American Masters (1985–…): Season 33, Episode 1 - James Watson: Decoding Watson - full transcript

- The National Endowment
for the Humanities,

bringing you the stories
that define us.

♪♪

- It's all for you.

- Yes.

- There he is...
The man of the hour!

- How are you?

- I'm fine.
- Great to see you!

- Cheese.

- You have to smile
for the cameras.

- Happy birthday!
- How 'bout a good champagne?



- I discovered DNA
through Jim Watson.

I took a class from him,

and after one hour,
that was it for me.

Nancy!

- I think he changed many
people's lives that way.

- Jim Watson changed my life!

- He was clearly absolutely
brilliant and very eccentric.

- Look.

- Oh, Jim!
Mwah!

- I had to be here
and look alive today.

- He was a genius who discovered
the secret of life

when he was 25 years old.

It burst on the scene.
There it was.

Bang.
Just there it was.



- You could see it
would be revolutionary.

And, of course, it was.

- It's a discovery of a lifetime.

- It's certainly one of the
greatest discoveries in science

that's ever been made,
and in biology,

it ranks up there
with Darwin and Mendel

and then Watson and Crick.

- Well, I wanted to do
something big.

That's all.

- This is the kind of scientist
that people,

in some ways,
dream about, right?

Trying to discover something
that people care about,

would have a lasting impact.

There are sort of
not too many people

that I can think of that
sort of had that moment.

- The structure of DNA
was a monumental discovery.

It would have been hard
for anyone,

no matter how brilliant
they were,

to do another thing
at that level.

- It was even more important
than Darwin.

- There are many
adjectives one could use

to describe Jim Watson,
and "humble" is probably not

the first to jump to your lips.

♪♪

- He's kind of
the enfant terrible.

- Jim is a radical.

- He's an anarchist.

- Rules are there to be broken.

He's not afraid of that.

- The rebel against
all standard thinking.

- He was so innovative.
He had such vision.

And he was so full
of intellectual energy and life.

But he upset too many people.

- You have gotten in trouble with
what you say and what you write.

- Incredibly caustic,

irresponsible things
about women,

about African-Americans, about
whole categories of people.

- I don't know whether simply
because you're the most

candid person alive

or whether you have
no edit function in your brain.

- We've all heard the racist,
sexist, eugenicist, you name it.

There's a risk to thinking
about genes all the time.

- He loves throwing ideas
out there

that provoke people
to push back against them.

- Sometimes telling the truth
or just thinking the truth

leads you into great difficulty,
like, you know, Plato

or, particularly, Galileo.

They gave him life imprisonment.

- There are, you know, two sides,

and one you clearly
can't understand,

and the other embodies a person

that you respect and interact
with for how they engage science

and how they think
about a problem.

And they can't be reconciled.

- I think it's very hard
to reconcile all the parts.

I don't think they really fit
together very well.

And I think it's just part
of the bundle of things

that make up
this complicated human being.

- People are enigmas.

We all are.

Some of us are
just bigger enigmas

in more different directions
than others.

♪♪

- I've had this prejudice
since, you know,

my 20s that genes
really are important.

Oh, I think I'm a real
old-fashioned believer

in the paramount role of genes
as opposed to environment.

Genes... they make you
what you are.

♪♪

I want to be known as both
a writer and a scientist.

I might even be a mathematician.

Just some of my dreams.

You know, I like to believe
that I've been successful

for some of the genes

that I probably shared
with my relative Orson Welles.

- The DNA molecule might
very well turn out to be

the most important discovery

in the whole history
of medical science.

Imagine the implications
to duplicate a human being

genetically down
to the last detail.

- "Citizen Kane" was sort of
the most famous movie ever made,

you know, so the double helix

was the most famous piece
of chemistry ever done.

- Using physical
and chemical clues,

scientists have been able
to figure out

how the DNA molecule
looks in detail.

- Well, gee.
What kind of stuff is DNA?

- It's who you are.

That very core of your being...
It's in your DNA.

It's in your genes.

If you're talking about
the molecule of life,

it has to be able to do

an incredible number
of things, right?

It has to exist in every cell.

It has to have enough diversity
that, from that information,

you can create
an entire organism.

And it also has to be able
replicate itself.

So, understanding the structure
of the DNA molecule

is really key to thinking about
how all of these properties

can exist in a single molecule.

- DNA is often called
a double helix.

- It's two strands...

- Kind of like a pair
of spiral staircases.

- like a twisting ladder.

- Those are DNA's backbones.

There's no information,
per se, in the backbone.

What those backbones are
supporting in between them...

- The rungs of the ladder...
- that's what makes

each of us genetically distinct.

- The whole of nature's
instructions are printed

in these four chemical letters.

- The rungs are called "bases,"

which are these
little compounds...

- There are four bases...

- adenine, cytosine,
guanine, and thymine.

- A, C, G, and T.

- And they bond together
with hydrogen bonds.

- A always pairs with T.

C always pairs with G.

- We have four different
puzzle pieces

that you can arrange
in any number of ways.

- If you change
the sequence of bases,

that can change
the organism itself.

If you take those two strands
and you pull them apart,

you can rebuild a new second
strand on each one of those,

and you will have
two identical copies

of the original DNA molecule.

- That tells you how
hereditary information

is passed down
to the next generation.

That's the central insight
of the double helix.

♪♪

- I was born in Chicago
on April 6, 1928.

I grew up on the South Side
of Chicago

in a clean,
middle-class neighborhood.

My mother was very social.

She was a real social winner.

Everyone liked her.

She was unusually nice.

My father was shy,
whereas I've never been shy.

You know, sometimes
it's to the point

of saying too much of the truth.

My parents believed

that you just had to
look after other people.

They saw the solution to many
of our nation's problems

should only be solved
by the government

as opposed to business.

My father had been
an amateur birdwatcher,

a very obsessive one.

Whenever there
were birds around,

we went out together and walked.

- Jim went to
the University of Chicago

at age 16.

He thought for a while he wanted
to be an ornithologist.

- I thought probably I'll be
teaching birds

in a school like Montana.

I like Montana, so I wasn't
in any sense dreading

what my life was going to be.

Suddenly, I just saw
something else grip me more.

- Schroedinger was
a quantum physicist,

and Schroedinger's book
asked the question,

"What is a gene?"

- That was a really big thing.

That was maybe the biggest
of all questions.

I read that
in the spring of '46.

And I remember I said
"What Is Life?"

was more interesting
than bird migrations."

- Schroedinger basically
presented life

as a question of physics.

Physicists were very satisfied
with themselves by the 1930s,

and they had every right to be.

They had discovered particles
like electrons and protons.

Physicists were able to unlock
the energy inside of atoms

that you could see in nuclear
power and nuclear weapons.

