James D. Watson

A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA

The Double Helix

By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry & won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only 24, a young scientist hungry to make his mark. His uncompromisingly honest account of the heady days of their thrilling sprint against other world-class researchers to solve one of science's greatest mysteries gives a dazzlingly clear picture of a world of brilliant scientists with great gifts, very human ambitions & bitter rivalries. With humility unspoiled by false modesty, Watson relates his & Crick's desperate efforts to beat Linus Pauling to the Holy Grail of life sciences, the identification of the basic building block of life. Never has a scientist been so truthful in capturing in words the flavor of his work.

The Discovery of The Structure of DNA

An interesting insight into the competitiveness of science and probably very candid for its time. Watson clear is a huge sexist asshole and product of his time, but clearly doesn’t leave any doubt to his antiquated misogyny and arrogance. 

Jeff Dlouhy

Rob Erekson

This is a difficult book to review, which matches with being a difficult book to read. James Watson was a very intelligent scientist, but he is not a good writer. I picked this book up after reading The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson, so I was obviously a little spoiled by Isaacson’s writing. However, Watson’s writing was still very scattered, taking many odd tangents (usually to strangely comment on the quality of girls at parties he was attending). The narrative was often hard to follow as he jumped around, and there was very little explanation of the science throughout the book. I was able to follow it well enough, but it almost felt like his target audience was biochemists or other molecular biologists. That being said, the last 1/5th of the book is a great read as the anticipation of solving the structure of DNA is finally on the verge of happening. I just wish it wasn’t so dry, boring, and scattered up to that point.

The absolute worst part of this book though was his treatment of Rosalind Franklin. Sure, in the Epilogue he points out that she deserved more credit than he gave her, but that doesn’t make up for all the negative character issues he accuses her of having. Especially when those character issues were likely a direct result of how he and the other scientists treated her as a lesser scientist than themselves (Watson alludes to this in the Epilogue as well).

Lastly, although he’s credited (along with Francis Crick mainly) with the discovery of DNA’s structure, he seems to be a pretty awful human being. There are definite signs of it in the book, but the comments he made later in life make it abundantly clear that he’s a pretty terrible human being.

The Double Helix A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA

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