James D. Watson: If we don't play God, who will?

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.

James D. Watson

cells mind brain

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

James D. Watson

important knowing ideas

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.

James D. Watson

theory-of-evolution religious science

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.

James D. Watson

tunnels motivational hands

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.

James D. Watson

decision mind giving

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

James D. Watson

equal

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

James D. Watson

underemployed significant life-and-love

Never be the brightest person in the room.

James D. Watson

persons rooms

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.

James D. Watson

fate sacrifice father

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?

James D. Watson

knowing may add

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.

James D. Watson

heritage intellectual humanity

Our goal should be to understand our differences.

James D. Watson

differences goal should

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

James D. Watson

fats interviews people

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

James D. Watson

social-work physics social

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.

James D. Watson

adventure travel moving

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

James D. Watson

genius stupid

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

James D. Watson

my-own lifetime would-be

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

James D. Watson

great-science subjects way

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.

James D. Watson

evil want wings

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

James D. Watson

distance discovery science