There were all these
amazing things that

were happening
with quantum physics,

and they really started
to feel like they were starting

to find most of the forces and
the particles in the universe.

And yet when they
looked over at life...

they said, "Wait a minute.

Like, we can't explain that."

- This body... what is it?
How did it begin?

- The discovery of DNA itself
as the hereditary material

was not the discovery
of Watson and Crick.

- About the time
that Darwin published

"On the Origin of the Species,"
a Swiss-German scientist

named Friedrich Miescher
was looking for a project,

and his adviser said,

"See if you can find out
anything about the nucleus."

Miescher went down to
the local hospital

and got some bandages from
patients and scraped off the pus

because that was a great
source of white blood cells

and each one of those
has a nucleus.

So he had a little vial of
cell nuclei, ground them up,

and did chemical tests on them.

And he discovered in the cell
nucleus this new material.

He didn't know what it was.

He discovered DNA.

But DNA is not yet thought of
as the material of genes.

It's still pus on a bandage.

We knew by about 1910

that genes were associated
with chromosomes.

Chromosomes were known to
be made of DNA and protein.

It wasn't clear which one was
the hereditary material.

Protein is most of
the interesting stuff

that goes on in your body...

Tissue, muscle,
blood, sinew, organs.

Around the turn of the century,

a number of people studied
the biochemistry of DNA,

found out that it has
these four subunits.

Protein has 20 or more
different building blocks.

So, it seemed obvious
that protein

as a more complicated molecule,

so, probably, it was
the material of the gene.

Then in 1944, out of left field

came an experiment
that changed the game.

- Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty
did an eloquent experiment

with the bacterium pneumococcus.

- The bacteria that
caused pneumonia.

There were different strains
of the bacteria,

and one of those strains
was virulent,

meaning it caused the disease.

Then you had another form
of the bacteria

that was non-virulent.

- Oswald Avery showed that
you could convert

the benign form
into the virulent form

when the only thing
exchanged was DNA.

- These bacteria...
When they divided,

their descendants
could be killers, too.

- This, therefore,
was definitive evidence

that DNA was the molecule
of heredity.

- So, experiments like
Avery's were making it clear

that DNA was the stuff of genes,
but that alone didn't tell you

how they stored
genetic information.

They didn't even tell you
what DNA looked like.

- The Cavendish laboratory
at Cambridge University

was the most distinguished
laboratory for physics

in the world.

That's where Watson went.

- Francis Crick was a physicist
who was turned biologist,

and he just happened to be
in the same office with Watson,

and they struck up
a conversation.

- Francis was, you know, the most
intelligent person I met.

And Crick would have
never focused on DNA

if I hadn't been there.

- Crick had done amazing work
in World War Il,

working with the military on
different kinds of technology.

And so he was part of
that generation

that was trying to get their
footing in the post-war world.

- He was just this
larger-than-life personality,

and, I think,
was a great foil to Jim

in the sense that they
played off each other,

but they understood each other
at the same time, immediately.

It was like they could finish
each other's sentences, I think.

- We liked each other.

Yeah.

You know, I didn't adore him or
anything like that, but, uh...

I couldn't get enough of him.

- Their relationship was driven
by mutual competition.

They were always competing
against each other.

And that was part of what
made them close friends.

That was part of what made them
push so hard

to get that structure.

- Sometimes when you see
two names linked together,

you know that one person
did all the work.

But I think Watson and Crick
was... you know, we were equal.

- In the late 1960s,

Watson decides that he wants
to tell his own personal story

about discovering the structure
of DNA in 1953.

- I mean, it was a great story.

It would be nice
if we could write it up.

I was relieved when Francis had
no intention

of getting involved in it.

And I guess you have to say
it was a chance

to really show I was,
in some way...

better than Francis.

- "The Double Helix"
is kind of a prototype

of telling the story
of how science really works,

which was extremely
controversial at the time.

♪♪

- Here was an account that was
actually exciting to read.

With characters
and competitions and stories

and bad guys and good guys.

- There's a tremendous amount
of science

packed into those 107 pages,
but he tells the science story

by talking about
what was driving the people.

- Science was usually portrayed
in a very gentlemanly way.

You were polite
to your colleagues.

You did not badmouth them.

You never said that their ideas
were screwy.

Watson said,
"It's not gentlemanly.

It's rowdy, and it's fun,
and it's rude."

- Generally, as soon as
I finished a chapter,

I would always show it
to someone... generally, a girl.

- One day he had something
he wanted to show me,

and it was a draft
of "The Double Helix."

And he couldn't resist
looking to see what the reaction

was gonna be
to these pretty outrageous...

Some of the outrageous
things he said.

I thought, "Wow, this is

the best science book
I've ever read," you know?

I just thought it was
just thrilling.

- "I have never seen
Francis Crick in a modest mood."

The first sentence, I, you know,

would say that was
the essence of the book.

When I had the first sentence,
I had a point of view.

- Rather than thinking of it
as you're looking

through transparent glass window
into 1952-53,

"this is the way it was,"

think of it as looking through
glass darkly,

through a distorting lens.

You can't think of it
as a direct look into the past.

- In many ways,
"The Double Helix"

is a nonfiction novel.

It tells a basically true story,

but it fictionalizes
the characters,

including Watson himself.

- The outsider comes in,
shakes everybody up,

and just shows them
how it's done.

- I think Francis Crick,
the brilliant loudmouth

who spends more time

solving other people's problems
than doing his own.

- He dominated any room
he was in.

- Maurice Wilkins, a researcher
at King's College,

was trying to use X-rays

to figure out
the structure of DNA.

He was very reserved,
very, very, very British.

- Dr. Maurice Wilkins lives
with his family in Blackheath

in South London.

Dr. Wilkins,
what do you actually do?

- The main thing in
my kind of scientific work

is to be able to fiddle
with a thing,

go on fiddling with it,
and fiddle, fiddle.

- He's the kind of person
that you think

would have been dabbling
around with this forever.

- DNA belonged to Wilkins,
even though he wasn't

necessarily making
any progress on it.

- Maurice Wilkins was not
very effective, you know?

He doesn't come out...

good in the story.

- At the time, Maurice was
working under a man

called Randall.

- John Randall,
the head of the lab...

- Randall took the project away
from Maurice Wilkins.

- The decision was to bring
in Rosalind Franklin

to work on his project
with his student on his DNA.

- Rosalind Franklin, in her 20s,
became a real master

of X-ray crystallography...
To use X-rays

to figure out the structures
of complicated molecules.

Franklin was not a biologist,

and she was very frank
about that.

She did a lot of work
for years on coal,

so she was actually
able to figure out

the very complicated
structure of coal.

