James Dewey Watson Quotes

48 Sourced Quotes

We used to think our fate was in our stars. Now we know, in large measure, our fate is in our genes.

James Dewey Watson
New ideas require new facts.
You explain things by way of ideas. Why do we have a government that is run by rich trash? Because they've used their money to buy the presidency. Bush is a tool for the people who don't want an inheritance tax.

James Dewey Watson
Never do anything that bores you. My experience in science is that someone is always telling to do something that leaves you flat. Bad idea. I'm not good enough to do something I dislike. In fact, I find it hard enough to do something that I like. … Constantly exposing your ideas to informed criticism is very important, and I would venture to say that one reason both of our chief competitors failed to reach the Double Helix before us was that each was effectively very isolated.

James Dewey Watson
Science seldom proceeds in the straightforward logical manner imagined by outsiders.... But even more important, I believe, there remains general ignorance about how science is done.

James Dewey Watson
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.

James Dewey Watson
Prism: But how would society react to such a proposal?

James Dewey Watson
I've seen no evidence of a god, so I'm not going to think about one.
Being raised nonreligious made you free. You could look at the evidence. Whether being nonreligious or a Democrat was more important, I can't tell you.

James Dewey Watson
Evolution itself is accepted by zoologists not because it has been observed to occur or is supported by logically coherent arguments, but because it does fit all the facts of taxonomy, of palaeontology, and of geographical distribution, and because no alternative explanation is credible.

James Dewey Watson
The brain is the last and grandest biological frontier, the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe. It contains hundreds of billions of cells interlinked through trillions of connections. The brain boggles the mind.

James Dewey Watson
Do things as soon as you can. If a decision needs to be made, make it. It gives you more time to change your mind.

James Dewey Watson
One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.

James Dewey Watson
Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles.

James Dewey Watson
To have success in science, you need some luck.
But to succeed in science, you need a lot more than luck. And it's not enough to be smart — lots of people are very bright and get nowhere in life. In my view, you have to combine intelligence with a willingness not to follow conventions when they block your path forward.

James Dewey Watson
I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense.

James Dewey Watson
We have complete confidence that further research of the intensity recently given to genetics will eventually provide man with the ability to describe with completeness the essential features that constitute life.

James Dewey Watson
Imagination comes first in both artistic and scientific creations, but in science there is only one answer and that has to be correct.

James Dewey Watson
Let's put it this way: I wouldn't buy gene-splicing stock for my grandmother.

James Dewey Watson
No one may have the guts to say this, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?

James Dewey Watson
We wish to put forward a radically different structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid. This structure has two helical chains each coiled round the same axis (see diagram).

James Dewey Watson
To make a huge success, a scientist must be prepared to get into deep trouble. Sometime or another, someone will tell you that you are not ready to do something. … If you are going to make a big jump in science, you will very likely be unqualified to succeed by definition. The truth, however, won't save you from criticism. Your very willingness to take on a very big goal will offend some people who will think that you are too big for your britches and crazy to boot.

James Dewey Watson
No good model ever accounted for all the facts, since some data was bound to be misleading if not plain wrong.

James Dewey Watson
When anti-DNA doomsday scenarios failed to materialize, even the modestly restrictive governmental regulations began to wither away. In retrospect, recombinant-DNA may rank as the safest revolutionary technology ever developed. To my knowledge, not one fatality, much less illness, has been caused by a genetically manipulated organism.
The moral I draw from this painful episode is this: Never postpone experiments that have clearly defined future benefits for fear of dangers that can't be quantified. Though it may sound at first uncaring, we can react rationally only to real (as opposed to hypothetical) risks.

James Dewey Watson
Watson: But legalities aside, I think we must reevaluate our basic assumptions about the meaning of life. Perhaps, as my former colleague Francis Crick suggested, no one should be though alive until about three days after birth.

James Dewey Watson
Knowing "why" (an idea) is more important than learning "what" (the fact).

James Dewey Watson
People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great.

James Dewey Watson