Geoff Arnold's Blog

Another day, another scientist. Tonight it was Nobel Laureate James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. He’s just published a fascinating memoir, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science, and he came to Pacific Science Center to talk about it. The format was billed as a “conversation”, but within a few minutes Watson was into his flow and ignored any attempts to turn it into a dialog. And that was just fine: it was Watson we had come to see. The obvious question: is “Boring” in the title of the book meant to be a verb or an adjective? “An adjective when you’re young, a verb when you’re old.” And there were many other pearls of wisdom. Interestingly, the book does not have an index. There is a list of important characters – a dramatis personae, if you like. Then each chapter ends with a summary of the “lessons learned” from that period of his life, and all of the lessons are gathered together at the end. Watson more or less admitted that he’d followed this pattern as a provocative experiment, but it seems to work. (I bought a copy, and read a chapter while waiting for things to start.)
Watson was passionate about the importance of science, and what he sees as the absurdity of a society in which a baseball umpire or a Wall Street trader are paid more than those involved in fundamental science. If we want more students taking science, stop pointing fingers at high schools ((Which, he claims, do much better than when he was an adolescent.)) or universities. Just pay scientists more; rational self-interest will do the rest. He was equally scathing about the kind of people making scientific decisions in Washington – “and don’t think that it will get better if we elect a Democratic president; our problems go much deeper”. He spent some time talking about Harvard, and Lawrence Summers, and women in science. His view is that the discoveries are going to be made by those who are prepared to spend 80 hours a week in the lab, regardless of gender. ((That’s why he recommends that doctoral candidates should choose a young thesis adviser without children.)) And this naturally led to a question about Rosalind Franklin, and he went into more detail about things than I had heard before. I need to read the book to confirm what he said, however.
Normally I don’t bother with book signings, but this evening I decided to get in line to get my copy signed. I think I just wanted the chance to shake the hand of a giant .

OK, not really. But Steven Pinker’s talk at Town Hall Seattle this evening explored three ideas:

• How language reveals our sense of “folk-physics”
• How swearing helps us understand emotions
• How innuendo explains the way we construct relationships

These and other themes are from his new book, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. In his persuasive analysis of the forms and role of swearing, Pinker used five of George Carlin’s Seven Words with a frequency and academic precision which had the (standing room only) audience rolling in the aisles. If this book tour brings him to your home town, do go along and see him – unless you’re easily offended, of course.
And on Thursday we have James Watson at the Pacific Science Center.