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A Scientist's Life for Me

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A Scientist's Life for Me NATURE|Vol 455|16 October 2008 AUTUMN BOOKS OPINION A scientist’s life for me Forty years after the publication of James Watson’s The Double Helix, Georgina Ferry asks why the life stories of so few scientists make it into the bookshops. In 1968 Peter Medawar, Nobel prizewinner and author of many witty reflections on sci- ence and its practitioners, consented to write a preface to Ronald Clark’s biography of the influential British biologist J. B. S. Haldane. Imagine Clark’s consternation when he read its opening line: “The lives of academics, considered as Lives, almost always make dull reading.” Later, Medawar recycled the opening paragraph for an essay in his col- lection Pluto’s Republic (1982), claiming further that scientists’ lives, unlike those of “artists and men of letters”, were “not a source of cultural insight”. James Watson’s The Double Helix, a book that broke the mould of scientific life-writing, also appeared in 1968. It provided abundant ‘cultural insight’ into the combination of good contacts, brilliance, luck, hard work and ruth- less competitiveness that brought to light the DNA structure. It was panned by many of Watson’s contemporaries — if Francis Crick had got his way, the book would never have been published. Yet in his own memoir What modern laboratory Mad Pursuit (1988), Crick later admitted that life? Scientific life-writing is now publishers. Most people have he was wrong: “I now appreciate how skilful a small and shrinking enterprise. Publishers heard of very few scientists, so those that they Jim was, not only in making the book read agree that the market for scholarly biography do recognize — Isaac Newton, Charles Dar- like a detective story, but also by managing to has suffered from the onslaught of celebrity win and Albert Einstein — seem the safest bets. include a surprising amount of science.” memoir, with ghost-written autobiographies The rankings of online retailer Amazon show In A Life Decoded, published last year, of models, sporting heroes and television per- that of the top 100 scientific biographies in the genomic entrepreneur J. Craig Venter recalls sonalities enjoying sales that a serious study United Kingdom, ten are by or about Darwin; choosing The Double Helix for a college cannot hope to match. in Germany, the first five places are all occu- assignment. Intending to train as a doctor on Selling biographies of scientists is particu- pied by Einstein, whereas Richard Feynman his return from military service in Vietnam, larly difficult, thinks Jenny Uglow, author of and Benjamin Franklin feature strongly in the he sensed from its pages the adrenaline thrill The Lunar Men (2002) and Nature’s Engraver United States. None comes close to making the of research. Generations of scientists have (2006), and editor at Chatto and Windus. top 100 biographies. pointed to books that opened up this new “People look for subjects that are close to their Biography shelves in bookshops are well world to them, notably the 1926 classic The interests, and they perceive scientists as just not stocked with volumes about recently deceased Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif. of their world,” she says. Booksellers face the or living figures in politics and the arts. A hand- Where should today’s bright 16-year-old, same problem. Their choices of books to stock, ful of scientists are represented: Venter’s memoir ambitious graduate student or interested gen- now largely in the hands of a select few in the joins well-received biographies of the crystallo- eral reader look for a personal insight into head offices of the major chains, influence the grapher J. D. Bernal by Andrew Brown (2005) A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life Avoid Boring People: And Other Lessons by J. Craig Venter (Penguin, £9.99) From a Life in Science In his review of the hardback edition, Jan Witkowski by James Watson (Oxford Univ. Press, £9.99) wrote: “Four decades on, our infinitely more vulgar Watson’s frank autobiography covers personal media has called Venter many things: maverick, areas as well as the discovery of DNA and his publicity hound, risk-taker, brash, controversial, later controversies. It “weaves a deliciously genius, manic, rebellious, visionary, audacious, detailed account of his life both in and out of arrogant, feisty, determined, provocative. His science with a series of lessons drawn from autobiography shows that they are all justified.” those experiences,” wrote Huntington F. Willard (Nature 449, 785–786; 2007). (Nature 449, 787; 2007). 