Franklin got hired
with the understanding

that she would be studying
the structure of DNA.

Well, nobody told Wilkins.

And nobody told Franklin

that Wilkins
was already studying DNA.

- I mean, that was unbelievable
that that happened.

- He starts to treat her as if,
like, she's his assistant,

and Rosalind Franklin
was not the sort of person

to be treated as an assistant.

She was very tough and wasn't
gonna take guff from anybody.

And Wilkins clearly did not know
how to deal with a strong woman.

- In "The Double Helix,"
she's represented

in almost
an entirely negative light.

Like, if this were a fairy tale,
she might be some kind

of a witch who is holding on
to the treasure

and she won't let it go.

- Throughout the book,
he uses the name "Rosy"

to refer to Rosalind Franklin.

In her own biographies,
it is made very clear

that she found
that name an insult.

- He said if she had wanted to,

she could have looked
really pretty, as though,

number one, she should have,
and, number two, she didn't,

and, number three, if she
really put effort into it,

that's the thing
that's really important.

- Outside the Franklin
that Watson knew,

if you followed her
to one of her weekends in Paris,

you would see
a very, very different woman.

- The book was controversial
because of the way

Jim wrote about people.

There are a lot of passages
in the book

that are just insulting.

♪♪

He could have written a book
about his personal experiences

in the discovery
of the structure of DNA

without doing that to people
that he worked with.

- I knew people would say,
"You can't tell.

It'll upset people."

Finally, it upset Francis.

Then he objected
to the president of Harvard.

- It was getting published
by Harvard University Press,

and they wouldn't publish it,

partly because they were
getting communications

from Crick and Wilkins
saying, "Don't do this."

- Francis wrote a letter
to the president of Harvard

or told the head of the press,

"I don't want to get between
two wild men."

- Francis Crick wouldn't talk
to him for years

after that came out.

But it was a best seller.

- It's on the list
of top 100 books

in the American history
of literature.

- And every history of DNA since
then starts with Watson's book.

- Well, it takes all kinds
of scientists to make science.

- Most scientists work
in a laboratory.

It's like cooking.

You know, you're
following recipes,

and you're doing experiments,
and you get results,

and you look at the results,
and that changes your thinking.

Jim, on the other hand, used
the results of everybody else.

- I was never really
a lab person.

Francis said I was always off
working with my hands,

and I suspect I am.

I like to think about
other people's data.

I found that there's actually
a role for people

who just think about
other people's data.

- "Impresario" is actually
a great word for Jim.

- He created a vibrant department
of molecular biology at Harvard.

- He liked having people
in his lab

whom he could shape and mold.

- It was a bunch of rag-tag,
kind of offbeat characters

who came together
to make the science.

- It was the beginning
of molecular biology,

and it was a time
when nobody had been trained.

We were the first people to be
trained as molecular biologists.

- You knew when you heard him
that you were

at the start of a revolution
in understanding,

and you felt as if you were part
of this tiny group of people

who had seen the light.

- Until DNA came along,

the big idea in biology
was evolution.

What was the tree of life?

How did it branch and so on?

- He wanted to displace
these evolutionary biologists

and replace them
with molecular biologists,

so he was going into war.

- Basically, evolution
was the top dog,

and I went there and said,
"I'm the top dog."

DNA was more important
than evolution.

- He didn't care, I guess,
if people disliked him.

He didn't care because
he knew he was right.

If he had to upset somebody
to do it, well, so what?

That didn't bother him at all.

In fact, he kind of
got a kick out of it.

- You can't go through life

not making enemies
and accomplish great things.

You have to have the courage
that something is better

than something else.

- When it was time to decide
which lab I should work in

to do my thesis work,
I actually went along to

a very famous professor
at Harvard

and asked whether
I could work in his lab,

and he looked at me
and said, "But you're a woman.

You'll get married.
You'll have kids.

What will be the good
of your having done

a science degree then?"

And I made it out of his office
before I burst into tears,

and I went to my second
thesis adviser choice.

- Joan came and said,
"Can I work for you?"

And, uh, of course I said yes.

- And it wasn't until several
months later that I realized

I was the first woman
to whom he had ever said,

yes, I could come be
a graduate student in his lab.

- I myself wondered,
"Can women be scientists?

There don't seem to be many."

All these people winning
the Nobel Prize were men.

And I think one of the things
that was so wonderful

about Jim's support
for a young person...

It didn't cross my mind...

He never made me feel,
"Oh, you're a woman,

and I don't know
if you can do this."

He never made me feel that.

If he was interested in you,
if he believed in you,

if he thought you could do it,
then he supported you.

- I always found women
made labs more interesting.

I wanted as many women
as possible,

you know, as long as
they were highly intelligent.

- He confesses to have a penchant
for pretty girls,

and he doesn't...

He'll say it to anybody,
and he certainly said it to me,

you know,
many, many, many times.

- I think one forgets

that this man was only
35 years old when I met him.

For people of that age,
whether they're men or women,

sex is certainly
on people's minds.

- I knew I was gonna be
very famous,

but it didn't necessarily mean
I'd ever get a girlfriend,

and if you're an unmarried
young man,

that's what you think about.

You want a girlfriend.

♪♪

- I worked for him in his office.

I was actually a math major
at that time.

I started in my sophomore year.

I had just turned
18 that summer.

There must have been something
really deep down that

I couldn't have described
that made me like him.

So, I made a mental note
at the end of the job interview

that I would marry him.

- We had one date
at the end of summer,

and then I took her
to a sort of faculty party.

Ask her.

- At the end of the year,
he took me to a cocktail party,

and... I don't know...
I had gin and tonics.

And then he walked me
back to the dorm,

and I said, "Dr. Watson,
it was really fun

working for you this year,"
and then he said to me,

"Well, I hope you'll work
for me next year, too."

So, that way,
I knew he liked me.

But he didn't really know
how much I liked him.

- You know, I didn't have

a series
of 20 important girlfriends.

I didn't have any important
girlfriend ever.

And really never was with girls
very much until I married Liz.

- People knew that he was looking
for a wife, I think.

But we never saw any evidence
of a girlfriend.

- It wasn't a very
public romance.

- She was just 18,
and I was then 38.

- So I think...
I don't just think it.

I've heard Jim say it.

It was unseemly.

Our dates my junior year
consisted of a movie,

a concert,
a cocktail party or two,

and sharing the same bed.

That's about it.

Oh!

I'm too slow.

- Yeah, you got to go
for the winner.

That's what Dr. Watson
likes to do.

- You have to go for winners
in science, too, you know?

♪♪

- Linus Pauling was
this great chemist.

Jim saw him as the competition.

- In a sense, when you're working
on the same problem

as someone else,
you're at war with each other.

- Why did he want to find
out the structure of DNA?

