James D. Watson
James D. Watson
James Dewey Watsonis an American molecular biologist, geneticist and zoologist, best known as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick. Watson, Crick, and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth6 April 1928
CountryUnited States of America
One of the greatest gifts science has brought to the world is continuing elimination of the supernatural, and it was a lesson that my father passed on to me, that knowledge liberates mankind from superstition. We can live our lives without the constant fear that we have offended this or that deity who must be placated by incantation or sacrifice, or that we are at the mercy of devils or the Fates. With increasing knowledge, the intellectual darkness that surrounds us is illuminated and we learn more of the beauty and wonder of the natural world.
The brain, is the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe.
Moving forward will not be for the faint of heart. But if the next century witnesses failure, let it be because our science is not yet up to the job, not because we don't have the courage to make less random the sometimes most unfair courses of human evolution.
[As a young man ] I came to the conclusion that the church was just a bunch of fascists that supported Franco. I stopped going on Sunday mornings and watched the birds with my father instead.
The American public is being sold a very nasty bill of goods about cancer.
The luckiest thing that ever happened to me was that my father didn't believe in God, and so he had no hang-ups about souls.
Our goal should be to understand our differences.
My heroes were never scientists. They were Graham Greene and Christopher Isherwood, you know, good writers.
I think the reason people are dealing with science less well now than 50 years ago is that it has become so complicated.
I never dreamed that in my lifetime my own genome would be sequenced.
I have been much blessed.
As an educator, I have always striven to see that the fruits of the American Dream are available to all.
The pace of discovery is going unbelievably fast.
There are many people of color who are very talented.