spring books

The hunting of the helix The Double Helix by James D. Watson Weidenfeld & Nicholson: 1997. Pp. 174. £20 The Eighth Day of Creation by Horace Freeland Judson Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press: 1996. Pp. 693. $55 (hbk), $39 (pbk) ...... ·······················

When it was first published in 1968, everyone in the business seized on The Double Helix with eager anticipation: we wanted not so much to have our minds improved by the sci­ ence as to be entertained by some ofJim Wat­ son's grosser anecdotes. Nor were we disap­ pointed, and the reviews by Watson's friends and former friends propelled his book into The New York Times' best -sellers list. Watson and Crick: protagonists in a great intellectual adventure. Watson was probably surprised by the tumult, for he had not, I believe, envisaged a (Geo., known to himself and his friends as about-and Judson nails the canard-that succes de scandale; he meant the book, rather, Joe) and his tie club (membership limited to Nirenberg's was an accidental discovery, the to stand as a serious contribution to history 20, one for each amino acid); Fran<;ois Jacob's polyuridylic acid assay a mere control. by a protagonist in one ofthe great intellectu­ first encounter with the Olympian Andre All this is recounted in Judson's original al adventures of the century. Of course, as Lwoff; Sydney Brenner's excited dance on the edition, and the new material in this expand­ Oscar Wilde observed, autobiography offers beach in California when he and his friends ed version does not amount to much. It a unique opportunity to tell the truth about suddenly perceived how the messenger might includes some observations by Jacob on the other people, and it is no secret that Watson's be snared; and many another good story. character of his difficult colleague Jacques fellow Nobel laureates, Francis Crick and For Brenner, Seymour Benzer and Jacob, Monod, now safely dead (and theatrical to Maurice Wilkins, made strenuous efforts to allleaders in the quest, much ofthe allure went the end, with some lofty, probably well­ prevent publication ofwhat they saw as a par­ out of molecular biology when it moved from rehearsed, last words on his lips), and there is ody of the events. But Crick has since told his the periphery to the centre and became a dis­ an enlarged description of Frederick own version ofthe story, as also now have oth­ cipline, with departments in universities, Sanger's early protein sequences and their ers- many of them to Horace Judson- so textbooks and degree courses. Brenner impact on thinking about the code. For the one can take one's choice. laments that today it is all brute force and little rest, the text is essentially unchanged and One of Crick's objections to Watson's vast­ ingenuity, and that the conviviality has Max Perutz, for instance, is still "today in his ly entertaining portrayal is that it debases a vanished with the increase in numbers of mid-sixties" (he is actually now in his eight­ glorious achievement by turning it into a mere those joining in. The pioneers, who wrote few ies, with his intellectual, and indeed literary, race to Stockholm against contenders in papers and discovered so much, have been powers undimmed). Pasadena and London. In Crick's recollection, succeeded by what used to be known to the Substantial additions are two appen­ science was the only spur. Yet it is undeniable press corps as pisseurs de co pie. dices, which reassess the contributions of that one of the most painful experiences that A striking feature of the history that Jud­ Rosalind Franklin and Chargaff. Their his­ can overtake a scientist is to have someone else son relates is the extent to which the new sci­ tories show that premature death can be a shoot the bird he has in his sights. Judson sug­ ence was dominated by a coterie of friends in shrewd career move, for Franklin became gests, for. instance, that this is largely what a half-dozen or so laboratories. They kept in almost instantly a feminist numen. Watson's explains Erwin Chargaff's ill-natured reac­ close contact (without the benefit of e-mail rather unchivalrous treatment of her in his tion to Watson and Crick's discovery and to all or fax), exchanged results and ideas, met to book inflamed her admirers; and a regret­ that has flowed from it: the problem that he talk and planned experiments. They dis­ table biography published in 1975 made cherished was suddenly and brutally snatched played most often a lordly disdain for out­ strident assertions that Franklin had been a away from him-and, worse yet, by a pair of siders, and they received at least one nasty lone woman in a den of male bigots at King's amateur arrivistes. shock when Marshall Nirenberg - then an College, and that her work had been deval­ What makes The Eighth Day ofCreation