James Watson's Retroactive Diary

The James Watson of the Past

So, this isn't really a review of James Watson's famous book The Double Helix, but a response to his prologue.

James Watson is commonly known as one of the co-discoverers of the double helix structure of DNA, along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins. The Double Helix book retells the discovery, in a way deliberately not free of James Watson's personality. To explain his approach, he writes:

As I hope this book will show, science seldom proceeds in the straightforward logical manner imagined by outsiders. Instead, its steps forward (and sometimes backward) are often very human events in which personalities and cultural traditions play major roles.

There are lots of ways to tell a history. Many of them are primarily factual: "this happened on this day". Lots take into account the events or the society (including cultural traditions) surrounding the key characters-- think of Einstein and Eddington's pacifism in World War One bringing them together. Some go into personal relationships and backgrounds-- the writer Dava Sobel has a tendency to try this (sometimes fictionally). But it's only since books like The Double Helix, in 1968, that we've really got much of a sense of the role of personality, particularly from the person involved.

Watson wants this book to be true and accurate. In fact, he had always wanted the book to be accurate:

The thought that I should write this book has been with me almost from the moment the double helix was found. Thus my memory of many of the significant events is much more complete than that of most other episodes in my life.  

He not only intends to be accurate concerning the events of 1951-1953 but also accurate to his own interpretation and responses to events and people. This is not "the discovery of the structure of DNA" this is Watson's version. In fact, the original title of the book was to be Honest Jim.

Importantly, he (attempts) to give himself a get-out-of-jail-free card for anything he might say that is controversial or rude, stating that he is writing as if without the benefit of hindsight, an as-it-happens account:

Thus 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.

This wasn't all that successful because the book, initally intended to be published through Harvard University Press but was blocked by both Watson's co-authors of the original article Wilkins and Crick (and I might speculatively add the university itself as universities are definitely in the business of deciding what is beneficial for them to be directly associated with).

There was an entire 1980 critical edition published by Norton that included some of the criticism and responses to criticism that surrounded the publication of the book.

But how accurate is such an "honest" retelling? Certainly every scientist knows that what we believe to be the case and what is the case are not the same thing. Watson partially acknowledged this in the epilogue of The Double Helix, particularly in the case of his description of the scientist Rosalind Franklin whose work was instrumental in the discovery.*

James Watson Nowadays

Is it perhaps better to regard Watson's book more of a diary after-the-fact than a historical recount? A diary is honest to the minute but usually considerably inaccurate with the benefit of hindsight. He states he was planning to write a book from the point the discovery was made. It's not such a huge leap to speculate that he was in fact writing an imaginary diary before he began working on DNA, keeping phrases in his mind or in notebooks and his letters to his parents (which he says he used for date references) that then made it into the book. I think there is a kind of prodigal, ambitious person who does this and I think Watson falls easily into both prodigal (attending university at 15) and ambitious categories.

The Double Helix is absolutely an interesting and valuable text to have in the world but I'm not sure that accurate is the right word. The book may be relatively or entirely accurate to the personal truth and that certainly has a powerful voice, but as soon as he starts writing sentences which ascribe beliefs and actions to people that aren't him we surely have to assume that (considering Crick or Wilkins' conspicuous lack of blessing for this book), Watson may as well be making stuff up. In short, it's a personal retroactive diary with all that entails when using it as a historical text.

 *I should note that Watson's misogynism, at the very least towards Franklin (and towards his sister) I don't think are undone by his epilogue explanation (although let's make some allowances for the Pleasantville attitudes that probably abounded). I found a blogger who wrote something about this that I vehemently disagree with but again, that's another blog post.