You don't have to be a genius to win the Nobel...just avoid boring people

This post has been in the back of my mind for the past week. Some of you may have heard of James Watson, of Watson and Crick fame, they being credited (by way of winning a Nobel) for the discovery of the structure of DNA. James Watson has an illustrious history of inserting his foot in his mouth. In the past, he has stirred many controversies: he suggested if a gene for homosexuality was isolated, women should be allowed to abort their unborn child if the baby carried it, he has suggested that there may be links between a person's skin color and sexual prowess, or between a person's weight and their level of ambition. He has suggested that stupidity is a genetic disease that should be treated. He is infamous on the lecture circuit for being obnoxious and belittling his contemporaries, most of whom are no longer living. Of his peer Rosalind Franklin, without whose X-ray image of DNA he and Crick would not have been able to deduce the structure of the double helix, he usually reserves exceptional animosity. He has called her an irritable technician, suggested she would get along with men better if only she prettied herself up a bit. He's called her partially autistic and "either not a nice person, or just clueless".

His most recent comments have to do with what he felt would be a genetic basis for race-biased intelligence. The backlash from these latest comments has been substantial, both in the scientific community and out. His many speaking engagements to promote his new book "Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science", have been canceled, and he has resigned his post as Chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Labs.

I guess avoiding boring people wasn't enough to save James Watson this time. However, I have seen over and over that lessons similar to Watson's "Avoid boring people" do seem to permeate with the great successes in this field. Brilliant science is nowhere near enough. There are more politics, games, under-handedness, and dishonesty than I ever imagined. One of my many majors in undergrad was Math. I loved it. It was pure, logical, and honest. To an extent, I felt (and still do) that biology, at the molecular and atomic level, is the same. It follows the same principles of logic (not logic that we as scientists necessarily always understand) and honesty. But I have found recently that to understand, love, and pursue it in this form is not enough to grant one success. In fact, those principles alone will almost guarantee failure, and this is one of the many reasons I plan on leaving this field after I get my PhD.