Yesterday I wrote a brief report on the death of J. D. Watson, who left this earthly vale at age 97. You can read the NYT obituary for him, which is quite good (archived here), so I’ll just describe my two encounters with the man, one of which was quite funny. The encounters are in fact loosely related.
Watson got his B.S. at the University of Chicago in 1947, and since he was born here (and presumably had relatives here), he would come back to the University on some Alumni Days. On those days the science labs throughout the University would set up demonstrations of what they were doing. Building doors were unlocked to allow alumni to wander in at will and get educated about science.
One of the demonstrations was on the first floor of my building: the Zoology Building, which was a going group of labs and lecture halls even in Watson’s Day. A postdoc in Marty Kreitman’s lab named John McDonald, now a professor at the University of Delaware, was demonstrating how DNA was sequenced. John had set up a PCR machine and was also running amplified DNA on a gel to show how it was sequenced.
It was the weekend, and I was down in the first-floor lab shooting the breeze with John, who was doing his demonstration although nobody else was there. All of a sudden J. D. Watson strolled into the lab! I was flabbergasted! I knew of course what he looked like, but apparently John did not. Watson asked John what he was doing, and John proceeded to explain to Mr. DNA what DNA was and how it was sequenced. I remember John taking a very elementary approach, telling Watson, “I’m sequencing DNA. Do you know what DNA is?” Watson stood there, saying nothing but listening intently. John proceeded to tell Watson what DNA was, using a simile like, “Well, imagine a string with four colored beads on it. Each of those beads is a nucleotide base, and pairs specifically with a bead of another color. . ” And so on and so on. . . I was flabbergasted.
At this point my jaw was on the floor as McDonald, completely unaware of whom he was explaining stuff to, went through the whole megillah of DNA pairing, PCR amplification, sequencing, and so on. Watson stood there paying rapt attention the whole time.
After John’s explanation. Watson thanked him and wandered out of the building. As soon as he’d gone, I said to John, very loudly, “DO YOU KNOW WHO THAT WAS?” John said “no”. So I told him he’d just explained DNA at great length to the man who helped determine its structure. McDonald, of Irish descent, freckled and with copper hair, was so embarrassed that he turned about as red as a human being could get. And there were only two witnesses to this funny tale.
Watson was very polite, and in the end John ‘s explanation had a great outcome. It turned out that Watson was so impressed that a postdoc was willing to explain DNA sequencing in such detail, and to a total stranger, that Watson donated a large sum of money to our department, intended to create a series of lectures—”The Jean Watson Lectures,” in honor of JDW’s beloved mom—that were to deal with evolution and DNA. This series went on for many years, but now it’s gone,.
This brings us to my second encounter with Watson. He was here for one of the annual lectures, for he introduced the lecture’s own introducer, saying a bit about his mother and his undergraduate years at Chicago. The department members were given a chance to have individual appointments with Watson, and I grabbed one. (Because the accusations of racism against Watson had already begun then, not a lot of people wanted to talk to him. He was also known to be daunting.) So I got a 45-minute appointment with Watson, and, in fact, it was doubled, because the person after me didn’t show up. So I had an hour and a half to occupy JDW, which I considered a great chance to chat despite his demonization for racism (yes, the conversation showed that he was a bit of a bigot). That’s where this photo came from (it was on May 29, 2012):
I don’t remember everything we talked about, though I do remember that Watson spent a lot of time complaining about how his characterization as a racist was unfair. (See the section called “Public remarks on genetics, intelligence, and race” in his Wikipedia bio for the accusations.) His bigoted words ultimately led to his suspension as head of the Cold Spring Harbor Labs, and, after an illustrious career, would have affected him greatly. Truth be told, I did see signs of bigotry in Watson during the conversation, but for the life of me I can’t remember what he said about that.
I do remember asking him—because I knew he was an atheist—if atheism or naturalism played any role in the discovery of the DNA structure. Watson said “yes”, explaining that he and especially Crick were motivated in part to find that structure because they wanted to demonstrate that the “secret of life” (i.e., the molecule that was a recipe for human beings) was a purely naturalistic phenomenon.
