James Watson - AVOID BORING PEOPLE - Lessons from a Life in Science

Tom Wilson(1902-1969)—He died of a heart attack all too soon after his move in 1968 from Harvard University Press to Atheneum Publishers in New York City.

Barbara Wright(b. 1926)—She continued in research after marrying Herman Kalckar and moving to the United States, working first at NIH and later at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Boston Biomedicai Research Institute. In 1982 she became a research professor in biological sciences at the University of Montana.

Sewall Wright(1889-1988)—After his mandatory retirement from the

University of Chicago at the age of sixty-five, he moved to the University of Wisconsin where he served as professor of genetics for thirty-four more years.

Norton Zinder(b. 1928)—Continuing study of phage Φ and its interactions with E. coli, he remained all his career at the Rockefeller University where he is now professor emeritus.

David Zipser(b. 1937)—After completing a postdoc with Sydney Brenner and then serving on the faculty of Columbia University, he moved in 1970 to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as its bacterial geneticist. Increasingly attracted by brain research, he left CSH in 1982 for the University of California, San Diego, where he is now Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Remembered Lessons

Chapter 1. FROM CHILDHOOD ON CHICAGO'S SOUTH SIDE

1. Avoid fighting bigger boys or dogs 2. Put lots of spin on balls 3. Never accept dares that put your life at risk 4. Accept only advice that comes from experience as opposed to revelation 5. Hypocrisy in search of social acceptance erodes your self-respect 6. Never be flippant with teachers 7. When intellectually panicking, get help quickly 8. Find a young hero to emulate

Chapter 2. FROM ADOLESCENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 1. College is for learning how to think 2. Knowing “why” (an idea) is more important than learning “what” (a fact) 3. New ideas usually need new facts 4. Think like your teachers 5. Pursue courses where you get top grades 6. Seek out bright as opposed to popular friends 7. Have teachers who like you intellectually 8. Narrow down your intellectual (career) objectives while still in college

Chapter 3. FROM YOUNG ADULTHOOD AT INDIANA UNIVERSITY 1. Choose a young thesis adviser 2. Expect young hotshots to have arrogant reputations 3. Extend yourself intellectually through courses that initially frighten you 4. Humility pays off during oral exams 5. Avoid advanced courses that waste your time 6. Don't choose your initial thesis objective 7. Keep your intellectual curiosity much broader than your thesis objective

Chapter 4. FROM SUMMERING AT COLD SPRING HARBOR 1. Use first names as soon as possible 2. Banal thoughts necessarily also dominate clever minds 3. Work on Sundays 4. Exercise exorcises intellectual blahs 5. Late summer experiments go against human nature

Chapter 5. FROM OBSERVING FEO SZILARD AND MAX DELBRüCK 1. Have a big objective that makes you feel special 2. Sit in the front row when a seminar's title intrigues you 3. Irreproducible results can be blessings in disguise 4. Always have an audience for your experiments 5. Avoid boring people 6. Science is highly social 7. Leave a research field before it bores you

Chapter 6. FROM POSTDOCTORAL YEARS AT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY 1. Choose an objective apparently ahead of its time 2. Work on problems only when you feel tangible success may come in several years 3. Never be the brightest person in a room 4. Stay in close contact with your intellectual competitors 5. Work with a teammate who is your intellectual equal 6. Always have someone to save you

Chapter 7. FROM THE FIRST YEARS ON HARVARD'S FACULTY 1. Bring your research into your lectures 2. Challenge your students’ abilities to move beyond facts 3. Have your students master subjects outside your expertise 4. Never let your students see themselves as research assistants 5. Hire spunky lab helpers 6. Academic institutions do not easily change themselves

Chapter 8. FROM THE SECURITY OF BEING RECENTLY TENURED 1. Teaching can make your mind move on to big problems 2. Lectures should not be unidimensionally serious 3. Give your students the straight dope 4. Encourage undergraduate research experience 5. Focus departmental seminars on new science 6. Join the editorial board of a new journal 7. Immediately write up big discoveries 8. Travel makes your science stronger

Chapter 9. FROM WORKING FOR PSAC 1. Exaggerations do not void basic truths 2. The military is interested in what scientists know, not what they think 3. Don't back schemes that demand miracles 4. Controversial recommendations require political backing

Chapter 10. FROM BEING ENNOBLED IN STOCKHOLM 1. Buy, don't rent, a suit of tails 2. Don't sign petitions that want your celebrity 3. Make the most of the year following announcement of your prize 4. Don't anticipate a flirtatious Santa Lucia girl 5. Expect to put on weight after Stockholm 6. Avoid gatherings of more than two Nobel Prize winners 7. Spend your prize money on a home

Chapter 11. FROM BAD DECISIONS MADE IN HARVARD YARD 1. Success should command a premium 2. Channel rage through intermediaries 3. Be prepared to resign over inadequate space 4. Have friends close to those who rule 5. Never offer tenure to practitioners of dying disciplines 6. Become the chairman 7. Ask the dean only for what he can give

Chapter 12. FROM BEING EDITED BY HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1. Be the first to tell a good story 2. A wise editor matters more than a big advance 3. Find an agent whose advice you will follow 4. Use snappy sentences to open your chapters 5. Don't use autobiography to justify past actions or motivations 6. Avoid imprecise modifiers 7. Always remember your intended reader 8. Read out loud your written words

Chapter 13. FROM WATCHING TOP SCIENCE EMERGE IN THE BIOLOGICAL FABS 1. Two obsessions are one too many 2. Don't take up golf 3. Races within the same building bring on heartburn 4. Close competitors should publish simultaneously 5. Share valuable research tools

Chapter 14. FROM MANAGING CANCER RESEARCH 1. Accept leadership challenges before your academic career peaks 2. Run a benevolent dictatorship 3. Manage your scientists like a baseball team 4. Don't make midseason trades 5. Only ask for advice that you will later accept 6. Use your endowment to support science, not for long-term salary support 7. Promote key scientists faster than they expect 8. Schedule as few appointments as possible 9. Don't be shy about showing displeasure 10. Walk the grounds

Chapter 15. FROM HEADING THE COLD SPRING HARBOR FABORATORY 1. Avoid boring people 2. Delegate as much authority as possible 3. Institutions are either moving forward or they are moving backward 4. Always buy adjacent property that comes up for sale 5. Attractive buildings project institutional strength 6. Have wealthy neighbors 7. Be a friend to your trustees 8. All take and no give will disenchant your benefactors 9. Never appear upset when other people deny you their money 10. Avoid being photographed 11. Never dye your hair or use collagen 12. Make necessary decisions before you have to ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

© George Band: 111

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives: 40,49,57, 64,103,149,244 (top), 251, 254,260,281,288,290

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives, Barbara McClintock Collection: 59

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives, James D. Watson Collection: 3,5,7, 8,9,10,14,29,30, 81, 87, 89,107,175,176,183,184, 185,244 (bottom), 268,287,308

Photo by Manny Delbrück: 307

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