Is it to help humankind?

Is it to advance
human knowledge?

No, it's 'cause he wanted
to get it first.

He wanted to beat Pauling.

- Linus Pauling,
by the early 1950s,

had already established himself

as perhaps the finest chemist
in the world.

- If we want to understand
the human body,

we must know its structure.

- I guess both of us
at that time...

Our thoughts were dominated
by Linus Pauling,

a great chemist who was going
to solve biology, and...

- Had you met Linus by this time?

- He smiled at me.
- He smiled at you once?

- The story to me was the race
with Pauling.

Who was gonna win the race
with Pauling?

- In "The Double Helix,"
Linus Pauling is Goliath...

the lion in the room.

The dark-horse team
of Watson and Crick

are going to try
to bring down the giant.

Pauling didn't know that
he was racing against this guy.

He probably didn't even know
who Jim was.

- Well, one day,

Watson gets the news
that he never wanted to hear.

Linus Pauling had proposed
a structure for DNA.

- Of course, we were upset.
- We were really on tenterhooks.

- The question was,
could it be right?

- Pauling was claiming that
it had three backbones.

- A triple helix.

- Three backbones...
That's wrong.

- The structure was so awful.

It was chemically impossible.

- Very embarrassing
for the great Linus Pauling

to make a rookie error,

and so Watson thought as soon
as everybody starts pointing out

to Pauling what a dumb
mistake he made,

he would just go at the DNA
problem with everything he had

and then he would crack it
'cause he's Linus Pauling.

- The way Watson tells it,

he had been down
to King's College London

to tell Franklin and Wilkins,

"Look, the great Linus Pauling
got it wrong!"

- Linus wasn't gonna wait.

Someone at Caltech was bound
to tell Linus he was wrong.

- He had seen Franklin's lab door
open and gone in.

♪♪

Franklin didn't like that.

She was very private, and Watson
kind of barged in on her.

She didn't like
the interruption.

And the way he tells it,
he got a little cocky.

♪♪

Franklin just blew up at him.

- She came toward me, and I
thought she was going to hit me.

I quickly got out, at which
point Maurice was coming around,

and she almost hit Maurice.

- Oh, God.
Who hit who?

I don't think anybody
hit anybody, actually.

Some people may have thought
someone was gonna hit somebody.

- Wilkins and Watkins
were decompressing after that,

both sort of panting
and sweating,

and Wilkins said, "By the way,
I got something to show you."

♪♪

- Maurice opened a drawer
and took out a photograph,

and, boy, I could
hardly believe it.

- Photograph 51 is quite
extraordinary.

- This was the best X-ray
photograph of DNA ever taken.

Wilkins couldn't take
X-ray pictures that good.

He knew that.

- Franklin was probably the only
person in the world good enough

at what she did
to take those pictures.

- Raymond Gosling,
who had worked with Franklin

in creating the picture,
gave Wilkins that photograph.

- An X-ray picture is not

a simple picture
like a photograph.

- You can't interpret it
just by looking at it.

- When a X-ray
strikes the molecule,

the waves of the X-rays
can squeeze

in between the atoms,
and when they come out

the other side,
their directions are deviated.

- What it is is the pattern
of X-rays

bouncing off the molecules.

- You could tell there were
these two strands of DNA

that are wound
around each other.

That's what you can get
from X-ray crystallography.

What you can't get

is what's the chemistry
that's driving that structure.

- Watson just sort of, like,
looked at Photograph 51

and got an idea of the structure
that could explain it

and then went off
and built a model.

- Watson and Crick built models.
That was their approach.

- I cut some things out
of cardboard,

and so made the right shapes

and pasted things on which
would indicate hydrogen atoms.

- There's a lot of audacity
in saying,

"This can be figured out
just by making models of it."

- It was theory, you know,

what might this
molecule be like?

What kind of structure
might work?

What would be plausible?

- It's a hugely high-risk,
low-probability

approach to science.

- And Franklin just thought
this was ridiculous.

- It's as if they were moving
towards the problem

from different directions.

- She felt that the data
had to speak for itself.

She wanted to continue
making excellent measurements.

- Picture after picture
after picture after picture,

and then you sit down
and then you think about it

and then you work out an idea
for the structure.

She herself was getting
pretty close

to figuring out
the structure of DNA.

- But she's not gonna publish
anything until, like,

it's ready
to take it to the bank.

- You know, Rosalind Franklin

had that famous photograph
for eight months

and never concluded it
was the helix.

You know...

it's just stupid!

- She was very devoted
to hard evidence.

She didn't want to make
any claim

for anything
without hard evidence.

And part of that may be because
she was a female scientist.

- This idea of having to hold
so close the work

that you're doing
and the scrutiny

that it might get
since you are female...

I could relate to this idea

that I'm gonna keep
everything very close

until it can be checked
a thousand times over

before I share it.

- I think we all know
that if you're from

a marginalized group
and you make a mistake,

that could be the end
of your career,

whereas, you know, if you're
from a privileged group

and you make a mistake, "Eh."

- Well...

she... she just botched it.

She basically threw me
out of her office

when I said DNA is a helix.

So, you know, she was...

She was pig-headed.

- She had this gorgeous data,
a beautiful,

essential piece of data,
but she was, um, isolated.

- The men obviously had a network

because it was
a men's kind of job.

The men were free to interact,
to listen,

and they were
in their boys' club,

and without that,
nothing would have happened.

- They talk about the discussions
over lunch every day...

- I remember this conversation

was in the dining room
of our house.

We were sitting in a pub.

- you know, walking
to play tennis.

- I met him a little later in
the tea queue at the Cavendish.

- And so if you're not part
of those discussions,

it makes it a lot harder.

- Watson's great strength
was his ability

to synthesize the various
observations surrounding DNA

such that he could work out
the structure of DNA.

- And the next morning, I came in
and started playing with models,

and then I discovered
that you could put adenine

and thymine together
in exactly the same way

you could put guanine
and cytosine together.

- Jim realized that the shape
of an A-T base pair

and a G-C base pair
was exactly the same.

- Everything from then
on was clear.

♪♪

- February 28, 1953, is the day

that they solved the structure
of the double helix.

- Crick was famous for walking
into the Eagle bar and saying,

"We've discovered
the secret of life!"

- We used to occasionally,
just Jim and I,

just sit
and look at the molecule

and think how beautiful it was.

And I remember an occasion
when Jim gave a talk

to a little bar physics club
we had.

It's true they gave him one
or two drinks before dinner.

It was rather a short talk
because all he could say

at the end was,
"Well, you see, it's so pretty.

It's so pretty."

- You see a lot of stuff
about the Nobel Prize

and rivalry with Pauling
in "The Double Helix."

