By Jessica A. Dennehy
The year is 1953. In Cambridge University’s Cavendish Laboratory, James Watson and Francis Crick are on the verge of discovering what they believe to be “the secret of life.” The American Watson, only 24 at the time, had spent years puzzling over the physical structure of DNA with Britain’s Francis Crick. And finally, they’ve discovered it: the double-helix structure.
“This structure has novel features that are of considerable biological interest,” Watson and Crick had written in their published report. One of the grossest understatements of the 20th century, their discovery served as the basis to modern understandings in hereditary, medicine, and molecular biology. For it, the pair, alongside Maurice Wilkins, a collaborator from King’s College, would share the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Working alongside Wilkins at King’s College was another researcher pursuing the secrets to DNA’s structure: Rosalind Franklin, a talented scientist and x-ray crystallographer. Her data, including what is now famously known as Photograph 51, was evidence that Watson and Crick relied upon while modeling various structural configurations of DNA. Watson and Crick, on friendly terms with Wilkins, would be filled in on the unpublished results coming out of Franklin’s lab. They also had access to an internal report detailing all of her findings, shared with them by another scientist-pal. When Franklin was finally shown their completed double helix model, she reportedly found it convincing—after all, it did align with her own experimental results—completely unaware that her own work had provided much of its foundation.
This complete breach of professional norms and ethics would only draw criticism after Franklin’s death in 1958. She died from ovarian cancer, most likely from her research. A few years later, in 1962, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins would win the Nobel Prize for their discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. The Nobel cannot be awarded posthumously and can only be shared by three living scientists.
Watson’s scientific legacy—whatever portion that truly belonged to him—was severely tainted by his controversial comments on race and sex. Upon writing his novel The Double Helix, which was published in 1968, he bashed Franklin, constantly referring to her as “Rosy,” a name she had never gone by while living, and portraying her as a comedic villainess who “did not emphasize her feminine qualities.”
Additionally, he made several claims regarding how genes cause IQ differences between the races (which has been disproven again and again through scientific study). In 2007, he even went so far as to tell the Times newspaper that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa,” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really.”
These comments ultimately led to him losing his job as chancellor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as well as having his honorary titles of chancellor emeritus, Oliver R. Grace professor emeritus, and honorary trustee stripped and removed.