In this month's issue of 02138, we ran an excerpt of James Watson's new book, Avoid Boring People, in which he talked about Harvard's science crisis (Allston=big mistake) and discussed why he thinks Larry Summers shouldn't be faulted excessively for his leadership hiccups; he thinks Summers has Asperger's Syndrome.

In this interview with MSNBC.com, Watson continues to push that thesis. This excerpt is particularly intriguing:

Q: In the book, you led into those issues with the whole controversy over Harvard President Lawrence Summers and his remarks about genetic differences between the sexes [relating to proficiency in math and science], and how you might have handled that situation differently.

A: I would have, but you know, I think Larry had pissed off everyone even before he made that remark and didn’t know how to handle the hysteria afterward, which was led by my former student Nancy Hopkins, who went on television to denounce him.

Our brains aren’t equal. The same gene will make a boy badly autistic, and a girl will not suffer as much. So why? That’s really all I’m saying: This assumption that everyone has to be equal … Biology seldom treats people as equal. It hasn’t evolved to make laws easier, or social behavior easier.

But I’m convinced that instead of leading to a nastier society, we’ll be more compassionate. Instead of saying, “How can Summers be such a bore?” we’ll just say, “He can’t help it.” Of course, if you knew that, you wouldn’t have put him in as president of Harvard, because he really didn’t know how to deal with people.

The full interview with Watson is well worth the read.