What the ‘Double Helix’ Taught Me
I chanced upon the book while reading the Instagram post of the Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna, who won the prize this year in Chemistry. The book was presented to her by her father and it helped her immensely in her journey to the Nobel Prize. The book appealed to my mind even after being a literature graduate and enthusiast who had bid adieu to science years back. To know about the secret of life and the thirst to know the way Watson and Crick solved the mystery after searching in the dark for a long time further intensified my curiosity.
The first thing I must admit is its style of narration. James Watson has narrated the journey from nothingness to finding out the miraculous structure of DNA in a penchant way. The first few pages had grabbed all my senses and I relished the idea that I have stumbled onto yet another jaw-dropping read which is quite an achievement for an ardent reader. However, I would like to describe the book not only for its narration but for several other reasons, because of which I decided to use the term ‘plethora of ideas.’ The book is for an inquisitive mind, what poetry was for Plato. It throws multitudinous questions at the reader, perhaps it may be the violent fusion of science and literature inside my mind that gave rise to these skeptical thoughts but anyhow that kept me up for a long time. Figuring it out one by one has pushed me to another realm which I must say I was happy to discover.
- LIFE HAPPENS WHEN YOU FORGET TO QUIT
This was the first conclusion I came upon every time I read a passage of the book explaining the constant failures and backlashes experienced by Francis Crick and James Watson. Their journey wasn’t a smooth or even a relatively easy one. To figure out something you haven’t even seen and only heard of takes a whole different degree of determination. Due to their knocking at the dead end more than times that would have been considered sensible, they are requested by Sir Lawrence Braggs, their director, to stop their mission. But the fire that kindled within both these souls and the passion to see their names associated with the massive discovery is what led them to the final road. I was left reading the last pages holding my breath awaiting the life changing moment not just for two scientists who spent all their youth chasing behind a helix, but for the entire world, to every human being who was alive and would be born. The constant efforts of Pauling to solve the mystery of DNA and the reckless mistake he commits while deducing the structure of DNA made me believe staunchly in the idea that the stroke of luck is not to be undermined.
2. UNDISGUISED SHADES OF COLONIAL PRIDE AKA WHITE SUPREMACY
In more than one instance has James Watson who is otherwise unpopular for his occasional remarks over racial inferiority and racial genetics, made his white supremacist stands clear. He not only reminds the readers about his American origin but lavishly attacks colonized countries especially India in the book. Following is one such excerpt that violently lashes at the pride of India as well as Cyprus.
“Eating at the Arts or the Bath Hotel was reserved for special occasions, so when Odile or Elizabeth Kendrew did not invite me to supper I took in the poison put out by the local Indian and Cypriote establishments.”
Even though his roots do provide a well-founded explanation for this statement, it is unnerving that it came from a well-positioned man like him. More than once, he has used the space to throw sneering comments sugarcoated in sarcasm at India and the whole act of colonialism. He has made colonialism look like a philanthropic activity with his lines,
“Though Francis could not help dominating the lunchtime conversation, his mood was no longer that of a confident master lecturing hapless colonial children who until then had never experienced a first-rate intellect.”
The whitewashed image of colonialism which according to its ‘masters’ was an attempt to provide education and culture to an otherwise uncivilized section is at play here. A perfectly carved masquerade to hide the ruthless plundering and dispossessing of a community through illegal capturing of their land. It is about time that the Americans like Watson realize that colonialism was not about benevolence but rather a forceful imposition of a culture and its practices upon an otherwise rich and thriving one. We were not at a loss as the masters seem to put it, but rather we were originals which you insisted on transforming into the copies of something that was flawed from within.
Reading these lines by James Watson, I’m forced to think of the sagacious words bespoken by Chinua Achebe. He once very conveniently reminded the world that the colonizer also lost something during colonialism. “He may not have lost land and freedom, like the colonized victim, but he paid a number of seemingly small prices, like the loss of a sense of proportion.”
The admission of guilt by the offender, after all these years according to Achebe, would have “at least shorten the recital and relieving of painful evidence.”
But rather Watson is apparently using his ingenious mind to pitch non-existent connections between race and intelligence. A scrambled attempt to prove that the Blacks are inferior to Whites lacks any scientific evidence. It appears that even though colonialism left the world and took its place in history (which is again a point of debate), it never truly left the minds of the colonizers.
THE MISOGYNIST WATSON AND HIS ‘ROSY’
James Watson and Francis Crick arrived at the helical shape of DNA by studying Rosalind Franklin’s X-Ray picture. Which quite ironically, was shown to Francis without her permission. If she was alive she would have received her due share of the credit in absolving the shape and features of DNA. But as she succumbed to ovarian cancer, her contribution remained largely vague and unnoticed.
Even though Rosalind Franklin is remembered as a haughty woman by some, it is evident that the tendentious nature exercised by the scientists in Cambridge against women had its effect on her. She came to work on her project in Cambridge where her director Randall had made her believe that she would be independently heading the project whereas Maurice Wilkins, her colleague confirmed that she would be his assistant which led to long years of unsettlement between both.
It is not news that Cambridge carried double standards when it came to women even if they are abundantly educated. The dining halls were different for both men and women; while men dined lavishly in a big hall, women of the same qualification were given a smaller room. To live in the shadows of misogyny, despite having clear skills and brains cannot be easy. After Rosalind Franklin’s death, her diaries were discovered and it showed explicable evidence of Rosalind having found the right base pairs and almost close to solving the structure of DNA. She was unsurpassed when it came to X-ray crystallography which in turn became the key to the treasure trove for Watson and Crick.
Rosalind Franklin is one of the many whose efforts were happily forgotten by the misogynist world. The day she left Cambridge after giving up on DNA entirely, she wouldn’t have thought (or maybe she wished, you would never know) that someone in the 21st century would gleefully remember and cherish the woman’s effort who was once close to solving the life’s secret.