I actually think
their motivation was purer than

is actually portrayed.

I think they were thinking,

"We've got an intuition about
what's important in biology,

and we're gonna carry
that forward."

I don't think they were
thinking, "Nobel Prize."

- I think you could say
within five seconds

we knew we should have
a Nobel Prize.

Well, we got the Nobel Prize
in 1962,

so that was nine years
after the discovery.

It was Francis and I
and Maurice Wilkins.

And you could say,
"Well, what did he do

to deserve a Nobel Prize?"

But, in fact,
we couldn't have done it

if Wilkins hadn't started it.

- Maybe had there been more of
a collaborative environment,

then everyone might have made it
to the finish line together.

- Rosalind was bright.

She had all the intelligence
you need to solve the problem.

She just didn't
make friends easy.

If she had had a real friend
who was intelligent,

they would have
probably told her

on a couple of occasions,
"You're an ass."

- Later, much later,
the myth had arisen that

Jim Watson and Francis Crick
had stolen her work,

which is basically nonsense.

- Watson did not break in
to Franklin's office

and pilfer photographs.

- Wilkins showed it to Watson

without Rosalind Franklin's
knowledge.

- Wilkins showed it to me
'cause he was so frustrated

that Rosalind wasn't
following up her X-ray picture.

You shouldn't look at it
until you get permission,

but you can't see something

so potentially exciting
without thinking about it.

I would just say that's
against human nature.

- He didn't steal it, you know,
but he didn't acknowledge it.

That's the point.

I mean, normally in science, you
acknowledge the data you get.

And probably he should have
contacted her and asked, right,

"Are you happy if we use it?"

This is clearly unethical
behavior in science.

- By modern scientific standards,
we would have actually

considered this an example
of scientific malfeasance.

Showing another scientist's data
without their permission

is not something
that's allowed today.

But in that climate,
under those circumstances,

it wasn't considered that.

- When a woman made
a scientific discovery,

it often was
not credited to her.

She wasn't valued in the same
way that men were who made that.

Women's scientific discoveries

didn't even belong
to them, really.

They were just there
for the taking.

They belonged to the air.

- If we didn't exist,
then she would be

the most famous woman scientist
ever to live.

So, that's a big loss
that women don't have her.

- Of course, the greatest
tragedy of why

she couldn't have been nominated
for the Nobel Prize

was the fact that she died
before the structure of DNA

was considered
for a Nobel Prize.

- She died of cancer
at a very young age,

well before they got
the Nobel Prize,

and probably died in part
because of the science

she was doing that involved
X-rays and radiation.

- Jim used to say science
is a young person's game.

And, you know, he discovered the
double helix at the age of 25,

won the Nobel Prize
at a very young age,

and most people would have
sat on their laurels.

Jim didn't.

He came here because I think
he wanted to run his own shop,

if you will

and have a direction
and an influence.

- I think except when
I'm playing tennis.

I spend my whole life thinking.

That's all I want to do.

- This is a place where
you can set the stage

for what's going on in science.

- My own desire was
to understand cancer viruses

and then probably
understanding cancer genes

as fast as possible.

I had seen my father's younger
brother die of melanoma,

and, you know, it's awful.

Oh, Matt, we shouldn't
have waited

till the drug gets approval.

You know, that could be
another year from now.

And I have a self-interest
in trying to explain to them

that, you know, I'm still alive.

Even though I will soon be 90,

I'm trying to be
at the frontier.

- Jim was one of the scientists,
very prominent scientists...

He had already
won a Nobel Prize...

Who was working on
trying to influence Congress

but particularly the president

on putting much
more funding into cancer...

- We are here today
for the purpose of signing

the Cancer Act of 1971.

- now known as the so-called
"war on cancer."

- We don't have to tell
House and Senate members

how to get in the picture.

- To my amazement,
all of a sudden,

Jim was going to start
a whole lab

devoted to understanding cancer
at the molecular level.

- Even before the DNA structure,
I was conscious that, probably,

cancer was a genetic disease
that ran in families,

so I thought cancer would be
understood through DNA analysis.

- And he needed more resources
than he could get at Harvard,

so he was gonna go
to Cold Spring Harbor.

- You know, I've always loved
Cold Spring Harbor.

I had come here at the end
of my first year

of graduate school,
and I was 20 years old.

It had been the first place
for genetics

in the United States.

- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
was founded in 1890,

and for 60 years, it was funded
by Andrew Carnegie's foundation.

Huge, important work done here.

But when the Carnegie Foundation
pulled out,

the laboratory was almost broke.

And in fact, almost closed.

- The plumbing didn't work.
The lawns were overgrown.

The paint was peeling.

It was on the verge
of bankruptcy.

- When it began to fail,
I didn't want to see it fail.

- One of Jim Watson's goals
has been the directorship

of the Cold Spring Harbor
Biological Laboratories

on Long Island.

- Jim took over the lab.

In November of 1967,
hubby-pie Watson

brought me to Cold Spring Harbor
on our honeymoon.

He said he would run
Cold Spring Harbor Lab

for three years,
and if he hadn't built up

an endowment for the lab,
he'd just go back to Harvard.

- He started courting the
neighbors and getting donations.

He is actually pretty good
at currying favor

with rich people
and powerful people.

He learned to be a little odd,
to say funny things,

and they like him better.

There's this piece of Watson
lore that everybody knows.

- That he sometimes purposefully
untied his shoes

before he entered a room.

- Before he'd go in,
he would stop

and mess up his hair
and untie his shoelaces.

- The untied shoelaces.

- He'll deliberately untie
his shoes and mess up his hair

so he's the stereotypical
mad scientist

as he goes to meet with them.

- To give them what
they were paying for.

- He wouldn't do it on purpose.

You know, he's an
absent-minded scientist.

I imagine it's in his DNA.

- Jim stormed in
to Cold Spring Harbor

and went to work
with unbelievable energy.

Suddenly, it was vibrant.
It was growing.

- Under his leadership,
Cold Spring Harbor became

a focus for molecular genetic
research at a world level.

- I was giving my job
interview here,

and, at some point,
I realize there's somebody

yawning extremely loudly
in the first row...

throughout my talk.

And so I realize,
"Oh, this is Jim."

He was trying to say that,
"You know, this cancer stuff

that you're presenting
is so boring.

Give me something that actually
matters and makes a difference."

- There are very few institutions
in the world

that have such a big influence.

I mean, we've got DNA money
sent to us in Singapore

and China and Vienna
and around the United States.

You know,
just on Long Island alone,

we educate 32,000 kids a year.

- In our school, we had the
Meeting of the Minds Project...

- Yeah.
- Which is basically where

people dress up as someone.

Like, my brother did Beethoven,
and I did you.

