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James Dewey Watson, the American biologist who, alongside Francis Crick, unraveled the double-helix structure of DNA and helped unlock the secrets of life, has passed away. Born in Chicago in 1928, Watson rose from a socially awkward, scarlet-fever-stricken youth to a prodigious scientific mind, attending the University of Chicago at just 15.
In February 1953, Watson and Crick famously declared at a Cambridge pub that they had discovered “the secret of life.” Their model of DNA, a twisted ladder encoding the blueprint of heredity, transformed biology and medicine, earning them the 1962 Nobel Prize for Medicine. Yet the race to uncover DNA’s structure was fraught with tension, especially with Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray diffraction work, including the pivotal “Photo 51,” was critical to their breakthrough. Franklin, who died of ovarian cancer at 37, received no Nobel recognition, a point of enduring controversy.
Watson’s later career was marked as much by audacity as by achievement. At Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, he revitalized the struggling institution into a leading center for genetic research. His 1968 memoir, The Double Helix, laid bare the competitive, sometimes bitter world of scientific discovery.
But Watson’s public statements repeatedly ignited outrage. He speculated on links between race and intelligence, suggested genetic selection could favor beauty or sexual orientation, and commented on employment bias against overweight people. In 2000, he claimed black people were less intelligent, remarks that led to the loss of his positions at Cold Spring Harbor. He reiterated similar ideas as late as 2019, resulting in the revocation of his remaining honorary roles.
Despite the controversies, Watson continued to fundraise for medical research and made headlines in 2014 by auctioning his Nobel medal for $4.8 million, which a Russian tycoon returned to him.
Watson leaves a complicated legacy: celebrated as the “Godfather of DNA” for revealing the blueprint of life, yet equally remembered as a provocateur whose comments on race, genetics, and ethics sparked debate across the scientific world and beyond.