Yes, Watson was a difficult man, and one not free from bigotry, but we should also remember his positive accomplishments, which included not only the co-discovery of DNA’s structure; the writing of the standard book in the field The Molecular Biology of the Gene (an enormously influential book, followed by two other texts); the writing of The Double Helix, the only genetics book I know of that was a best seller (yes, it unfairly portrayed Rosalind Franklin, but Watson later apologized, and Matthew Cobb gives the best evaluation of that controversy here); setting up the Human Genome Project (this is often forgotten, but Watson resigned as head because of differences with Bernadine Healey, head of the NIH, who wanted to patent the DNA sequences, and Watson would have no part of that); and expanding and focusing the mission of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He is one of many biologists who had sides of their nature that were unpleasant, but also made great scientific contributions.
So those are my Watson stories (I’ve told the one about Alumni Day before), and will serve as my memorial to the man.
Oh, I forgot one thing. A few years earlier I was browsing in a bookstore in Boulder, Colorado, and found a first printing of The Double Helix for only five bucks. It was in great condition and I snapped it up. I didn’t think I’d ever meet Watson, but when I did I took the book along, hoping he’d autograph it. He did, and also signed several other books for me, including the one below, an annotated version of the real thing.
I met him twice: once at the Hay Festival and once at the Cheltenham Science festival where he attended a talk on epigentics given by Nessa Carey and Wolf Reik. The look of shock on Carey’s face when she realised who was in the audience was palpable!
Oh: I have a signed copy of the Double Helix as well!
Great story about the episode in Marty’s lab. Marty and I used to go bicycling together when we were in grad school. I haven’t seen him in forever.
Great that you have an autographed copy of The Double Helix. I have a paperback copy (no autograph) on the bookshelf in my home office. The pages are all brown and crumbly, but the content is unforgettable.
The word and font “EPIC” is appropriate!
Elementary, my dear Watson!
STAT has a take on Watson’s career and controversies.
https://www.statnews.com/2025/11/07/james-watson-remembrance-from-dna-pioneer-to-pariah/
I wonder about his last few years. He got into a bad car accident and was hospitalized in late 2018. Two months or so after that, PBS aired an interview with him (likely recorded before the accident), in which he says that he hasn’t changed his controversial opinions, or words to that effect. That’s when CSHL cut all ties with him. As far as I can tell, after Jan 2019, he never responded or gave any more interviews. Very uncharacteristic, given his previous history, and I suspect that it was due to his health.
It’s notable that, when Watson stated his views on things like racial IQ gaps, the response was not a weary “… and here is the data showing that you are wrong”, it was “denounce the heretic!”.
I submit that it is not “racist” to make a good-faith interpretation of the available data, doing ones best to follow the evidence, even if that leads to a conclusion at odds with received opinion. Isn’t that what a good scientist is supposed to do?
Is there clear cut evidence showing that he was wrong on such issues? If so, I’d be interested, so please point me at it.
Given the explosion in genetic sequencing in recent years there is likely now enough data lying around the world to get a clear answer. But the topic is prohibited. Funding agencies won’t fund such studies, and in order to access the relevant databases such as the UK BioBank you have to promise not to study that issue. It seems that the powers that be don’t want the question answered. One wonders why not.
I agree that it’s not racist to make a good-faith argument from available data. That is what good scientists should be doing. You’re also not wrong in suggesting the powers that be (whatever they are) don’t want it questioned. I wonder why not, too and while many may point toward a coordinated, quasi-Marxist globalised rule book that they imagine has been created by international elites and enforced by the United Nations (or other such bollocks), I think the answer is more prosaic. The people trying to prevent this research are misguided, but they are also doing so in good faith. We have made great strides against racism and bigotry in the West, and people fear (with some justification) that dredging this up will give racists and other idiots a basis on which to convince others of their racist arguments.
I don’t know if Watson was bigoted, but I think he was making his arguments in good faith. He reminds me very much of Richard Dawkins here – he sees all questions as being up for grabs, as they are opportunities to learn about the world. He also considers that they can be answered from a purely scientific perspective.
Another issue is that the field is plagued by poor research. This is not surprising, as it is incredibly difficult to tease apart all the factors that may contribute to how a person performs on an IQ test. Developmental factors are so interrelated that it’s as good as impossible to isolate certain of them. How do you fully isolate all aspects of diet, family attitudes to learning, cultural and religious influences etc, from a person’s race? Given that all these factors may be very similar for people of a particular race living in a specific country?
