James D. Watson Quotes

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.

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.

Science moves with the spirit of an adventure characterized both by youthful arrogance and by the belief that the truth, once found, would be simple as well as pretty.

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

Remember, grab you're future with both hands and mold it into what you want it to be. It's the determined, who create the life they want, while the idle sit by and watch it fade away into nothingness. The future belongs to the exceptional individuals, who can see the light of the future, at the end of the tunnel.

It's necessary to be slightly underemployed if you are to do something significant.

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?

We're not all equal, it's simply not true. That isn't science.

One of the greatest gifts science has brought to the world is continuing elimination of the supernatural, and it was a lesson that my father passed on to me, that knowledge liberates mankind from superstition. We can live our lives without the constant fear that we have offended this or that deity who must be placated by incantation or sacrifice, or that we are at the mercy of devils or the Fates. With increasing knowledge, the intellectual darkness that surrounds us is illuminated and we learn more of the beauty and wonder of the natural world.

There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.

I turned against the left wing because they don't like genetics, because genetics implies that sometimes in life we fail because we have bad genes. They want all failure in life to be due to the evil system.

Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you're not going to hire them.

Our goal should be to understand our differences.

The way to do great science is to stay away from subjects that are overpopulated, and go to the frontiers.

Never be the brightest person in the room.

At lunch Francis [Crick] winged into the Eagle to tell everyone within hearing distance that we had found the secret of life.

A clone of Einstein wouldn't be stupid, but he wouldn't necessarily be any genius, either.

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.

I never dreamed that in my lifetime my own genome would be sequenced.

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.

A goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.

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.

Science that leads over the horizon depends on gathering the best minds and enabling them to do what the best minds naturally seek to do: pursue the most thrilling questions of the time.

Science has always been my preoccupation and when you think a breakthrough is possible, it is terribly exciting.

I recently went to my staircase at Clare College, Cambridge and there were women there! There have been a lot of convincing studies recently about the loss of productivity in the Western male. It may be that entertainment culture now is so engaging that it keeps people satisfied. We didn't have that. Science was much more fun than listening to the radio. When you are 16 or 17 and in that inherently semi-lonely period when you are deciding whether to be an intellectual, many now don't bother.

The ever quickening advances of science made possible by the success of the Human Genome Project will also soon let us see the essences of mental disease. Only after we understand them at the genetic level can we rationally seek out appropriate therapies for such illnesses as schizophrenia and bipolar disease.

For all my life, America was the place to be. And we somehow continue to be the place where there are real opportunities to change the world for the better.

There is only one science, physics: everything else is social work.

I don't think we are here for anything. We're just products of evolution. You can say, "Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don't think there's a purpose." But I'm anticipating a good lunch.

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.

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.

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

If scientists don't play God, who will?

Biology has at least 50 more interesting years.

Already for thirty-five years he had not stopped talking and almost nothing of fundamental value had emerged.

Nothing new that is really interesting comes without collaboration

I think the reason people are dealing with science less well now than 50 years ago is that it has become so complicated.

Take young researchers, put them together in virtual seclusion, give them an unprecedented degree of freedom and turn up the pressure by fostering competitiveness.

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.

I'm basically a libertarian. I don't want to restrict anyone from doing anything unless it's going to harm me. I don't want [to] pass a law stopping someone from smoking. It's just too dangerous. You lose the concept of a free society. Since we are genetically so diverse and our brains are so different, we're going to have different aspirations.

The biggest advantage to believing in God is you don't have to understand anything, no physics, no biology. I wanted to understand.

If we don't play God, who will?

I wanted to see if I could write a good book.

The brain, is the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe.

My heroes were never scientists. They were Graham Greene and Christopher Isherwood, you know, good writers.

One of the greatest gifts science has brought to the world is continuing elimination of the supernatural.

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

Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours. 5

Racists have often used pseudoscience to justify their socially damaging views; watch these films to see how science, by replacing ignorance with knowledge, can undo that damage.

The luckiest thing that ever happened to me was that my father didn't believe in God, and so he had no hang-ups about souls.