James D. Watson
James D. Watson
James Dewey Watsonis an American molecular biologist, geneticist and zoologist, best known as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick. Watson, Crick, and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth6 April 1928
CountryUnited States of America
I started doing science when I was effectively 20, a graduate student of Salvador Luria at Indiana University. And that was - you know, it took me about two years, you know, being a graduate student with Luria deciding I wanted to find the structure of DNA; that is, DNA was going to be my objective.
It is no coincidence that so many religious beliefs date back to times when no science could possibly have accounted satisfactorily for many of the natural phenomena inspiring scripture and myths.
My whole life has been basically trying to find intelligent students or, you know, highly motivated students and giving them an opportunity to do good science.
I never could read science fiction. I was just uninterested in it. And you know, I don't like to read novels where the hero just goes beyond what I think could exist. And it doesn't interest me because I'm not learning anything about something I'll actually have to deal with.
If you go into science, I think you better go in with a dream that maybe you, too, will get a Nobel Prize. It's not that I went in and I thought I was very bright and I was going to get one, but I'll confess, you know, I knew what it was.
Biology has at least 50 more interesting years.
I think the reason people are dealing with science less well now than 50 years ago is that it has become so complicated.
Take young researchers, put them together in virtual seclusion, give them an unprecedented degree of freedom and turn up the pressure by fostering competitiveness.
Already for thirty-five years he had not stopped talking and almost nothing of fundamental value had emerged.
A goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.
The way to do great science is to stay away from subjects that are overpopulated, and go to the frontiers.
Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles.
'Genes, Girls, and Gamow' was an attempt, even more than 'The Double Helix,' to mix science with one's personal life. With 'The Double Helix,' no one had done it before, but I thought I'd try.
The time has come to seriously ask whether antioxidant use much more likely causes than prevents cancer.