- Oh. We should get
a picture together.

Say, "DNA."

- DNA!

♪ I got, I got, I got ♪

♪ I got loyalty,
got royalty inside my DNA ♪

- Watson has been DNA's front man
for 50 years.

That's because of
the "Double Helix" book.

That's because of his work
at Cold Spring Harbor.

- James Watson.

- He made DNA "DNA."

- Dino DNA.

♪♪

- Even if you don't know anything
about genetics,

you can say,
"Oh, it's in his DNA."

- Sometimes I feel like
I have comedy in my genes.

- If you want to find out
who you are,

you can get your DNA sequenced.

- Jewish?!

- So now, all of a sudden,
people have a molecule

that they can put all of
their beliefs about heredity on.

- I wanted to marry somebody
smart so my kids would be smart.

I got a phone call from
my gynecologist, and he said,

"Well, the future president
of the United States

is on his way."

In the winter of '70,
Rufus was born.

- Everyone was in agreement
that Rufus was pretty bright,

and I was very pleased,
because, you know, for a while,

he would go
birdwatching with me,

and we had some relationship.

- Jim used to use the expression

"A bad roll
of the genetic dice,"

and, in fact...

genetically, Rufus did...
He was dealt a bad hand.

- My son was damaged at birth.

He was having difficulty
interacting with people

when he was 3.

When he was 10 years old,

he began to have some sort
of social problems.

The school suggested we take him
to a local child psychologist,

and we had and, uh, just hoped
it would all disappear.

- In 10th grade,
he had a full-blown

psychotic event at Exeter,
and they sent him home.

- He came home, and we put him
in the local high school,

and three days later,

he took himself into
the World Trade Center,

where he went to the top with
the hope of ending his life.

- We realized that Rufus
was very, very, very ill.

- They said he had
sort of abnormalities

which you frequently find
in schizophrenia.

- I had never seen Jim weep
before or since in his life,

and, you know,
this kind of emotion

is not something that I'm used
to seeing from Jim, you know?

He wanted Rufus cured, and I
just wanted Rufus to feel loved.

You know, that's the difference.

Moms tend to be... They just
want to love their children,

and men try to fix things.

- I don't want to, in any sense,
be ashamed of him,

which I am not.

You know, he's really
a very lovable child, you know,

and he's a nice person,
as well as being very bright.

- Now, in this...
In this series, I mean,

obviously, I'll be labeled
as a schizo, right?

I mean, that would be truth
in advertising right?

My dad will tell people,
"Oh, my son Rufus...

He's bright,
but he's mentally ill,"

whereas I think of it
as the opposite.

I think I'm dim
but not mentally ill.

And so...

- No, it's unfair.
You're the kind of person

that... that, uh...

That Pop has, like, fought for
his, like, whole career.

- Much human disease
has a genetic origin.

It's likely that mental illness
is not caused by one gene,

but there may be hundreds
if not thousands of them,

and so I would like to know,
where did his DNA go wrong?

- Good evening.
History will mark this day

as a milestone
in medicine and science.

Researchers have decoded
the human genome.

That's the sequence
of billions of DNA fragments

that are the recipe
for humankind.

- The seeds of the Human Genome
Project were essentially sewn

on February 28, 1953,
when Watson and Crick

walked into the pub
and Crick said,

"We've discovered
the secret of life!"

- We have about 22,000 genes.

Working out what
each of these does,

we'll find out what we are.

- In 1986, Jim Watson
had organized

the famous
Cold Spring Harbor Symposium

here at Cold Spring Harbor
on the human genome.

- It was really mental illness
that was the reason why I was

so keen to get it started.

- Jim didn't actually get to go
to that session

because Rufus had run away
the night before,

and Jim and Liz
were out hunting for Rufus.

- He brought the world's
most influential

human geneticists together,

and he decided to have
an afternoon of discussion

about whether we really should
sequence the human genome,

because there was
a lot of opposition

from very prominent scientists.

- The scale was outrageously
beyond anything

that seemed achievable,
so it was only people

who were willing
to think way outside of reality

that could develop enough
momentum to make it happen.

- A small group of us
came together and asked,

"Okay, if this was
going to happen,

who should be the person
who leads it?"

And we all agreed Jim Watson.

It's obvious.
It's perfect.

It's so poetic.

- Jim saw the end game.

He saw that he could go from
discovering the double helix

to having, in his lifetime,
a sequence of the human genome.

He had that confidence again
that we could do it

even though
we didn't know how to do it.

- And then there got to be

this tense disagreement
about patenting.

- Tonight's "Eye on America"
takes you to the frontiers

of science news...
Locating the 100,000 genes.

Can those who discover
it all patent and own it?

- His boss was Bernadine Healy,
who supports the patent.

- She's Clint Eastwood in suits
and high heels...

Dressed for tea,
ready for combat.

- Jim Watson was emotionally
violently opposed to that.

- She was a highly
intelligent woman

who I just thought doesn't know
as much as I do,

and she acts as if she does.

- He said, "No.
DNA is very special.

It's the storage
and transmission medium

of biological information,
so you can't patent it."

But you know what?
She's his boss,

and they're on opposite sides
of this patenting thing,

but they're on opposite sides
of a lot of things.

The patent story became
a very public controversy,

and in a way,
one of them had to lose.

- Do you swear to tell the truth,
the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth,
so help you, God?

- Some of us have a governor
on what we decide

we're going to articulate
that we might be thinking

but maybe wouldn't think
it's time to say it.

Jim's governor was perhaps
a little harder to perceive.

And there were times
when he would,

in a very blunt way and
a dismissive way, offend people.

And he, I gather,
called her a lunatic,

not once but more than once,
in front of open microphones.

- Not a good way to make friends
and influence people.

- Jim has a penchant
for opening his mouth

and sticking his foot in it.

- What I call
"foot in mouth disease."

He got himself in
a lot of trouble a few times.

- I'm just not afraid
to say what I think.

- He and Dr. Healy had a history,
so they didn't come into this

with a warm
and fuzzy relationship.

She basically had it and said,
"We're done with you,

and if you don't resign,
we will figure out a way

to get you out of here
that won't be pretty."

- In March 1992,
he sends in his resignation.

It was a dark day.

This project was barely out
of the gates.

This is like a baby
still in the crib.

And Daddy just left.

Jim certainly had offended
a fair number of people,

and it was necessary for me
to do some repairs there.

But I benefited greatly
by the fact

that he was the initiator

of a lot of what I then
got to take on.

We declared victory of the
completed Human Genome Project

goals in April of 2003.

♪♪

- I don't think the genome
program would have come up

with any answer
for my condition.

I mean, my dad was successful,
so I always assumed

that I would be successful
at what I tried to do.

