arcticpenguin
27th March 2003, 05:43 PM
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=00062AB0-2F4F-1E64-A98A809EC5880105
Scientific American interviews James Watson of Watson & Crick fame (Crick & Watson for you Brits). I picked out some passages of particular interest to me.
JW: I never thought there was a spiritual basis for life; I was very lucky to be brought up by a father who had no religious beliefs. I didn't have that hang-up. My mother was nominally a Catholic, but that's as far as it went.
...
JW: I'd be working on something about connections between genes and behavior. You can find genes for behaviors, but that doesn't tell you how the brain works. My first scientific interest was in how birds migrated. Until you know how the bird brain works, you're not going to know how genes can tell that bird where to migrate. Because, you know, that mother bird isn't telling the young one where to go! So it's got to be inherited.
There are lots of other big behavioral things [to solve]. Some people say they're mystified that men can like men, but I say, "It's just as mysterious as why men like women!"
These things are so difficult. Francis insists that brain research doesn't have [the equivalent of] a DNA molecule. It doesn't have a central thing from which everything else flows.
...
SA: You have reputation for being outspoken, and get criticized for it. Do you have any regrets about things you've said?
JW: Occasionally. Sometimes I've said things and later people have said, "Did you really need to say that?" because it seemed cruel. And sure, I've done that. But when no one is saying that we're going nowhere, someone has to. My loyalty has always been to make institutions as good as they could be.
I think there's something in me of that same weakness that is so apparent in [tennis champion] John McEnroe. I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense!
...
JW: (RE Crick) Both of us are intellectually opposed to the idea that the truth comes from [divine] revelation.
...
JW: (RE politics of cloning etc) I think they're so contentious that the state shouldn't enter in. Yes, I would just stay out of it, the way it should stay out of abortion. Reproductive decisions should be made by women, not the state.
...
There's a mysticism about life. It's very understandable, if you're not a scientist, that you just can't quite see how it could all be molecules, and how you could start with this and end up with human consciousness and our complexity. Since we still don't know how the brain works, people say that we don't have it right. All we can say is, we don't think there's any spirit in a bacterium.
I remember when [physicist] Dick Feynman and I got identical letters back in 1964 from a California rabbi asking about our spiritual beliefs. I think Dick just wrote back that he had none. I was more polite because I wasn't Jewish [and didn't want to offend the rabbi], but I think that Dick could say what he thought. The problem in the United States is, it's not socially acceptable to be against god. Can religion ever be bad? That's not to be discussed. But in Europe it can be.
SA: Does the public know enough about genetics to make these decisions prudently? Do you worry about people's abilities to debate the merits of genetically modified foods and the rest?
JW: If you thought every plant was the product of a god who put it there for a purpose, you could say that you shouldn't change it. But America isn't what it was like when the Pilgrims came here. We've changed everything. We've never tried to respect the past, we've tried to improve on it. And I think any desire to stop people from improving things would be against the human spirit.
Scientific American interviews James Watson of Watson & Crick fame (Crick & Watson for you Brits). I picked out some passages of particular interest to me.
JW: I never thought there was a spiritual basis for life; I was very lucky to be brought up by a father who had no religious beliefs. I didn't have that hang-up. My mother was nominally a Catholic, but that's as far as it went.
...
JW: I'd be working on something about connections between genes and behavior. You can find genes for behaviors, but that doesn't tell you how the brain works. My first scientific interest was in how birds migrated. Until you know how the bird brain works, you're not going to know how genes can tell that bird where to migrate. Because, you know, that mother bird isn't telling the young one where to go! So it's got to be inherited.
There are lots of other big behavioral things [to solve]. Some people say they're mystified that men can like men, but I say, "It's just as mysterious as why men like women!"
These things are so difficult. Francis insists that brain research doesn't have [the equivalent of] a DNA molecule. It doesn't have a central thing from which everything else flows.
...
SA: You have reputation for being outspoken, and get criticized for it. Do you have any regrets about things you've said?
JW: Occasionally. Sometimes I've said things and later people have said, "Did you really need to say that?" because it seemed cruel. And sure, I've done that. But when no one is saying that we're going nowhere, someone has to. My loyalty has always been to make institutions as good as they could be.
I think there's something in me of that same weakness that is so apparent in [tennis champion] John McEnroe. I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense!
...
JW: (RE Crick) Both of us are intellectually opposed to the idea that the truth comes from [divine] revelation.
...
JW: (RE politics of cloning etc) I think they're so contentious that the state shouldn't enter in. Yes, I would just stay out of it, the way it should stay out of abortion. Reproductive decisions should be made by women, not the state.
...
There's a mysticism about life. It's very understandable, if you're not a scientist, that you just can't quite see how it could all be molecules, and how you could start with this and end up with human consciousness and our complexity. Since we still don't know how the brain works, people say that we don't have it right. All we can say is, we don't think there's any spirit in a bacterium.
I remember when [physicist] Dick Feynman and I got identical letters back in 1964 from a California rabbi asking about our spiritual beliefs. I think Dick just wrote back that he had none. I was more polite because I wasn't Jewish [and didn't want to offend the rabbi], but I think that Dick could say what he thought. The problem in the United States is, it's not socially acceptable to be against god. Can religion ever be bad? That's not to be discussed. But in Europe it can be.
SA: Does the public know enough about genetics to make these decisions prudently? Do you worry about people's abilities to debate the merits of genetically modified foods and the rest?
JW: If you thought every plant was the product of a god who put it there for a purpose, you could say that you shouldn't change it. But America isn't what it was like when the Pilgrims came here. We've changed everything. We've never tried to respect the past, we've tried to improve on it. And I think any desire to stop people from improving things would be against the human spirit.