Salatino 1

Honest Jim Discovers DNA:

Discord Between Fact, Personal Recollection and the Subjective Nature of Narrative Literature
By Francis Salatino

Introduction
Many of the comments may seem one-sided and unfair, but this is often the case in the
incomplete and hurried way in which human beings frequently decide to like or dislike a new
idea or acquaintance. In any event, this account represents the way I saw things then
-James Watson

James Watson, author of The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the
Structure of DNA is no doubt an interesting figure as both an author and a scientist. His personal
account manages to be simultaneously intriguing, entertaining, and arguably biased and onesided. Many of Watsons contemporaries and successors have criticized the book for being
dishonest, incomplete and often cruel. I would argue that Watson never claims to be unbiased,
and for the sake of keeping the book entertaining and infusing the text with his own unique
personality, has claimed more credit for himself and Francis Crick than they actually deserved.
The book also seeks to show its audience a glimpse into the world of how science is
done, and the way in which un-scientific things can contribute to groundbreaking scientific
discoveries. In the following pages I intend to speculate on questions as to whether we should
believe Watsons account, or factors contributing to the way science is done as described by
James Honest Jim Watson.
Supplementary reading has lead me to believe that the book leaves out or skews a lot of
pertinant details (137-298). Although Double Helix meets my expectations as a functional
memoire and an engaging novel, it is (in my opinion) by no means a historical tome, nor is it an

Salatino 2

instruction manual for success or making friends with ones peers. In the preface James Watson
proclaims his account to be incomplete. Double Helix is a prime example of the discord
between fact, personal recollection and the subjectivity of narrative literature. In Watsons novel,
he paints himself just as much as a despicable and petty opportunist as a visionary scientist.
Whether Watson intended to portray himself in this rather ugly light is something that is
not made clear in the text. At the very least, I think that Watson is very honest in his memoire.
He is not honest in the fact that what he is saying is true, but I honestly believe that he believes
what he is saying to be true.

The Discovery
It is not easy to be sure whether the crucial new idea is really ones own or has been
unconsciously assimilated in talks with others
-Sir Lawrence Bragg (1)

While James Watson and Francis Cricks discovery of the double helical structure of the
DNA molecule was an undeniable breakthrough benefiting science, biology and humanity as a
whole, Watsons account fails to give much credence to their forerunners; those who paved the
way and made their research possible. As Conrad H. Waddington points out in Riding High on a
Spiral: by the late Thirties there was a small group of a dozen or so who had developed the
subversive point of view to the state where one could begin formulating questions definite
enough to be answerable. (206)

Salatino 3

Even the scientific contributions of Sir Lawrence Bragg, a major figure in the novel, are
only mentioned in passing, as Watson portrays him as little more than the cranky old Dean
character in a college frat movie: The chilling prospect of enduring Francis throughout the
remaining years of his tenure as the Cavendish Professor was too much to ask of Bragg or
anyone with a normal set of nerves. Besides, for too long he had lived under the shadow of his
famous father, with most people falsely thinking that his father, not he, was responsible for the
sharp insight behind Braggs Law. (61)
Watson, initially a zoologist went into the field of genetics came into Cavendish without
knowledge of chemistry or molecular biology or the permission of his superiors. Whether it is
intentional or not, he describes himself as somewhat of a disinterested and lazy in chapter 3:
My interest in DNA had grown out of a desire, first picked up while in senior college, to learn
what the gene was. Later, in graduate school at Indiana University, it was my hope that the gene
might be solved without my learning any chemistry. This wish 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 courses which looked of even medium
difficulty (17)
Watson intuitively understood that DNA was the key to deciphering the gene, and that
genetics would be the key to understanding heredity and how all life is created. In Double Helix
it seems more that he believes these things because of that intuition, and his being enamored with
Pauling than because of any scientific data. When he first learns of Pauling and his theories, they
are second hand and in his novel he focuses only on his showmanship and ability to capture a
crowd.

Salatino 4

How Science is Done

I believe there exists general ignorance about how Science is done.

