The reason Watson recanted is simply because he faced near universal condemnation and no support. To the extent that other geneticists and scientists weighed in at all, they seemed only to join the chorus of those saying Watson didn't know what he was taking about, was going senile, was patently racist, or all the above.

Now, it so happens that there are many population geneticists and psychometricians who secretly harbour similar beliefs. And not all of them are racists.

But they remained silent while one of the greatest scientists of this century was vilified for stating, as Saletan says, an eminently reasonable and testable hypothesis (that has a decent amount of supporting data).

Can you blame the guy for recanting?