. as you read my russian ambassador friend died. life is short , start with dessert”

Two days later, Epstein writes a redacted person and his ex-girlfriend, Eva Dubin: “james watson, discoverer of DNA just me and him at my house on tues even if you want to come by.” The redacted person says, “Yes please! Would love to.” Epstein replies: “Get good questions ready. He’s 90.”

On February 8, 2018, Epstein writes another redacted person and says, “yes , james watson coming for breakfast tomorw if you like.” Ultimately, the two parties exchange emails, but they couldn’t align their schedules.

Then there’s the July 2019 lunch with Steve Bannon and James Watson that never happened, because Jeffrey Epstein got arrested…that I mentioned at the beginning of this article.

“Check with James Watson”

“Can you send James Simons a note telling him that I am not as bad as Google would lead one to believe? I understand his wife is concerned,” writes Epstein to mathematician Misha Gromov in 2017 about the late mathematician and investor who founded the Simons Foundation in 1994. 

“He can also check with James Watson,” Epstein says.

In September 2017, in response to a different email, Epstein says, “ask James Watson.”

Mid- to late 2018: Plans for a Jeffrey Epstein documentary featuring James Watson

Could this unhinged brain dump from the Epstein files have been an attempt for the eponymous financier and convicted sex offender to collect thoughts for an Epstein documentary?

In May 2018, Epstein and journalist Michael Wolff (who apparently wrote a book about it all which garnered him the title of ‘muckraker’ in February 2022, despite the email correspondence I relate here) are namedropping people for an Epstein documentary.

“Woody Allen. Noam Chomsky, Ehud Barak. James Watson.” begins Epstein.

“All V. Good,” replies Wolff. “More women. An Arab. Bannon. Brad Karp.”

Epstein keeps going, naming Sultan Bin Sulayem, an Emirati businessman linked to Epstein’s crimes, Bill Gates, and others.

“Ken is totally off the record , of course unless you get his express permission. Smart,” says Epstein.

I’m not sure who Ken is, but Wolff does, apparently. “Ken would be good for JE doc too,” says Wolff. 

“Great he will I’m sure,” says Epstein.

In August 2018, Wolff evidently forwards the name of a documentarian who can help with the effort: “This is videographer/documentarian who I’ve worked with extensively. Total pro. Great work. Absolutely trustworthy.” Epstein replies that he wants to videograph Chomsky, Larry Summers, Watson, and Woody Allen.

By December 2018, Epstein and Bannon are chatting by text message (here’s another version). Epstein says Chomsky is “all in” and that Woody Allen gets a “main battery.”

Bannon says: “The film is three interwoven stories — the events of global Capitol markets / geopolitics from the 1980s til today; the drive of science to work thru a basic understanding of the workings of man’s immortality; the depravity of elite society and the decline of the West
As told through the story of — u”

Epstein says, “James Watson is “all in” but he said to [hurry] before he dies?”

Bannon writes back, “I can film in 10 days.”

Epstein suggests interviewing Marvin Minsky’s widow, and says they were friends for 20 years, but he died last year.

Larry Krauss, another disgraced Epstein scientist, also shows up in this discussion.

In May 2019, Epstein texts someone and says, “Have dan call me re invoices. Want to send you guys money.”

The person, who, if they are the same redacted person throughout this conversation, looks to be Steve Bannon (per Epstein’s later discussion on May 9, 2019, at 8:49 UTC on page 6 here), replies, “Chill we are working thru that and production schedule.”

The redacted person states, “Take the lead on getting me potential names and ideas – we are [beginning] process of pulling footage.”

“On it,” says Epstein.

“I’ve heard that we need to get serious – we have a 90 minute version @ Cannes in mid may 20 and the 6 hour Labor Day weekend 20 in run up to election – we are burning daylights,” [redacted] replies.

Epstein replies, “You need to have more [coffee]. Also, need you to get a cup of coffee and a pad/pen and [jot] down short profiles of the people you’ve met that matter and vignettes of important things.”

This text message thread also has this message from Epstein about James Watson on May 10, 2019 (page 10 here): “FYI, just got a call from James Watson, who said he wanted to let me know that he made 91 years old, if nothing else, to stick it in the face of those that hoped he and his unpleasant facts would have died.”

“If nothing else it gives [Watson] pleasure to stick it in the face of those that would prefer not to Hear unpleasant facts,” says Epstein in another text written shortly after this one.

“Is he in good enough shape for us to film??” says a redacted person.

“Think so,” says Epstein.

In 2019, Epstein friends discuss Watson’s tarnished reputation

2019 kicks off on January 1 with Woody Allen texting the Epstein groupchat: “James Watson Won’t Stop Talking About Race” and linking to this New York Times article published that day on the same topic, discussing a 2019 PBS documentary in which he reaffirms his racist beliefs.

A few days later, on January 5, 2019, Epstein writes to his assistant to “Reach out to james watson people to see how he’s doing.”

James Watson and Larry Summers, both Epstein friends, have burned bridges with MIT Professor and former Watson postdoc Nancy Hopkins, it seems, with their behavior.

On January 14, 2019, Epstein forwards Larry Summers an excerpt of an article about Nancy Hopkins, who was inspired to get into molecular biology after attending a lecture by Watson in college, and did a postdoc in Watson’s lab after earning her PhD at Harvard. Hopkins described Watson as a “friend” in 2001, per this video at Cold Spring Harbor’s oral history library, but later changed views, as she told STAT.

Hopkins led the publication of the 1999 MIT report on the status of women which revealed sexism among MIT’s professors. The report led to new initiatives to increase faculty diversity at MIT. 

Hopkins also came out against Larry Summers’ 2005 comments that women are worse at math due to innate ability differences. I previously wrote about that drama in another blog here:

“Back in 2005, Nancy Hopkins, an MIT biologist and lead author of a report on sexism at MIT, told the New York Times: ‘When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn’t breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill…let’s not forget that people used to say that women couldn’t drive an automobile.’”

In the Epstein files, we see that Larry Summers writes to Epstein that “Watson way out there. Hopkins really a humorless bitchy idiot.”

Through it all, Epstein finds Watson’s views appealing, referring to them as “facts.” Epstein replies to Summers on January 14, 2019 that “Watson ill. Now in hospital. He hated the facts. But refused to ignore them.”

January 2019: “Deplorables” lunch

Even though Watson was ill, at that time, per Epstein’s account, he wanted to invite him to lunch with some of his more ‘deplorable’ friends.

On January 15, 2019, Epstein writes Bannon that he is “considering a ‘deplorables’ lunch.”

“It’s my 65th birthday saturday,( 20th ) considering a ” deplorable s ” lunch . james watson ( crick and watson ). woody allen. Kathy Ruemmler ( former white house counsel ) . even MW who has agreed to join. dont know how you would think about coming . As you are well aware , friendship and honest broker is my touchstone.”

Bannon says he wants to make it, but that he might be giving a keynote speech at the South Carolina Tea Party Convention.

Fast forward to July 6, 2019, when Bannon, Epstein, and Watson were making plans to meet up for lunch together when Epstein got arrested on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors.

Scientists who affiliate with Epstein are a huge red flag for science (and for everyone around them)

My analysis shows that Epstein affiliation is a marker of various forms of misconduct in and of itself — even scientific misconduct.

By the way, there’s way more science in the Epstein files! Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, our blog, and Substack, for more.