-James Watson (3)

Watson, in the preface to his book makes the above statement. In the articles which
follow his book Double Helix, many of his contemporaries have likened the scientific process to
that of an artist. Ask any artist about their creative process and (if they are willing to answer
your question) you will probably receive a variety of answers. The circumstances under which
the structure of DNA was discovered seem highly unusual, as Waddington points out:
A scientist may take a popsie to the cinema, but he is likely to have to tell her that Ive got to
get back to the lab by 11 p.m., Ill be busy there for an hour and a half. (205)
I would argue, based on the text, that the discovery of the double helical structure of
DNA has much more to do with luck, being in the right place at the right time. I think it also had
a lot to do with the chemistry between Crick and Watson. I do not think that Crick would have
discovered the structure of DNA on his own, nor do I think that Watson would have discovered it
working by himself. Finally, I would suggest that Watson employed some shrewd tactics in his
methods of cadging data from colleagues.

The People
Almost at once (and before he had done anything to deserve it) he entered the privileged inner
circle of scientists among whom information is passed by a sort of beating of tom-toms while
others await the publication of a formal paper in a learned journal.
-Peter B. Medawar (222)

Salatino 5

When James D. Watson decided to tackle the problem of DNA he knew nothing about Xray crystallography, chemistry or biochemistry. He immediately works is way and is accepted
into a prestigious group of scientists with years of experience behind them. Francis Crick was
already well into his thirties when he met Watson. Max Perutz also had much more experience
than Watson, and it was because of him that he was privy to Rosalind Franklins data. It is worth
noting that without Franklins data it is unlikely he would have been able to check the
correctness of his hypothesis of the double helix structure. Upon reading The Double Helix Max
Perutz was displeased with the way in which Watson describes how he acquired Rosalind
Franklins experimental data:
Moreover, there was no longer any fear that it would be incompatible with the
experimental data. By then it had been checked out with Rosys precise measurements.
Rosy, of course, did not directly give her data. For that matter, no one at Kings realized
they were in our hands. We came upon them because of Maxs membership on a
committee appointed by the Medical Research Council to look into the research activities
of Randalls labAs soon as Max saw the sections by Rosy and Maurice, he brought the
report in to Francis and me. (208)
In a letter to the editor of Science, Max Perutz writes to clarify the matter:
The incident, as told by Watson, does an injustice to the history of one of the greatest
discoveries of the century. It pictures Wilkins and Miss Franklin jealously trying to keep
their data secret, and Watson and Crick getting hold of them in an underhand way,
through a confidential report passed on by meThe report was not confidential and
contained no data that Watson had not already heard about from Miss Franklin and
Wilkins themselves. (208)
Evidence in Rosalind Franklins own article: Molecular Configuration in
SodiumThymonucleate (published alongside Watson and Cricks in an April 1953 edition of
Nature) suggests that she too was very close to solving the problem of DNA. It is extremely
likely that if Watson and Crick had not solved the problem first, Franklin would have. Her
research was in fact leading her to the very same conclusion. While the X-ray evidence cannot,

Salatino 6

at present, be taken as direct proof that the structure is helical, other considerations discussed
below make the existence of a helical structure highly probable. (252) In his own personal
account of the discovery of the structure of DNA, Francis Crick also suggests that Rosalind
Franklin was approaching the same solution:
Both papers correctly concluded from the intensity positions that the phosphate-sugar
backbone was on the outside of the structure and that the bases were stacked on the
inside. Franklin repeated the argument, which she had made to use verbally a year
earlier, that the phosphates would be hydrated (in which she was perfectly right) and
therefore that they would probably be on the outside of the molecule. In short, both
groups at Kings College had obtained a fairly general idea of the structure but they had
done no proper model building. Mainly because of this they had missed the pairing of
the bases and they had completely overlooked the significance of Chargaffs rule. (139)
In another stroke of luck, James Watson lived and worked in close proximity to Linus
Paulings son, Peter Pauling- even sharing a laboratory at one point. In this way, Watson was
able to keep tabs on what Linus Pauling was up to, and whether or not he was making any
significant progress on solving the problem of DNA. It was widely believed that Pauling would
be the person who was most likely to solve the problem first.
The pairing of Crick and Watson, I believe has been crucial to the discovery of the helical
structure of DNA. Crick, already in his mid-thirties was still virtually unknown in his field, and
the colleagues who did know him thought him to be too loud, boisterous, and somewhat of a
crackpot. I think that Crick found a friend and an ally in Watson. Cricks very boisterous nature,
and his tendency to immerse himself in theories helped to push the duo forward in those times
when all seemed to be lost (of which there were many, according to the text). Crick also had
more scientific knowledge and a better understanding of physics and chemistry than Watson
when the two teamed up. To the same token, Watsons seemingly quiet and school-boyish
demeanor likely helped to balance out Francis Cricks loud nature, particularly with regard to Sir
Lawrence Bragg, who had little patience for the scientist.