I realise there are statistical techniques to help, but the task is not an easy one, and many have failed. Jerry mentioned The Bell Curve (Murray and Hernstein) recently, which gives us a perfect example of just how hard such research is. From a scholarly perspective, the book is a disaster. It is full of cherry-picked and misused data, and sloppy reasoning is everywhere. It’s bad science, yet they present their book as a scholarly review. They also failed to have it peer-reviewed, where most of these issues would have been identified.
With existing research being so poor, expecting a non-specialist (no matter how smart) to make a clear, compelling and unbiased case on such messy data sounds optimistic. I think preventing such research is wrong and counterproductive, but as much as I hate to say so, I do get where the gatekeepers are coming from.
I had the good fortune to be invited to a CSH Workshop on DNA Tumor Viruses in 1975. While it was interesting to see Watson wandering the grounds and participating in the presentations and discussion, for me the most memorable part of the week was the 25 cent beer dispensing machine! Budweiser I think. And it was a great gathering spot for evening conversations.
J D Watson was born in April 6, 1928. Was he a bigot or did his ideas reflect a different age? Or are modern ideas hamstrung by political correctness?
We should do proper science and get to the bottom of the debate. Good luck getting funding though.
His comments on race and IQ do not strike me as an individual who wished to promote racism and bigotry…but of a true, genuine scientist who boldly spoke what he felt was true…no matter who he angered or offended. If you dissect what he actually said…the first part pertaining to racial IQ differences is unequivocally true! It is one of the most reproducible observations in psychology….there are average IQ differences between blacks and whites; many cannot even admit that fact. The second part of what he said is where the controversy should be focused, where the differences are due to genetics. Judging what we now know about the heritability of intelligence from twin studies and even the correlation of IQ between siblings…at the very least we must admit to ourselves that it was NEVER an unreasonable hypothesis to suggest that genes maybe the significant variable that is too taboo to mention, let alone have someone (lest of all one of the co-discoverers of DNA) become ostracized, excommunicated, and personally attacked for espousing such an hypothesis. The ramifications that Watson was subjected to…were more akin to punishments from an authoritarian church or govt…not a truth-seeking, impartial scientific enterprise. Now the question becomes whether those racial group disparities are significantly contributed to by genetics, as Dr. Watson alluded to, or to some ill-defined “system”, enacted by an unjust environment built to serve white supremacy. This is a key pillar of modern, Left-wing Social Justice ideology…because if the disparities between blacks and whites that we observe today can be linked to intelligence, and intelligence can be linked to genes…then the premises for their political demands become severely undermined (how does one protest against genes!).
They ostracised, attacked and excommunicated him precisely because they suspect and fear that what he said is true.
The expression of that which is a demonstrable fact, not just an unfounded opinion, does not make one a bigot. Watson got one thing wrong in his famous quote, he should have said, “all our social policies are based on the ‘presumption’ (not fact) that their intelligence is the same as ours – where all the testing says not really”. The fact (not presumption) that such an opinion is so widely held, through rarely expressed, makes his censure all the more appalling.
Just moments before you and John met Watson, he walked by me as I was pondering nature beside the pond. I called out, “Hello Dr. Watson”, and he stopped and chatted with me briefly. Afterwards, when I came into the Kreitman lab, John related the entire incident and said that he felt that he had embarrassed himself. I am glad that the story had a happy ending.
Years later I had more substantive conversations with JDW at CSHL, once on the occasion of a genome meeting, and another when I was a student at one of their courses. BTW, I am surprised that no mention has been made of those courses in the obituaries, as they really are a credit to that institution.
Brilliant anecdotes – thanks!
Color me impressed on all the above stories. You guys have richer lives than I! Kudos.
D.A.
NYC
Two scotches into the evening so all I can add is a +1 to D.A.’s and Jez’ comments.
write that book before you go to the great beyond jerry!!! you know so much.
Jerry, I absolutely love the anecdote of Watson being told how DNA is put together. Thank you, it’s comedy gold!
Wow! A signed copy of “The Double Helix”. I have read it. But my copy was not signed.