James Dewey Watson (6 April 1928-) was an American molecular biologist, geneticst, and zoologist who, alongside Francis Crick, discovered the double helix structure of the DNA molecule in 1953. In 1962, he, Crick, and Maurice Wilkins were co-recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Biography[]
James Dewey Watson was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1928, and he decided to study genetics after reading Erwin Schrodinger's book What is Life? in 1946. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1947 with a bachelor's degree in zoology, and he later studied in Europe. He worked at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory in England alongside his former classmate Francis Crick. In 1953, they used Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins' research on DNA to construct the current double helix structure of the DNA molecule, and he worked as a professor at Harvard University from 1956 to 1976. From 1968, he served as director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and he served as its president from 1994 to 2004 and as chancellor from 2004 to 2007, when he resigned as the result of controversy over comments about the linkage of intelligence and race. He believed that dark skin meant a stronger libido, argued that Jews were genetically intelligent, that the Chinese were intelligent but not creative because of selection of conformity, and Indians being genetically servile, and stated that a person's IQ could be affected by being black or white. In January 2019, the laboratory revoked all of his honorary titles due to his repeating of his views on race and genetics for a television documentary.