Salatino 7

Motives
Contest involves the directly sportive pleasure of beating particular others. Time and time
again, Watson records his youthful pleasure in testing his powers against the best.
-Robert K Merton (214)

I like to think that scientists do the things that they do in order to solve the worlds
problems and because they have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. According to Watsons
book this is not always the case, certainly not in the case of James Watson. James Watson
mentions several reasons why he is so driven to solve the structure of DNA, and most of them
seem rather petty and childish.
One of the reasons which Watson often mentions for his ambitions in his book is to win
the prestigious Nobel Prize (which he and Crick did achieve in 1962). At the start of his story,
Watson knows little more about DNA or its implications than that whoever was finally able to
solve it would almost certainly win the Nobel Prize. Want for fame and fortune seems like an
extremely superficial reason for taking on such a lofty and sophisticated task, but evidently for
Watson that was why Science is done.
Watson describes scientists in a pretty unpleasant light. While Im sure there is a great
deal of competition and an element of contest in the field, I dont think that for most people this
is the primary driving force. Watson frequently takes pleasure where his colleagues fail and
resorts to superficial attacks that are not in any way related to their intellect, work ethic or ability
to perform the work that they do.
When Linus Pauling, someone who Watson admits that he respects publishes an article
proposing that DNA has a triple helical structure with a sugar-phosphate backbone in the center,

Salatino 8

Watson immediately realizes that this cannot be true. Upon realizing this, he is more than happy
to rush out and tell Francis, Max Perutz and Sir Lawrence Bragg. He and Crick even have a
celebratory drink at the Eagle.
Then, as the stimulation of the past several hours had made further work that day impossible,
Francis and I went over to the Eagle. The moment its doors opened for the evening we were
there to drink a toast to the Pauling failure. Instead of sherry, I let Francis buy me a whiskey.
Though the odds still appeared against us, Linus had not yet won his Nobel. (95)
There is also a feeling of Britain vs. America throughout the book. Watson and Crick,
along with their British colleagues are eager to see the discovery of DNAs structure as a British
victory. Pauling, who is working at Cal Tech in the United States is working on the same
problem, and if he solved it first it would be a victory for the United States. This seems
somewhat baffling to me, since James Watson himself is an American from the Midwest.
Nevertheless, throughout the text he seems to take jabs at how boorish and dull Americans are, or
at least suggests that they are viewed to be dull and unsophisticated by Europeans.

Methods
Much of our success was due to the long uneventful periods when we walked among the
colleges or unobtrusively read the new books that came into Heffers Bookstore.
-James Watson

The methods that Watson employs on his journey to discovering the double-helical
structure of DNA seem to be believable. That is not to say that I think all of his methods are
ethically sound, but in any case I believe that they are truly the route that he took when going
about the problem of solving DNA.

Salatino 9

The events that led Watson and Crick to their discovery seems highly unlikely, lucky, and
unorthodox. It seems amazing to me that much of Watsons knowledge was learned on the fly.
Watson absorbed most of his crystallographic facts through conversations with Francis Crick.

