James Watson Quotes

One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.

Never do anything that bores you. My experience in science is that someone is always telling to do something that leaves you flat. Bad idea. I'm not good enough to do something I dislike. In fact, I find it hard enough to do something that I like. … Constantly exposing your ideas to informed criticism is very important, and I would venture to say that one reason both of our chief competitors failed to reach the Double Helix before us was that each was effectively very isolated.

Murray and Herrnstein’s assertion, however, was that the discrepancy was so great that environment likely couldn’t explain it all. Similarly, environmental factors alone may not account for why, globally, Asians have on average higher IQs than other racial groups. The idea of measurable variations in average intelligence among ethnic groups is not one, I admit, I want to live with. But though The Bell Curve’s claims remain questionable, we should not allow political anxieties to keep us from looking into them further.

We do not yet adequately understand the way in which the different environments in the world have selected over time the genes which determine our capacity to do different things. The overwhelming desire of society today is to assume that equal powers of reason are a universal heritage of humanity. It may well be. But simply wanting this to be the case is not enough. This is not science. To question this is not to give in to racism. This is not a discussion about superiority or inferiority, it is about seeking to understand differences, about why some of us are great musicians and others great engineers. It is very likely that at least some 10 to 15 years will pass before we get an adequate understanding for the relative importance of nature versus nurture in the achievement of important human objectives. Until then, we as scientists, wherever we wish to place ourselves in this great debate, should take care in claiming what are unarguable truths without the support of evidence.

If you could make people with ten-point-higher IQs, we'd probably have fewer wars.

If we don't play God, who will?

If, therefore, we are serious about improving education, we cannot in good conscience ultimately limit ourselves to seeking remedies in nurture. My suspicion, however, is that education policies are too often set by politicians to whom the glib slogan “Leave no child behind” appeals precisely because it is so completely unobjectionable. But children will get left behind if we continue to insist that each one has the same potential for learning.

Khan analyzed the data and was relieved to find that his son’s DNA was “pretty boring.” In the brave new world of personal genomics, “boring” is the new “great.”

Given what a powerful determinant, mostly for ill, skin color has been in human history and individual experience, it is surprising how little we know about its underlying genetics. This deficit, however, may have had less to do with the limitations of our science and more with the intrusion of politics into science; in an academic world terrorized by political correctness, even to study the molecular basis of such a characteristic has been something of a taboo.

Right now, at my institute in the US we are working on gene-caused failures in brain development that frequently lead to autism and schizophrenia. We may also find that differences in these respective brain development genes also lead to differences in our abilities to carry out different mental tasks. In some cases, how these genes function may help us to understand variations in IQ, or why some people excel at poetry but are terrible at mathematics. All too often people with high mathematical abilities have autistic traits. The same gene that gives some people such great mathematical abilities may also lead to autistic behaviour. This is why, in studying autism and schizophrenia, we believe that we shall come very close to a better understanding of intelligence and, therefore, of the differences in intelligence.

Watson: Our society just hasn't faced up to this problem. In a primitive society, if you saw that a baby was deformed, you would abandon it on a hillside. Today this isn't permissible, and with our medicine getting better and better in the sense of being able to keep sick people alive longer, we are going to produce more people living wretched lives. I don't know how you get a society to change on such a basic issue; infanticide isn't regarded lightly by anyone. Fortunately, now through such techniques as amniocentesis, parents can often learn in advance whether their child will be normal and healthy or hopelessly deformed. They then can choose either to have the child or opt for a therapeutic abortion. But the cruel fact remains that because of the present limits of such detection methods, most birth defects are not discovered until birth. If the child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice that only a few are given under the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so chose and save a lot of misery and suffering. I believe this view is the only rational, compassionate attitude to have.

No one really wants to admit I exist.

The future promises a detailed genetic dissection of personality, and it is hard to imagine that what we discover will not tip the scales of the nature/nurture debate more and more in the direction of nature—a frightening thought for some, but only if we persist in being held hostage by a static, ultimately meaningless dichotomy. To find that any trait, even one with formidable political implications, has a mainly genetic basis is not to find something set immutably in stone. It is merely to understand the nature upon which nurture is ever acting, and those things we, as a society and as individuals, need to do if we are better to assist the process. Let us not allow transient political considerations to set the scientific agenda. Yes, we may uncover truths that make us uneasy in the light of our present circumstances, but it is those circumstances, not nature’s truth, to which policy makers ought to address themselves.

Watson: But legalities aside, I think we must reevaluate our basic assumptions about the meaning of life. Perhaps, as my former colleague Francis Crick suggested, no one should be thought alive until about three days after birth.

Science Ph.D. students have effectively become serfs. And who would become a serf when you can work for Goldman Sachs and get paid $300,000 a year to become a serf? Why drive a Chevy when you can drive a BMW — and now you're condemned to driving a car from Malaysia or something. Life should be fun.