Abstract
Popularisation is didactic, in two senses, one obvious, the other more subtle and oblique. On one level it is about the translation of complex and esoteric ideas into the terms of everyday life. On another, it is concerned with the diffusion of images of science which suggest how people might operate as scientists. This paper deals with the latter aspect of popularisation. I shall show that popularisation tends to produce accounts of the activity of science which are highly schematic and incomplete. I shall also argue that under the pressure of structural and cultural change in biology new issues and concerns can be brought into popular discourse, which transform the nature and tenor of writing for the lay public. These claims will be illustrated by reference to James Watson’s The Double Helix, first published in 1968 and still in print. This book, I shall suggest, was written essentially to popularise a new style of research, to signal its appearance and to propagandise its technical superiority over the classical forms of biological enquiry. It was designed to appeal to student readers, in the hope that they might join the new discipline. Finally, it will be shown that an important effect of this publication has been to make competitive, individualistic, arrogant behaviour by scientists publically admissible and correspondingly to present the work on the double helix as a race.
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Notes and References
The programme was The Race for the Double Helix, in the Horizon series, broadcast on Monday 8 July 1974: see also D. Paterson, The Race for the Double Helix–Providence and Personalities’, The Listener 92 (July 22, 1974), 41–43; P. Vaughan, J. D. Watson, and F. H. C. Crick, ‘The Double Helix Re-Visited’, The Listener 88 (December 14, 1972), 819–21; J. Maddox, ‘When only the Uncertainties are Certain’, The Times (April 25, 1974), 7.
F. H. C. Crick, The Double Helix: A Personal View’, Nature 248 (April 26, 1974), 766–9; L. Pauling, ‘The Molecular Basis of Biological Specificity’, ibid., pp. 769– 771; E. Chargaff, ‘Building a Tower of Babble’, ibid., pp. 776–9; R. C. Olby, ‘DNA before Watson–Crick’, ibid., pp. 782–5.
J. Maddox, Thirty Years of DNA’, Nature 302 (April 14, 1983), 557–8; Thirty years of DNA’, Nature 302 (April 21, 1983), 651 –4; P. Newmark, ‘Thirty Years of DNA\Nature 305 (September 29, 1983 ), 383–4.
E. J. Yoxen, The Social Impact of Molecular Biology (Unpub. Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1978); P. Abir-Am, ‘Essay Review: How Scientists View Their Heroes: Some Remarks on the Mechanism of Myth Construction’, Journal of the History of Biology 15 (1982), 281–315.
See J. D. Watson (Biographical notes), Les Prix Nobel en 1962 (Stockholm: Imprimerie Royale, 1963), pp. 71–73; J. D. Watson, ‘Growing up in the Phage Group’ in J. Cairns et al., (eds.) Phage and the Origin of Molecular Biology (New York: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1966), pp. 239–245; L. Edson, ‘Says Nobelist James (Double Helix) Watson, “To Hell With Being Discovered When You’re Dead” ’;New York Times magazine (August 16, 1968). pp. 26–27, 31–46.
J. D. Watson and F. H. C. Crick, ‘Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid’, Nature 171 (April 25, 1953), 737–8: idem, ‘Genetical Implications of the Structure of Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid’, Nature 171 (May 30, 1953 ), 964–67.
R. C. Olby, The Path to the Double Helix (London: Macmillan, 1974 ); H. F. Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.
Yoxen, op. cit. (note 4 above).
S. Andreopoulos, ‘Gene Cloning by Press Conference’, New England Journal of Medicine 302 (March 27, 1980 ), 743–6.
E. J. Yoxen, ‘The Meanings of Life’, Trends in Biochemical Sciences 3 (February 1978), N29–30.
F. H. C. Crick, ‘The Structure and Function of DNA’, Discovery 15 (January 1954), 12–17; Crick followed this with an article in Scientific American in March 1954. This was the source of the erroneous diagram of DNA, which remained in the textbooks for about fifteen years.