so unknown in an unfashionable lab - found ued and her character traduced. absorbing, besides of course Judson's skill as a the key to the coding problem. When Judson has gone to some lengths to dis­ narrator, is the sense of a voyage into un­ rumours began to circulate, the members of perse the mist of obfuscation. The laboratory known regions. When Einstein conceived the the club reassured each other that there was at King's, he found, housed 31 research work­ Special Theory of Relativity, he wrote to his no need to take notice; and when Nirenberg ers, of whom eight were women. He traced mother that he had discovered not just a new reported, at the Moscow meeting in 1961, and communicated with all but two, and also country but a new continent. So it was when that polyuridylic acid was a messenger for the honorary biological adviser to the labora­ the principles of molecular genetics and con­ polyphenylalanine synthesis, few were pre­ tory, the redoubtable Dame Honor Fell. trol and the structure ofproteins started to fall sent at the session. Alfred Tissieres, then with Their testimony is unanimous: there was no into place. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. Watson at Harvard, reminisced that they had discrimination; the atmosphere was infor­ The personalities, the dramas, the anec­ all been furious with themselves for not try­ mal; and the women, together with some of dotes are all here - Crick; George Gamow ing Nirenberg's experiment first. It was put their male colleagues but never the unclub-

344 NATURE IVOL386I27 MARCH 1997 spring books bable Franklin, made it a congenial custom to classics. The Double Helix appears with the Earth's climatic history; the modelling of lunch together at the Strand Palace Hotel of a original foreword of saintly forbearance by these past changes has helped to validate the Saturday. Sir Lawrence Bragg, and a new introduction climate models used for future projections. What must assuredly have soured her life by Steve Jones which reveals that even the In presenting the effects oflikely climate at King's and, more importantly, her relations most accomplished of performers can have change, Schneider does not focus on the with Wilkins, was the written guarantee that an off-day. impact on the resources required by J.T. Randall, the director of the laboratory A historian has mused that the memory humans, such as water resources; a more (not, by the way, a "Scottish physicist", as Jud­ of man is too frail a thread on which to hang balanced account would have given these son has him), had given her that the DNA history; Judson's achievement, in drawing critical effects on humans more attention. problem would be hers alone and that Wilkins out the memories of so many participants in Rather, he homes in strongly on the loss of would be pursuing other interests; mean­ the epic of molecular biology and weaving biodiversity, devoting a whole chapter to it while, Randall had given Wilkins to under­ them into a single robust skein, is magisteri­ - despite the large uncertainties that tend stand that the new recruit would assist him in al. His work fittingly commemorates a gold­ to fog the issue-arguing that, because bio­ the crystallographyofDNA. The mischief that en age which already seems as remote as that diversity is fundamentally irreplaceable, its this caused cannot be doubted, but neither ofDarwin and Huxley. D loss must be considered as the most serious can Franklin's unaccommodating character Walter Gratzer is at The Randall Institute, King's effect of rapid climate change. and hostility towards the colleague with College, London, 26-29 Drury Lane, London The latter part of the book is devoted to whom she should have shared her ideas. WC2B 5RL, UK. the question ofhow policy decisions should When I came to the laboratory at King's, be approached in such a complex field. Here Franklin was already dead, but she was not the book has a distinctive North American remembered with affection. Before a labora­ flavour; there has been much more of an tory seminar on DNA, she circulated, as Jud­ The solution to open battle in the United States between son relates, black-edged cards, announcing some of the scientists and the lobbyists the demise of the helix and concluding: "It is pollution? working for the energy industries. This in hoped that Dr M. H. F. Wilkins will speak in Laboratory Earth: The Planetary turn has stimulated a lively debate between memory of the late helix." A witness of these Gamble We Can't Afford To Lose ecologists, who are trying to preserve the events told me that when Franklin discovered by Stephen Schneider planet, industrialists, who think any prob­ an error in a calculation of a Patterson func­ Basic Books: 1997. Pp.17 4. $20. Weidenfeld lem can be fixed post hoc, and economists, tion, which had