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

Abstract

The Dogble Helix. James D. Watson. 1968. Signet Books, New York. 143 pp. 95c paperback. Now in paperback for less than a dollar every schoolboy can learn that even great scientists are human and oftimes naive. It is household knowledge that the author shared with Francis Crick and Maurice WiLkins the 1962 Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA, less well known is Watson's intimate contact with ornithology. One fateful evening "Honest Jim" had an insight about I)NA while Francis was out partying. In writing about their meeting the following morning, Watson lets slip his odious past: "Reporting that even a former birdwatcher could now solve DNA was not the way to greet a friend bearing a slight hangover." Actually, Watson is defending himself in this passage. For, months earlier, when he did not understand enough crystallographic theory to interpret some X-ray pictures of tobacco-mosiac virus (TMV), Watson had sought the mathematical aid of Cricks quick mind: 'Luckily, merely a superficial grasp was needed to see why the TMV X-ray picture suggested a helix with a turn every 23 A along the helical axis. The rules were, in fact, so simple that Francis considered writing them up under the title, 'Fourier Transforms for the birdwatcher. " ' What readers of the book will not discover is that molecular biologists sometimes become birdwatchers, as well as vice versa. In fact, one of Watson's own doctoral students- who was associated with the exciting discovery of a kind of ribonucleic acid instrumental in transmitting information from the genetic DNA material to the building of proteins -abandoned molecular biology entirely after getting his degree, and spent many happy days with me watching birds in the Galapagos archipelago. (Risebrough iSnow engaged in important research concerning the effects of biocides on living matter.) The book does document Watson's fruitful undergraduate days- "This wish [to avoid chemistry] partially arose from laziness since, as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, I was principally interested in birds and managed to avoid taking any chemistry or physics course which looked of even medium difficulty." The striking parallel with Charles Darwin's undergraduate days cannot be overlooked. This vast sampling of great minds provokes me to introduce a new principle into the study of the history of science, which I shall modestly call Hailman's Principle: "A little birdwatching never hurt anyone." Jack P.