- Yeah, me too.
You make that assumption.

You kind of grow up
and you think, "Wow," you know?

"This Watson...
This is family thing, right?

He's extraordinary,

and, you know,
it's my genetic destiny."

And then, at a certain point,
you know, I started to...

"Oh, gee,

I wonder when I'm gonna have
my big ideas or something."

And then, you know,
that passed pretty quickly.

- I thought that I'd be smart,
but, you know,

it wasn't until I became aware
of how dim I was that I thought,

"Well, this is strange
because my dad's not dim."

Then I thought, "Well,
I'm a burden on my parents

because he's successful,

and doesn't he deserve
a successful child

because he's worked hard,
and, if you believe in karma,

then he should have earned
himself a successful son."

♪♪

But, Pop, do you still
consider yourself a scientist?

- Yes.

I'm probably still the best
scientist here

in Cold Spring Harbor.

♪♪

- He came here when he was 20,
and it's been his whole life.

- In an important way,
Cold Spring Harbor

is Jim Watson, and he's very,
very devoted to the place.

♪♪

I would say that it is
one of the things

that he probably feels he's
gonna be most remembered for.

♪♪

- Scientists on both sides
of the Atlantic

are now up in arms over comments

quoted from the biologist
and Nobel Laureate James Watson.

- Watson sparked a furor
when the UK's The Sunday Times

quoted him saying,

"I'm inherently gloomy
about the prospect of Africa,"

adding, "All our social policies
are based on the fact

that their intelligence
is the same as ours,

whereas all the testing says
not really."

- In 2007, he made...

some very unfortunate
comments about

race and intelligence.

- It was like a bomb
going off on campus, so, uh...

it sent everything
kind of spinning.

- I thought, "Whoa.
This is not good.

I mean, what's happened,
you know?

Where's the Jim I knew?"

- And that wasn't all.

Watson was quoted as saying
he hopes everyone is equal

but "People who have to deal

with black employees
find this not true."

- He said anyone who has had
black employees knows

that this is not the case.

Right.
Just put the little...

dig right in there.
Yeah.

- Tonight the Nobel Laureate's
job at a prestigious laboratory

is on the line and his
reputation is badly bruised.

Are there any studies
or any tests

that support his statement?

I mean, what is
he talking about?

- Well, he is talking about
a literature that developed

over the 20th century
in basic IQ testing

that does show a result
of persons of European descent

and persons of East Asian
descent in the United States

and also across Europe and Asia
scoring higher on IQ tests

than persons of African descent.

Now, one has to be
very careful, however,

about imputing a meaning to
the differences in the results,

particularly a genetic meaning.

The most obvious causal factor

that would be accounting
for the differences

in IQ test scores would be
the physical environment

that the two groups live in.

In the United States,
European-Americans

and African-Americans
have never lived in the same

social, environmental, economic,
and physical environments,

and, hence,
any outcome from those tests

cannot be ascribed
to genetic sources.

- The brain, it's a device.

Yes, the genes make the device,

but what it's capable of doing
depends on having good nutrition

and 8 trillion things
we don't begin to understand.

- Furthermore, it's not agreed
upon by psychologists

that IQ tests are actually
really measuring intelligence.

- Were you surprised to hear

Dr. Watson making
these comments?

I mean, there is a history here
of this man

making some very
controversial statements.

- Well, in Watson's case here,

he's really talking
about things,

personal beliefs and biases
that he has

that he'd like to be true

and that there's really
no scientific evidence for,

and I find that irresponsible.

I'm the first person
of African-American descent

to have ever earned a PhD
in evolutionary biology.

And when I was interviewed
by Anderson Cooper,

I tried to maintain
the scientific high ground

and not in the interview, um,

give to the viewing audience
the pain that I feel every time

I read these words about how,
because of my genetic heritage,

I can't be or am not as good
a scientist as Watson was.

- For me, personally, he stands
for... in my world,

stands for critical,
radical thought,

and, you know,
how you can go back to a...

old, rooted notion, um...

that has nothing to do
with critical thinking today...

I don't know.
I really don't know.

- It's not science-based,

and that's what makes
you concerned that,

"What happened
to cause him to say it?"

- We had been in the habit

of taking gap-year kids
from England.

- And Jim and Liz
had a young woman

who was staying with them
for a year

who worked at the laboratory,

she went back
and became a journalist.

- Somehow, she got herself
the job

of writing a profile of him.

- And he gave an interview.

- And, unfortunately, she had her
tape recorder running,

which, um, I doubt

my husband was aware of the fact
that she had it running.

He said, "Why don't you come
with me to the tennis game,

and we can talk in the car?"

- Yeah, I was trying
to keep the girl amused

as I drove her back
from watching me play tennis.

That's it.

So, what really concerned me
was how my tennis was.

From the moment I read it,
I knew I was in deep shit.

- It was picked up
in the British press,

and then it just blew up
in a few days.

- Well, you get into trouble.
You can't control yourself.

I mean, but sometimes
we don't know.

I mean, just take
the race stuff that...

Africa and Europe.
- Yeah.

- The question still is
how could someone as smart

as you are say what you did?

- Oh, I was saying
something to a girl.

I never thought of her
as a reporter.

She lived in our house
for a year.

- Well, that doesn't
make any difference.

- I was treating her
like a daughter, and...

- That doesn't make
any difference, either.

Did you think the thought?

- Sure, I thought the thought,
whether it was right or wrong.

I didn't think it appropriate
ever to say it in public.

- Right.

- I never expected this woman
who lived with us for a year

would write an article

which would make me
despised by so many people.

I regret it.

I can't erase it by now saying
I never meant what I said.

- I just... We were devastated.

I really can't remember
'cause it was really bad.

That's all I can think of.

- Do you recognize it was off?
- Oh, God, yes.

Instantly, I saw...

You know, this is the worst
trouble ever in my life...

- Exactly. It was.
- Because it hurt people,

and I didn't intend
to hurt people,

and it implied
that some people I work with

I have poor impressions of.

I don't.

- I had calls from Washington

that were saying,
"Should Cold Spring Harbor

even be supported
by public research grants

with somebody who has
an attitude like that?"

My main concern at that time
was making sure

that Cold Spring Harbor,
the institution, in 2007

was not gonna be linked to
statements which fundamentally,

I think, haven't been proven and
are very, very controversial.

Part of the reason for that
is the history of eugenics here,

going way back into
the 1920s, 100 years ago.

I didn't want Cold Spring Harbor
to get recast

in the era
of the eugenics movement again.

- Early on in the history
of Cold Spring,

a scientist named
Charles Davenport

took over the leadership of
the biological research there.

He believed in what was known
as eugenics...

That if you prevented certain
people from having children

and promoted other people
to have children

based on their genes, you could
improve the human race.