R. Calder, ‘Why You Are You: Nearer the Secret of Life’, News Chronicle (May 15, 1953 ), p. 1.
See Yoxen, op. cit. (note 4 above).
Anon, ‘Clue to Chemistry of Heredity Found’, New York Times (June 13, 1953), p. 17.
Crick, op. cit. (see note 2 above).
This information was obtained for me from the Programme Index of the BBC by Michael Totton, to whom I am grateful.
M. Winstanley, ‘Assimilation into the Literature of a Critical Advance in Molecular Biology’, Social Studies of Science 6 (1976), 545–9.
Pendennis, The Crown Jewel from a Ramshackle Hut’, Observer (December 9, 1962), p. 10; T. Margerison, The Architects of Life’. Sunday Times Colour Supplement (December 19, 1962 ), pp. 19–21.
J. C. Kendrew, The Thread of Life; An Introduction to Molecular Biology, London: G. Bell, 1966. This was based on a BBC television series of the same name.
J. D. Watson, The Molecular Biology of the Gene, Menlo Park, California: W. A. Benjamin, 1965; revised editions, 1970, 1976.
R. C. Lewontin, Review of Cairns et al, Journal of the History of Biology 1 (1968), 155–161.
Anon, ‘Watson’s DNA Book Called Inaccurate’, New York Times (February 17, 1968), p. 27; W. Sullivan, The Competition Can Get Personal’, New York Times Part 4 (February 1 8, 1968 ), p. 8.
J. D. Watson, The Double Helix; The Discovery of the Structure of DNA’, Atlantic Monthly 221 (January 1968), 77–79; (February 1968), 91–117.
In his review in The Times, Bragg mentioned that he was asked by someone named in the book to withdraw his preface; ‘How a Secret of Life was Discovered’, The Times (May 16,1968), p. 13.
E. Fremont-Smith, ‘How Science is Done’, New York Times (February 19, 1968 ), p. 37.
R. Merton, ‘Making it Scientifically’, New York Times Book Review (February 18, 1968), p. 8. The title is an allusion to the book by Norman Podhoretz, Making It, New York: Random House, 1968, on the alleged guilt of American intellectuals about their wish to succeed.
R. A. Sokolov, ‘The DNA Story’, Newsweek (February 26, 1968 ), pp. 54–5.
J. Bronowski, ‘Honest Jim and the Tinker Toy Model’, The Nation 206 (March 18, 1968 ), 381–2.
P. B. Medawar, ‘Lucky Jim’, New York Review of Books 10 (March 28, 1968 ) 3–5.
E. Chargaff, ‘A Quick Climb up Mount Olympus’, Science 159 (March 29, 1968 ), 1448–9.
Anon, The Double Helix’, New Scientist 37 (February 22, 1968 ), 397–8.
J. Maddox, ‘Science Intended to be Read as Literature’, Nature 218 (May 18, 1968 ), 630–1.
J. Hollander, ‘Honest Jim and the Double Helix’, Nature 218 (May 25, 1968 ), 791–2.
A. Lwoff, Truth, Truth, What is Truth (About How the Structure of DNA was discovered)?’, Scientific American 219 (July 1968), 133–8.
Edson, op. cit. (note 5 above).
J. D. Watson and J. Tooze (eds.), The DNA Story: A Documentary History of Gene Cloning, San Francisco: Freeman, 1981; for a review see E. J. Yoxen, ‘Historical Manipulation’, Radical Science 14 (1984), 150–5.
Judson, op. cit., 194–5 (see note 7 above).
See Thirty Years of DNA’, Nature 302 (April 21,1983), 653–4.
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Yoxen, E. (1985). Speaking Out About Competition. In: Shinn, T., Whitley, R.D. (eds) Expository Science: Forms and Functions of Popularisation. Sociology of the Sciences a Yearbook, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5239-3_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5239-3_8
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