The Science Museum in London has cancelled the talk by an American professor, who claimed black people were “less intelligent” than westerners.

American Nobel-winner James Watson, the co-founder of DNA, was due to speak at the museum tomorrow (19 October), but the museum cancelled the event and described Watson’s published opinions as having gone “beyond the point of acceptable”.

The comments were made in an interview with The Sunday Times, and included Watson describing his worries over the “prospects of Africa”.

In the interview, he said that the continent faces a gloomy future because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really.”

He also said he hoped everyone was equal, but that “people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true.”

Watson is in the UK to promote his new book and his talk at the Science Museum was scheduled to be followed by an appearance at the University of Bristol.