[pbs] Genetics 101: Interview with Jim Watson
J.E. Shields
jshields104 at insightbb.com
Tue Oct 16 12:16:21 EDT 2007
Hi all,
Since we have been talking about genetics and DNA, is might be apropos to
mention here a very nice interview with Dr. James D. Watson, Nobel
laureate, who with Francis Crick discovered the double helix of DNA. You
can find it at:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/profile/story/0,,2191667,00.html
I only met Jim Watson one time, around 1959 or 1960, when he tagged along
with Francis Crick to the University of California Berkeley to give a
series of lectures. I was a grad student there at the time, and Jim Watson
had time to kill will Crick made the rounds of the big shots' laboratories.
Jim dropped by our lab, and my professor introduced us, as two Hoosiers far
away from home (Watson had gone to college in Indiana, making him sort of a
Hoosier too). He was indeed a callow youth back then, only 6 years my
senior; he was very modest and almost shy.
Crick on the other hand on that visit to Cal gave some of the most
fascinating and flamboyant lectures I've ever heard in a scientific
setting! Crick had an extraordinary way with words, very articulate. They
had to move his talks to the largest auditorium on the Cal campus, and even
then there was an overflow audience -- and this was at Berkeley, where
Nobel prize winners were lurking just around many corners.
Jim Watson is a famous scientist with modest roots and an unfailing ability
to speak plainly and simply, telling the actual truth. You won't find that
very often in anyone, famous or not, scientist or not.
Best wishes,
Jim Shields (Hoosier)
in central Indiana (USA)
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