Jim Watson passed away. As the Guardian notes:
James Dewey Watson, whose co-discovery of the twisted-ladder structure of DNA in 1953 helped light the long fuse on a revolution in medicine, crimefighting, genealogy and ethics, has died, according to his former research lab. He was 97. The breakthrough – made when the brash, Chicago-born Watson was just 24 – turned him into a hallowed figure in the world of science for decades. But near the end of his life, he faced condemnation and professional censure for offensive remarks, including saying Black people were less intelligent than white people. Watson shared a 1962 Nobel prize with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for discovering that deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is a double helix, consisting of two strands that coil around each other to create what resembles a long, gently twisting ladder. ... He has shown “a regrettable tendency toward inflammatory and offensive remarks, especially late in his career”, Dr Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said in 2019. “His outbursts, particularly when they reflected on race, were both profoundly misguided and deeply hurtful. I only wish that Jim’s views on society and humanity could have matched his brilliant scientific insights.”
I first learned genetics from Watson at Harvard. I snuck up Mass Ave in the 60s. I knew about DNA from my secondary school bio teachers who in 1957 as a doctoral student at NYU studied Watson's work on the subject.
I believe that Watson's major contribution was the revitalization of Cold Stream Harbor Labs, a place for brilliant geneticists. I often wish it was somewhere else other than Long Island but that is a personal bias.
When I cam back to MIT in the early 2000s, he gave a talk at the neuro institute and a bunch of my doctoral and post docs went to hear him. They cam back startled as to how he really discounted engineers and physicians. My comment was that is one reads the Double Helix, Watson was just being a good engineer, not a scientists. The scientists gave him the data and he and Crick just assembled it. That made my students happier.
Watson was acerbic at times but at CSHL he was a true leader.
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