871 OPINION AUTUMN BOOKS NATURE|Vol 455|16 October 2008 and of Francis Crick by Matt Ridley (2006), communicators, success depends and Eric Kandel’s autobiography In Search of on giving the job to a writer with Memory (2006) sold well in the United States. an already formidable reputa- These books are few in number, increas- tion. Simon Winchester is doing ingly the preserve of academic rather well with his new biography of than trade publishers, and often rel- the biochemist and Sinophile egated from the store’s biography Joseph Needham (The Man section to the obscure corner Who Loved China, enti- labelled ‘science’. tled Bomb, Book and It is regrettable that read- Compass in the United ers are not more alive to the Kingdom), as will cultural significance of sci- Samuel Taylor Col- entists. But who maintains eridge’s celebrated this gulf? Scientists publish biographer Richard their work in places where Holmes, who has only other scientists will chosen Joseph Banks, read it, in language that only Humphry Davy and other scientists understand. William Herschel Many fear that attracting pub- as subjects for his lic attention will lose them the first major work in respect of their colleagues; others ten years, The Age of dismiss tales of scientific rivalry as gossip. Wonder. The television Some argue that individuals are irrelevant to tie-in works for science too, the progress of science: anyone could have dis- with Simon Flynn of Icon Books covered the double helix, but only Leonardo reporting that the BBC4 series that da Vinci could have painted the Mona Lisa. accompanied Piers Bizony’s strongly In practice, science is done by real people, as biographical Atom (2007) “made a different from one another — except in their huge difference” to sales. devotion to their field of study — as any other Alternatives to the cradle-to-grave sector of humanity. Telling their stories trans- biography or memoir are to be welcomed. forms the stereotype of the scientist into vivid The Internet is ripe for exploitation, and is a individuality. Truthful biographies scotch the much more likely port of call for the young and myth of the solitary genius: any contemporary impressionable. Short autobiographies of Nobel scientist’s story is threaded through the net- their immediate academic circle. Even within prizewinners are available on http://nobelprize. work of exchanges and rivalries within and science, students learn so little of the history of org. But any scientist can include on their web between labs that makes it such an intensely their subjects that they have no real sense of the page or in their blog the story of how they got social activity. Parents, children, spouses and people behind the classic references they cite. into science, who inspired them, and the joys lovers feature as prominently in the lives and Biography and autobiography, it seems to and frustrations of their working lives. careers of scientists as in those of artists. me, offer an ideal opportunity to engage peo- The medium is not the issue, however. Pre- Little hint of personal background emerges ple’s natural curiosity about the lives of others senting the reality of the scientific life depends in the memoirs of deceased fellows written by and so draw them into the quest to under- simply on the willingness of scientists to appear close colleagues and published by scientific stand the physical world. Name recognition as individuals — and of their colleagues to academies. These essays are useful research remains a barrier, but there are some encour- applaud their doing so. ■ tools for historians, but not widely read by out- aging pointers. Palaeontologist Richard Fortey Georgina Ferry is a writer based in Oxford, UK. siders. Occasionally a scientist, having achieved has written a succession of brilliantly accessi- Her most recent biography is Max Perutz and the some level of distinction, decides that it might ble personal reflections on his field of study Secret of Life. be worth documenting his or her experi- and London’s Natural History Museum. He ences for the public. But most have no name admits that nobody had heard of him until he Discuss science biography online at http://tinyurl. recognition and therefore no market beyond started writing popular books. For less gifted com/3j6y44. Suffer and Survive: Gas Attacks, Miners’ Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain Canaries, Spacesuits and the Bends: The by Oliver Sacks (Random House, $14.95) Extreme Life of J. S. Haldane Neurologist and medical writer Sacks delves by Martin Goodman (Pocket Books, £8.99) into the world of music. Reviewing the hardback Physiologist John Scott Haldane deliberately exposed edition, Laura Garwin wrote: “Sacks is the himself to toxic gases. His results saved many lives, consummate storyteller, and his extensive from mine-workers to deep-sea divers. Reviewer network of patients, friends and correspondents Andy Meharg commented: “It is a fitting tribute to a — supplemented by a magpie-like erudition pioneer who enabled the human body to survive at the — keeps him well supplied with raw material.” extremes of modern life.” (Nature 449, 981; 2007). (Nature 449, 977–978; 2007). 872.
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