In less than two hours (9:30 a.m. Chicago time), I have a half-hour to talk with J. D. Watson (b. 1928), who was of course the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, probably the most famous scientific finding of the 20th century.
Watson is here to attend and introduce the Watson Lectures in Molecular Evolution, a yearly talk that he endowed to our department in the name of his mother. (This year’s speaker is Rich Lenski from Michigan State University.) Some of you may know that Watson was an undergraduate at The University of Chicago, which is how the lecture series came about (that’s a long and funny story that I’ll relate another time). Wikipedia says a bit about Watson’s career here:
Thanks to the liberal policy of University president Robert Hutchins, [Watson] enrolled at the University of Chicago at the age of 15.After reading Erwin Schrödinger’s book What Is Life? in 1946, Watson changed his professional ambitions from the study of ornithology to genetics. Watson earned his B.S. degree in Zoology from the University of Chicago in 1947. In his autobiography, Avoid Boring People, Watson describes the University of Chicago as an idyllic academic institution where he was instilled with the capacity for critical thought and an ethical compulsion not to suffer fools who impeded his search for truth, in contrast to his description of later experiences.
Anyway, I have purchased The Double Helix so I can get it autographed, and I’ve thought of a few things I’d like to ask him. But I’m interested in what others would ask as well, so if you have questions for Dr. Watson, put them below (there’s no guarantee I’ll use any of them, of course!). But please, no questions about why Rosalind Franklin was ignored, for Watson has already spoken to that, and it won’t make for pleasant conversation!
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Has science answered–to his satisfaction–the following question: What is a gene?
Um. Short notice!
* What in the world of science has your attention these days?
* Of everything that the general public doesn’t yet know or knows but misunderstands about science, what would you most like them to actually know or understand?
* What consequence of your discovery has most surprised you?
That should be a good start….
Have fun, Jerry, and thank him for me for doing so much to help figure out how the universe works!
b&
When I visited Cambridge over Christmas I had a pint with some friends at the Eagle where they announced the discovery. We have pictures of us all with the plaque.
What is your take on the public reaction against genetically modified plants?
Make that anything genetically modified eg the new ‘super-salmon/trout’ hybrid in the news http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10085179/GM-salmon-can-breed-with-trout-and-harm-ecosystem-warn-scientists.html
I am not necessarily againt GM, but –
“Is the genie out of the bottle” with regard to laboratory genetic modification of life by humans?
1. Can science will stop brain death?
2.Do you believe in the future singularity?
Thanks Jerry.
RE “…the structure of DNA, probably the most famous scientific finding of the 20th century.” Well…. that would not have been possible without Rutherford’s discovery of the fact that atoms had nuclei. Without that, no Bohr, no Heisenberg, Schroedinger..
no atomic models of chemicals, no DNA models..
True. But fame is not the same as importance.
In the second 1953 paper with Crick they wrote this amazing sentence: “the precise sequence of the bases is the code which carries the genetical information”
This was the first time this idea had been stated explicitly, and it changed the way we think about life.
Does Watson recall any discussion about this? Did either of them read, or discuss, Shannon’s book on Information Theory, or Wiener’s Cybernetics, or was it just something in the air?
I’m writing a book about this at the moment. If readers want to know more, here’s an article I recently published in Cell: http://download.cell.com/pdf/PIIS0092867413004534.pdf
I’m probably too late to the show, but this is what I’d like to ask Jim Watson:
If you were 15 again today, what lifetime quest would you embark on, knowing what you know?
Yes, you in the third row, Mr. NewEnglandBob, may we have your comment please?
My comment is the word subscribing contained in angle brackets.
Who wass the most under appreciated scientist of the 20th Century?
Continuing the J. C. Penney’s tea pot line of thought – Ask Watson why the first chapter of his DNA Secret of Life book was subtitled “From Mendel to Hitler”.
What is Dr. Watson’s analysis of the influence of fools who impede the search for truth presently as opposed to when he earned his degree? What does his conclusion bode for the future of critical thinking, academic freedom, and ethical behavior in academic/public policy?
Hmmmm, I’m curious about this: How does he balance not suffering fools with the need to ensure that they don’t suffocate everyone with their foolish ideologies.
The “Watson Lectures in Molecular Evolution”?
Hmm. I’d ask him whether it was true that when he became head of the Cold Spring Harbor labs in 1968 he decided that evolutionary genetics (population genetics) was not an appropriate topic for the Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology — that it was all to be molecular and cell biology from then on. A lot of population geneticists were mad at him about that. And how long was it after that before molecular evolution finally appeared in that series (I think evolution finally was the topic of a volume in 2009).
In general Watson has a reputation as having dismissed population biology as mere stamp-collecting, as opposed to hard-edged experimental sciences of molecular and cell biology. I’d put him on the hot seat on that issue.
Ditto.
“Where do you see genetic research in the next 20 years?” “30 years?” “50 years?”
Two questions I would ask:
1) “What question do you wish people would ask that they never do?”
2) (at the end of the interview) “Is there anything else you’d like to add?”
These kinds of open questions can often produce unexpected insights or revelations or take an interview in a different direction.
They are especially useful when the interviewer is not terribly well versed in the subject matter.
In this case, of course, Jerry knows the subject matter inside-out, but they’re still always worth asking.
Ask “What advice would you give to a young scientist?”
Does he ever get mail from cranks who believe that his model of DNA is wrong?
It was my impression that virtually all people associated with science departments at colleges and universities get *some* crank mail. But I too would find it interesting to hear specifically what in this case.
I second ambulocetacean’s two questions, but would also like to know:
“who, among the scientists who preceded him, does Watson most admire, and why.”
What does he make of talk that we can make no predictions about humans–even if we had perfect knowledge of genes and environment? As Lewontin claims (or appears to be claiming) here
Thanks for posting the link. I watched the lecture. He talks about organisms creating their environments rather than adapting to their environments i.e., organisms and their environments co-evolve. I’ve never heard of this. Perhaps I’m not understanding his metaphors.
Was the 25 cent beer machine at the CSH Symposia in the 80’s his idea? 🙂
Not a question for Dr. Watson but more a curiosity: I wonder if one of the reasons he was allowed into UC at age 15 was that it was 1943 and most college-age men were traveling overseas at the behest of a rich uncle (and the women were in factories)? He was clearly a very bright guy, but it can’t have hurt his chances that UC was just trying to keep the doors open during the war.
It was standard at the U of C in those days to begin at age 16–it was an initiative developed by Robert Maynard Hutchins, the innovative president who also got rid of the Big 10 football program. Actually, at the talk today Watson suggested that the reason he may have gotten in at all was because his mom was friends with the admissions people!
Ask him if he ever reread “What Is Life?” later on in life and if so, what he thought of it.
Has he also read Schroedinger’s “My View of the World?” If he read that he might have wanted to become a zen Buddhist …
I was told he charges for autographs. Urban myth?
No way. This is the second time I’ve asked him to autograph a book, and he’s always obliged politely.
I have a couple of books autographed by him. Unfailingly courteous.
Indeed–I asked him to autograph mine after the talk today (a first edition I got for $5 last year–score!) and he was very good natured about it.
The real question for J. D. Watson: Do you understand that DNA is the history molecule for RNA? RNA edits everything in sexual breeding organisms.
I can just imagine how he might be sensitive about Ms Franklin, but as you say, he has already addressed that elsewhere.
What made you get involved with all that IQ and race business?
It may be described elsewhere but I’d be interested in just how he and Francis Crick interacted. That is, what was it about the way they worked or complemented each other that led to their discovery? If there’s even an answer to that.