The Paradox of James Watson
The discovery of DNA was evidence of how deeply interconnected humans are, but the late scientist saw only difference.
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How do we reckon with the legacy of people who have done excellent work, but who have said or done terrible things?
Last week, James Watson died at the age of 97. Watson’s scientific work was certainly excellent. He was chiefly known for publishing, with Francis Crick, the first description of the structure of DNA, a discovery for which they received a Nobel Prize in 1962 and which he described in his best-selling memoir, The Double Helix. In addition to his reputation for scientific innovation and leadership, however, Watson was notorious for his bigotry. For years, he made derisive comments about gay people, suggested that women were less effective scientists, and claimed that people of African descent were biologically inferior, and in particular, that they had lower inborn intelligence.
The root of reckon is “count,” and to ask what to make of a life like Watson’s risks suggesting that the triumphs and sins of a human life can be quantified on the same numerical scale. How many racist comments must be subtracted from a Nature paper before the total is negative? Of course, human lives defy this type of mathematical flattening. We can add three and two to make five, but we cannot add scientific breakthroughs to bigotry and arrive at a tidy, incontrovertible sum. One deed sits stubbornly beside the other.
