Obituary Horace Judson (1931–2011)

Mark Ptashne* Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, United States of America

Scientists, I once heard, have an easier the information somehow built into, or time of it than composers and artists. In a attached to, the DNA and transferred ‘‘new’’ field, such as molecular biology, along with it? Experiments performed by anything that happened more than three Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod and weeks ago is ancient history (as Sidney their colleagues at the Institut Pasteur in Brenner once said). We bold scientific the 1960s distinguish between the models, searchers, like born agains, rise each strikingly supporting the first of these morning to fashion a new world, with our possibilities. These experiments (including own discoveries in the form of facts, lots of the famous ‘‘zygotic induction’’ and ‘‘Pa- them (check out the lengths of the standard JaMa’’ experiments—see Judson’s book) texts!). We ignore Emerson’s dictum: ‘‘Our were, of course, performed with bacteria. job is to turn fact into truth.’’ I recently spoke with an editor of a major In contrast, the composer awakens with journal that regularly publishes sensational the ever-present specter of Beethoven; the papers on the question as it applies to artist with that of Manet. Curiously, these higher organisms, and learned that s/he, practitioners of the arts, rather than like many of the journal’s authors, had avoiding the past, seem obsessed with it. never heard of these bacterial experiments! Schumann spent hours playing and ana- You realize, reading Judson’s book, that the lyzing Schubert, especially the E-Flat challenge is to engage the thought processes Piano Trio. Brahms wrote pieces based of these French scientists, ponder their on works by Weber and Chopin, and approaches and results, and design exper- particularly loved Schumann’s Carnival. iments of comparable power and clarity to Wagner wrote an essay on how to conduct confirm or refute their conclusions in a Beethoven’s Ninth, and Schoenberg said Horace Judson. different setting. Without that engagement, doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001104.g001 that his principal teachers were Mozart the new answers are apt to be (and in my and Bach. Schumann advised aspiring opinion usually are) baloney. composers to let Bach’s Well-Tempered vivid prose that imparts its lasting effect. I have emphasized here just one bit of Clavier ‘‘be your daily bread—there is no Rather, Judson had the drive and wit to The Eighth Day, but it’s a bit that reveals end of learning’’. probe until he understood not just who did Judson’s unique and remarkable contribu- And the great painters never ceased what, and with what quirks of personality, tions to our understanding of the way their struggles to internalize the past. but why they did it, and how they did it. At science works. The book, based on hun- Manet learned from Velasquez, Goya, each stage he reveals what was at stake, dreds of hours of interviews and discussions, and Watteau. Picasso said his goal was to what the crucial alternatives were, and covers with equal insight adventures from ‘‘make over Poussin based on nature.’’ In how the problems were solved (or not, as the earliest days of molecular biology to his manifesto of 1855 Coubert says, ‘‘I the case may be). Who cares about this (nearly) the present. When asked whether a simply wanted to draw forth, from a past, you might ask, we scientists being new piece was any good, Stravinsky said ‘‘It complete acquaintance with tradition, the neither artists nor composers? is too early to tell’’. Judson seems to have reasoned and independent consciousness Could it be that—for scientists as well as stepped in just at the right moment—the of my own individuality.’’ composers and artists—the past can be a principal players were still around (as some Could it be that there is more of a mindful source of inspiration, and that we ignore it are today), and yet events had followed so thread in painting and composing than in at our peril? Consider the question of how rapidly, one finding built on another, that science (in molecular biology, anyway)? states of gene expression are conveyed there was no doubt our world had changed. These thoughts occurred to me while re-reading The Eighth Day of Creation, from mother to daughters as cells divide. Reading his book, we feel privileged to be Horace Freeland Judson’s celebrated Are instructions passed along by regulato- part of a great intellectual tradition, and we book, after learning of his death on May ry proteins present in the cytoplasm (so- thrill once again to the joy of understanding 6 at his Baltimore home. Born in Man- called ‘‘cytoplasmic determinants’’), or is how we go about understanding the world. hattan on April 21, 1931, and educated at the University of Chicago in the Hutchins Citation: Ptashne M (2011) Horace Judson (1931–2011). PLoS Biol 9(7): e1001104. doi:10.1371/journal. College, Judson reported on the arts and pbio.1001104 sciences for Time magazine in the 1960s Published July 12, 2011 and later taught the history of science at Copyright: ß 2011 Mark Ptashne. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Johns Hopkins University. Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, The Eighth Day, first published in 1979, is provided the original author and source are credited. a gift that keeps on giving. It is not the Competing Interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist. completeness of his history, nor even the * E-mail: [email protected]

PLoS Biology | www.plosbiology.org 1 July 2011 | Volume 9 | Issue 7 | e1001104