James D. Watson quotes - page 3

James D. Watson is an American molecular biologist and geneticist, best known for co-discovering the structure of DNA. His groundbreaking work with Francis Crick changed the course of modern biology and medicine. He has received numerous honors for his contributions to science, including the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Here are 101 of his quotes:

As a child, I lived with being punier than other boys in class. The only consolation was my parents' empathy - they encouraged constant trips to the local drugstore for chocolate milk shakes to fatten me up. The shakes made me happy, but still, all through grammar school, other kids shoved me around.

James D. Watson

If the child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice that only a few are given under the present system.

James D. Watson

Science Ph.D. students have effectively become serfs.

James D. Watson

The brain is the last and grandest biological frontier, the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe.

James D. Watson

To those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief.

James D. Watson

To have success in science, you need some luck. But to succeed in science, you need a lot more than luck.

James D. Watson

Science is no stranger to controversy. The pursuit of discovery, of knowledge, is often uncomfortable and disconcerting.

James D. Watson

Since 1978, when a pail of water was dumped over my Harvard friend E. O. Wilson for saying that genes influence human behaviour, the assault against human behavioural genetics by wishful thinking has remained vigorous.

James D. Watson

Moving forward will not be for the faint of heart.

James D. Watson

We do not yet adequately understand the way in which the different environments in the world have selected over time the genes which determine our capacity to do different things.

James D. Watson

The thought that some people are innately wicked disturbs me.

James D. Watson

I have always fiercely defended the position that we should base our view of the world on the state of our knowledge, on fact, and not on what we would like it to be.

James D. Watson

I'm not good enough to do something I dislike. In fact, I find it hard enough to do something that I like.

James D. Watson

Perhaps, as my former colleague Francis Crick suggested, no one should be thought alive until about three days after birth.

James D. Watson

For all my life, America was the place to be.

James D. Watson

I don't want 100 different cures of cancer. I want, you know, give me five. So if you had, you know, five medicines, you could do away with 90 percent of cancer. That's sort of my objective. I think we're going to do it.

James D. Watson

DNA was my only gold rush. I regarded DNA as worth a gold rush.

James D. Watson

Ever since we achieved a breakthrough in the area of recombinant DNA in 1973, left-wing nuts and environmental kooks have been screaming that we will create some kind of Frankenstein bug or Andromeda Strain that will destroy us all.

James D. Watson

If someone's liver doesn't work, we blame it on the genes; if someone's brain doesn't work properly, we blame the school. It's actually more humane to think of the condition as genetic. For instance, you don't want to say that someone is born unpleasant, but sometimes that might be true.

James D. Watson

If you accept that people are the products of evolution, then you have to have an open mind to the truth. Unfair discrimination exists whether we like it or not; I wouldn't have married a gum-chewing vegetarian.

James D. Watson

I have a son, who is a... not an ordinary form of schizophrenia, but clearly, cannot take care of himself. And the great fear of then, of all parents is, when the parents die, who takes care of your child? And the answer is: they become homeless.

James D. Watson

One-third of all female infertility is the result of blocked fallopian tubes. If fertilization could be done in the lab and then the fertilized egg implanted in the womb, it would get around that problem. Millions of women who cannot have children would suddenly be able to.

James D. Watson