Under the Microscope/Prof William Reville :James D Watson will be remembered forever in the annals of science for his part in the discovery of the structure of DNA early in his career. Subsequent to that discovery he has had a long distinguished scientific career and at the age of 69 he has just published his autobiography, Avoid Boring People, and Other Lessons from a Career in Science(Oxford University Press, 2007).
Scientists will find the book most interesting as it describes how a top scientist negotiated a long career in academic science. Non-scientists will probably find the book tough going as it contains quite a bit of detail of the scientific work undertaken by Watson. Many people will also be put off by Watson's sometimes brutal criticisms of colleagues and others encountered over his long career.
Born into a middle-class family in 1928, Watson focused on his self-development with laser-like intensity even from his early years. A life-long obsession with biology began when he enthusiastically adopted his father's interest in bird-watching. He was interested in public limelight from the start and, as a 14 year old, he put in a creditable performance on a popular national kids' radio quiz programme.
Watson was a very bright, but not an outright brilliant student, shining in biology but not in mathematics. He won a scholarship to the University of Chicago and availed of a new programme that took in some of the brightest high-school students who had only completed two years of high school. Watson is not strong on handing out bouquets, but he is unstinting in his praise of the undergraduate programme at the University of Chicago, under its then president, Robert Hutchins.
This programme aimed to acquaint students with the broad classical pillars of knowledge in the humanities and sciences and to train minds how to think critically. Watson graduated full of confidence, feeling that he had received "officer class" training of the mind and, most impressively, knowing that he wanted to pursue postgraduate work in molecular genetics aimed eventually at discovering the structure of the gene.
Watson enrolled on a PhD programme in molecular genetics under the direction of Salvador Luria at Indiana State University. He advises that it is preferable for a PhD student to pick a PhD adviser who is in an early vibrant phase of his research career rather than a senior well-established figure whose mature research programme is not likely to have a long-term future.
After Indiana, Watson moved for a year to Denmark and then on to Cambridge University, England, in 1951, where he teamed up with the physicist Francis Crick to tackle the problem of discovering the molecular structure of DNA. They famously accomplished this task in 1953. The approach taken by Watson and Crick was not to establish a new big experimental research programme but rather to study all the published data on the structure and chemistry of DNA and to build models accommodating this data. Watson was also shown unpublished X-ray diffraction photographs of DNA by Maurice Wilkins that convinced him DNA had a helical structure.
WHEN THEY BUILT THE final double helix model of DNA they showed it to Maurice Wilkins who declared it was far too elegant to be wrong. Elegance and beauty are the hallmarks of successful solutions in science. Elated by the discovery, Crick burst into the nearly pub, the Eagle, where they regularly had lunch, to announce that they had discovered "the secret of life". Watson, Crick and Wilkinson were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this discovery in 1962.
Watson returned to America in 1956 to take up a professorship in the biology department at Harvard University where he had a distinguished career until 1976. He became Director of the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory in 1968 and President in 1994, serving until 2004. He is now Chancellor of Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory.
James Watson is not an elegant writer and harmonising with his awkward style is a strain of arrogant opinion that runs right through the narrative. For example, he gloats over beating Linus Pauling to discovering the structure of DNA and chides Pauling for basking in self-glory instead of beavering away at his trade, declaring "by the early 1950s Linus Pauling's interactions with fellow scientists were effectively monologues instead of dialogues. He wanted adoration not criticism".
Watson earned international scientific fame at the early age of 25. I suspect that from that point fellow scientists would have felt intimidated in his presence and reluctant to criticise his arrogant behaviour to his face, thereby allowing him to develop a very bad habit. Recently, when promoting this book in the UK, he remarked that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" 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 added that he hoped everyone was equal, but that "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true".
These recent remarks caused public uproar because they bear the interpretation that white people are genetically smarter than blacks. There is no present scientific basis for such a case, as I explained last week. Watson admits this and is hugely embarrassed by his remarks. However, in the last couple of pages of his book he predicts that future discoveries in genetics will probably reveal differences between peoples in genetic hard-wiring of capacities that our hearts would wish weren't so.
William Reville is Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Public Awareness of Science Officer at UCC - understandingscience.ucc.ie