"Honest Jim" by J D Watson

Date:
1967
Reference:
PP/CRI/I/3/8/3
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: "Honest Jim" by J D Watson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Foreword This account of the events which led to the solution of the structure of DNA., the fundamental genetical material, is unique in several ways. I was much pleased when Watson asked me to write the foreword. There is in the first place its scientific interest. The discovery of the structure by Crick and Watson, with all its biological implications, has been one of the major scientific events of this century. The number of researches which it has inspired is amazing; it has caused an explosion in biochemistry which has transformed the science. I have been amonst those who have pressed the author to write his recollections whil they are still fresh in his mind, knowing how important they would be as a contribution to the history of science. The result has exceeded expectation. The latter chapters, in which the birth of the new idea is described so vividly, are drama of the highest order; the tension mounts and mounts towards the final climax. I do not know of any other instance where one is able to share so intimately in the researcher's struggles and doubts and final triumph. Then again, the story is a poignant example of a dilemma which may con front an investigator. He knows that a colleague has been working for years on a problem and has accumulated a mass of hard-won evidence, which has not yet been published because it is anticipated that success is just around the corner. He has seen this evidence, and has good reason to believe that a method of attack which he can envisage, perhaps merely a new point of view, will lead straight to the solution. An offer of collaboration at such a stage might well be regarded as a trespass. Should he go ahead on his own? It is not easy to be
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