apparently misled her, she & Nicholson £11.99 who are trying to gauge the likely effect on begged him not to tell Wilkins. Franklin's stat­ the sacred cow of economic growth. ue as a scientist remains unchallenged, but For logical decision-making, 'integrated Judson takes the view that attempts at canon­ Humans have rarely anticipated environmen­ assessment' sounds an appropriate formula, ization have done a disservice to her memory. tal pollution; action and pollution but is it realistic to suppose that all the relevant Chargaff is another whose work on DNA control have generally followed on from envi­ factors can be weighed by any of our existing has sometimes been seen as undervalued. He ronmental disasters or unacceptable pollu­ technical machinery? Of course, cost-benefit was one ofa brilliant and cantankerous galere tion damage. However, the potential magni­ analysis can be attempted, but the things that of Central Europeans given shelter by tude of damage to the environment that we really value are hard if not impossible to Columbia University in the late 1930s. humans are now able to cause, and the speed turn into numbers, especially numbers repre­ Grateful or not, they found it difficult to con­ with which such damage can occur, are such senting money. Schneider emphasizes the ceal their scorn for their American col­ that it is now necessary for the impact to be value of going through the discipline and leagues, who spoke no Latin or Greek, and assessed and action taken before the damage arguments that might lead to 'integrated they detested the insidious incursion of the occurs rather than afterwards. This is particu­ assessment', but sensibly draws back from pre­ 'hard sell' into science. larly true with pollution that is global in its senting it as the final arbiter. In what will be for Chargaff, moreover, could no more extent, such as that leading to climate change many readers the most interesting part of the retain a wounding witticism in his mouth as a result of the increased burning of fossil book, he attempts to explain the much more than a hot potato. To be sure, his description fuels or tropical deforestation. complex relationship between policy judge­ of Crick as "a fading racing tout" and some­ Because of this need to anticipate, ques­ ments and the scientific, technological and thing out ofHogarth departs from the norms tions are bound to be asked about the accu­ economic arguments (with all their uncer­ of polite academic discourse, and Judson racy of scientific arguments, and the extent tainties) that assist in the formulation of poli­ properly describes it as embarrassing. The to which the increased pollution is likely to cy and the prescription of action. Watson and Crick of 1952 were neither of matter. Answers can be found only by view­ Schneider has done much to raise aware­ them exactly Chargaff's type. Wilkins, by ing the problem in a wide context, taking ness of global environmental issues, partic­ contrast, remembers him as nothing other account of both the science and the politics ularly through his contributions to the than kind and helpful. It is certain only that, of the problem. The science of climate media. He speaks fast and lucidly, and had Chargaff merely kept his mouth shut, change is highly interdisciplinary, involving his writing possesses much of the same instead of denouncing Watson and Crick all of the main disciplines of natural and racy style. The book is laced with consider­ and their hateful model, his place in the pan­ social science. Because few can claim exper­ able technical detail that is informative to theon would have been a deal more secure. tise in more than a small number of the those with a training in science or policy, One might mention in this regard the late appropriate disciplines, any adequate but even readers who are not scientifically Lord Todd, a man of impregnable self­ assessment of the problem necessarily trained will gain a broad understanding of esteem, who was irked by talk ofWatson and involves a large community of scientists. the scope and scale of one of the most Crick's structure. They had not, he would Itisin this wide context ofscience and pol­ important environmental challenges of declare, determined the structure of DNA; icythat Stephen Schneider addresses the issue ourda~ D he, Todd, had determined its structure, they of global warming and climate change. The Sir John Houghton is chairman ofthe only its conformation. likely changes projected by climate models Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, Judson's book and Watson's have been are compared with changes that have Church House, Great Smith Street, reissued, not perhaps for the last time, as occurred over the millions of years of the London SWJP 3BZ, UK.

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