Thousands and thousands
and thousands of people

were sterilized
because they were deemed unfit.

- By the 1930s,

the only people who
were promoting it were Nazis.

They were awful!

- The Nazis in Germany were
embracing eugenics

and promoting it.

They were celebrating the work
of these American eugenicists.

But back in the United States,

people like Charles Davenport
were on the outs.

Other scientists were realizing
that it was

just a way of justifying racism.

All these old attitudes
were being propped up

by a poor reading of genetics.

By the time that Watson arrives
in Cold Spring in 1948,

this sordid history
with eugenics is in the past.

- I was not in the slightest
interested in eugenics,

nor was anyone there.

- The laboratory has been
incredibly open,

putting all of this up
on the web that was,

you know, under Jim's watch,

and, in fact, he and I
have had this discussion...

That, given the history
of the laboratory and eugenics,

we can't revive this.

- They must have had
board members come out

from New York to,

you know, decide whether
he should be fired or not.

- There was some sentiment
to ask him to,

you know, step down from
the laboratory completely,

and I completely opposed that.

That was not even remotely
on the radar screen for me.

- And the next day, Jim was fired
without a lawyer or anything.

It was... It was...
It was like a kangaroo court.

- We wanted to make it clear
that Jim Watson

had no administrative role
at the laboratory.

That did not mean
that we fired him.

That meant that
we made it explicit

that he had
no administrative role.

I don't think what he said
was defensible,

mainly the comment about
African-American employees.

I wish he had,
for lots of reasons

but mainly for his own reasons,

he would think a little bit more
about what he says

because he has done so many
amazing things in his life.

- That's fine.

- He called late yesterday to say
he's back from Colorado.

- You know, Jim's still here.

He has still retained an office
and an assistant,

and he plays a role as
a scientist at the laboratory.

I think he is an extraordinarily
valued person still...

despite some of the things
that he said.

♪♪

- Given my desire never to stay
away from messy problems,

I was bound to fuck
myself sometime.

And that's what I did.

- Have your views
on the relationship

between race
and intelligence changed?

- No, not at all.
I would like for them to change,

since there be new knowledge
which, uh...

says that, uh, your...

nurture is much more important
than nature.

But I haven't seen
any knowledge,

and there's a difference,
on the average,

between blacks and whites
on IQ tests.

I would say the difference
is, uh...

It's genetic.

- He's...

wrong, you know?

He's just wrong.

- Race is less a biological
construct of humans

and more a social construct.

We know a great deal
about human genetic variation

and how it's apportioned
around the world.

There is absolutely no evidence

that there are genetic
differences

that favor intelligence in any
subpopulation of human beings...

None whatsoever.

- I'm a product
of the Roosevelt era.

And if you ask me
what people thought

about race in the Roosevelt era,

we thought
there were differences.

You know?

Thomas Jefferson thought
there were differences.

♪♪

It should be no surprise
that someone who wanted to find

the double helix believed
that genes were important.

- Racism suspends
all rational judgment.

It really does.

And it's one of the most
insidious things

that racism does.

It takes people who are
otherwise brilliant people

and gets them down roads

that are intellectually
unsupportable.

- Jim's been called a racist,
but a racist is someone

who makes the life of someone

who he has a strong feeling
of dislike for miserable.

- The guy was clearly wrong,
you know?

It's just...

It's just fundamentally wrong
to judge people by their race.

My point is that that's...
That's the...

The antithesis of who he is...

Is actually a person
who's extremely compassionate

and would look at people
suffering from a disease

and say, "It doesn't matter
what their religion is

or their ethnicity.

None of that really matters."

- What my dad doesn't understand
is that because people

worship him and treat him
like this living god,

that when you're in
a position like that,

you have to be extra careful
about what you say.

- He's been put on a pedestal

because of the significant
impact that his...

His science had
and continues to have,

but the responsibility
that comes with being

on that pedestal
is not being met.

- I would actually thank him
for his work

on the discovery
of the structure for DNA,

and that should not be
taken away from him,

despite the fact that
he holds views that I would...

Social views
that I feel are abhorrent.

- To the extent, uh, that, uh...

I have hurt people,
of course I regret it,

and, you know,
I like black people,

so why would
I want to hurt them?

I don't know anyone who...
Who takes any pleasure

on the differences
between black and white

which didn't exist.

What? It's awful, just like
it's awful for schizophrenics.

But if the difference exists,
then we have to ask ourselves,

"How can we try
and make it better?"

- I just don't...
I don't understand it.

It is very painful
because I do love this man.

I mean, you have to love
the teacher

who gave you
your life in science.

I do love that person, you know,
and you have to.

And I admire what he did for,
you know,

creating a world of science

and creating the careers
of all these people

who every one was privileged
to have known such a person.

I don't know.
It's tough.

- I guess what I think about is
after my dad's died,

how will people judge him?

And...

this is sort of an anecdote,
but I saw this video,

and it showed this albino
orangutan with blue eyes.

It wasn't albino.

Whatever it is...
Had white fur and blue eyes.

And it looked just like my dad.

And I thought,
"Well, if this orangutan looks

just like my dad,
what does this prove?

Does this prove that this
orangutan is highly intelligent,

or does it prove
that my dad's simply a monkey?"

And when I saw this video of
this monkey looking like my dad,

I was like... it was just weird,

because that's my position,
that we're...

You know, humans are all monkeys
and we wear clothes

and we live in houses,
but, you know, my dad's a monkey

that made the most of it,
you know?

I-I... That's the way I see it.

And he's just hoping
he doesn't die a monkey death,

you know, falling on the
forest floor and being ignored.

I don't know.

♪♪

- Rufus asked me how I wanted
myself portrayed.

You know, what was
a take-home lesson

after turning off the tube

and seeing me
for a couple hours?

I said, "I just always wanted
to be exceptional."

I think I have achieved that.

I want to be portrayed
as someone who was concerned

for the world about me

as important
as my concern for myself.

You know,
now I really miss Crick.

I don't have anyone I can talk
to now of Crick's intelligence.

Francis, do you think we were
lucky to have solved it,

or was it real brainwork?

- Well, I guess we were
certainly lucky.

We were lucky, I think,
for two reasons.

We were thinking about
the problem at the right time,

and then the two of us,
by collaborating,

when one of us
got on the wrong track,

the other one
could get us out of it.

We weren't at least afraid of
being very candid to each other,

to the point of being rude.

- You know, after I'm dead,

I'll be more famous
than I am now

because DNA gets more famous.

DNA is not overrated.

You know?

Some... Some things come and go.

Oh, DNA won't come and go.

♪♪

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- The National Endowment
for the Humanities,

bringing you the stories
that define us.

♪♪