At other moments Francis would endeavor to fill my brain with crystallographic facts,
ordinarily available only through the painful reading of professional journals. (32)
This suggests that Watson had no interest in learning through reading books and doing traditional
research. It is also evident that most of Francis and Cricks proposed solutions to the DNA
problem were met with failure. At one point Watson even theorized that DNA would have a
three-chain helix in spite of the fact that equivalence favored two rather than three (138). In
light of all of the setbacks it is clear that persistence was a key ingredient in Watson and Cricks
success.
It is also intriguing, and gives good insight into how driven Watson and Crick were to
solving DNA that neither of them were supposed to be working on the problem. Francis Crick,
at the time was supposed to be working on his thesis and was scheduled to be moving to
Brooklyn in less than a year before the discovery was made. Watson was also engaged in other
projects, studying the mating habits of bacteria. All of their studies were done in their spare time
when they werent working on their obligations.
Furthermore, throughout the book Watson seems to have a fairly active social life. He
manages to go out with au pairs girls, attend balls with Francis and his wife Odile, play tennis,
take skiing trips, and attend films all while working full time on biochemistry and working with
Francis on the DNA problem in his spare time. It is hard to imagine how or when the man made

Salatino 10

time to sleep. Throughout all of these activities, however DNA was never far from his mind. He
mentions sitting in the films and being preoccupied with DNA (104).
Some of the other methods that Watson employs range from ethically dubious to
outrageous and hilarious. At one point he even fantasizes about using his attractive sister as bait
in order to become associated with Maurice Wilkins and to learn from him about X-ray
diffraction:
At the temples we all scattered and before I could corner Maurice again I realized that I
might have had a tremendous stroke of good luck. Maurice had noticed that my sister
was very pretty, and soon they were eating lunch together. I was immensely pleased
Furthermore, if Maurice really liked my sister, it would be inevitable that I would
become closely associated with his X-ray work on DNA. (24)
Other methods that seem to go against sound ethics is the underhanded way in which he
used other colleagues experimental data. Namely Rosalind Franklins data which allowed him
to check the correctness of himself and Cricks solution to the DNA structure. Perutz clarifies in
his letter to Nature that the data he passed along to Watson and Crick was by no means classified,
and in fact was available to them as far back as a year earlier. In spite of this fact, at the time that
he receives the data from Perutz, Watson believes the information to be privy and confidential.
Even more baffling is the cruel way in which Rosalind Franklin is portrayed by Watson
throughout the bulk of his book in spite of the fact that he owes so much of his success to her
experimental data. Watson even projects his feelings of dislike for Franklin onto other
colleagues, which may or may not be true. Only in his Epilogue does Watson attempt an apology
for this, and alas it is too late because Franklin had by that time passed away at the untimely age
of 37. Although it seems far too little and far too late I think it is worth repeating:
In 1958, Rosalind Franklin died at the early age of thirty-seven. Since my initial
impressions of her, both scientific and personal (as recorded in the early pages of the
book), were often wrong, I want to say something here about her achievements. The X-

Salatino 11

ray work she did at Kings is increasingly regarded as superb. Even better was her 1952
demonstration, using Patterson superposition methods, that the phosphate groups must be
on the outside of the DNA moleculeBy then all traces of bickering were forgotten, and
we both came to appreciate greatly her personal honesty and generosity, realizing years
too late the struggles that an intelligent woman faces to be accepted by a scientific world
which often regards women as mere diversions from serious thinking. (133)

Conclusion
The truth is that Jim is not as bad as he appears to be. He has not worked for the sadistic
pleasure of beating Pauling and Wilkins. He has not worked, as the reader might be inclined to
think, in order to win the prize from the top of the greasy pole.
-Andrew Lwoff (233)
While James Watson may have given himself and Crick more credit than they deserved in
the discovery of DNA (or at least failed to share the credit appropriately), I still think that it is
reflective, insightful and insightful. Though some points may be inaccurate, it is a personal
recollection and I believe any discrepancies to be accidental with the exception of the bitter (and
in my opinion unacceptable) treatment of Rosalind Franklin. By Watsons own admission,
people will disagree on certain points, and that in this sense, no one will ever be able to write a
definitive history of how the structure was established (3) If The Double Helix had been
written for the scientific community I believe it would have been vastly different, but also boring
and incomprehensible to the lay person. The distortions of truth that exist in The Double Helix
make it more engaging, and more representative of the human spirit.

Salatino 12

WORKS CITED
Watson, James D., and Gunther S. Stent. The Double Helix: A Personal
Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA. New York: Norton, 1980. Print.