James Watson, one of the greatest icons of genetics, has died. The first time I heard his name was in science class, when we had to memorize who discovered the structure of DNA: Watson and Crick. I never imagined that years later I would become a geneticist!
For all geneticists, Watson was an idol for decades. It’s even difficult to understand how someone at 25 made one of the greatest discoveries in human history and at 34 won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for discovering, with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, the structure of DNA, perhaps the most important substance in nature.
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The model proposed by Watson and Crick suggested not only that it was DNA (not proteins) that dictated the rules of genetics, but also that DNA only needed four “biochemical letters” – abbreviated to A, C, G and T – to produce diversity. The proposed DNA structure explained near-perfect replication in heredity, while the specific order of bases formed the pattern of the amino acid sequence in a protein. Watson’s name became even more prestigious when in the late 1980s he promoted the ambitious idea of sequencing the entire human genome.
It’s hard to imagine a more brilliant career! But, as the young people say, “just not”… Controversial and unacceptable attitudes and statements have always gone hand in hand with Watson. The discovery of the DNA double helix itself has a blemish, because some of the information that led to the discovery was based on data obtained from one of the competing scientists, Rosalind Franklin, who worked with Wilkins, without her consent. Watson, Crick and Wilkins won the Nobel and glory, not Rosalind. But it was from 2007 that Watson’s deified image was shattered, in the face of his racist remarks based on genetic determinism, in fact without any scientific basis. Women, blacks, the obese, Jews and Irish became the targets of Watson’s racism.
The scientific community reacted and withdrew the numerous awards he had received. He was fired from the institutions he worked for. What was a symbol of pride for all humanity has become the symbol of everything that genetics abhors today. No one knows better than a geneticist that the concept of race is social and not determined by genetics, and that no character, physical trait, or behavior is entirely determined by genetics. Ironically, it was Watson’s own discoveries that allowed him to realize that his racist ideas had no scientific basis.
In October 2011, I went to a conference of the American Society of Human Genetics in Montreal. At one point I noticed a very unusual crowd around a person who was calmly walking among the participants. As I got closer, I saw that it was him: James Watson. My greatest idol was there and he was made of flesh and blood! I got closer and all I remember is saying I was from Brazil and asking to take a photo, which I still keep like a trophy today! So many things I would have liked to tell him and ask him at that moment! I would try to get answers to understand how and why someone who, elevated to the rank of Gods of Science, ended up transforming melancholy into a synonym of enormous disappointment. Today, when reading the comments on his death, there is not one that does not draw attention to his racism.
As historian Nathaniel Comfort said: “Watson was the most famous scientist of the 20th century and the most infamous of the 21st century.” Perhaps his greatest lesson is that human beings can be both wonderful and terrible, but that this is not determined in their DNA. We can choose who we are and how we would like to be remembered.
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