A Catalyst for Scientific Progress

One of the things that many of us forget about science is that it is an intensely human activity. 

There is a notion that science progresses as a result of dispassionate intellects collecting, collating and sifting facts, developing a hypothesis to test and, via carefully thought-through experiments, ending up with a new worldview. It is, as any practicing scientist knows, (mostly) nonsense, although it is a useful myth because it makes us scientists appear a lot cleverer than we are… 

One of the things that many of us forget about science is that it is an intensely human activity. 

There is a notion that science progresses as a result of dispassionate intellects collecting, collating and sifting facts, developing a hypothesis to test and, via carefully thought-through experiments, ending up with a new worldview. It is, as any practicing scientist knows, (mostly) nonsense, although it is a useful myth because it makes us scientists appear a lot cleverer than we are… 

There are, no doubt, many honorable exceptions, but anyone who has worked in a research lab for any length of time on a topic of general interest will know that second only to the joy of discovery is the very satisfying, but guilty, pleasure of beating a rival to publication. 

I was reminded of this when I was given a present of “The Annotated and Illustrated Double Helix”, by James D. Watson (1). Edited by Alexander Gann and Jan Witkowski, this edition was published in 2012 to mark the 50th anniversary of the award of the Nobel Prize to Watson, Crick and Wilkins. It includes a lot of extra material: letters from Watson to his sister, copies of Rosalind Franklin’s laboratory notes and those for her 1951 colloquium, reproductions of relevant papers and many photographs, which all help to put the discovery of the double helix into context. The “Double Helix” is a great story, but as Watson himself wrote in his foreword, it’s a memoir of how it felt at the time, not a history (2). Watson stated that he had “attempted to recreate my first impressions of the relevant events and personalities rather than present an assessment which takes into account the many facts I have learnt since the structure was found”. It is his attempt to show, amongst other things, “how science is ‘done’” and he is pretty accurate in the way that he covers both the process and the human face of science (I am aware that I am not the first person to say this!). 

It is tempting to say that the events that Watson describes are a one-off, but actually I think it is very typical. A more recent, equally famous, example, where both sides have been able to put their views into print, is the race to sequence the human genome. In the publicly-funded corner we have “The Common Thread” (3) written by the Nobel laureate John Sulston and science writer Georgina Ferry, and in the Celera corner we have J. Craig Venter’s “A Life Decoded” (4).  Both books provide a fascinating insight into the competition that occurs in modern programs when the scientific prize is huge, and the funding is too, but it’s not always obvious that they are describing the same race!  

These books clearly reveal the intra- and inter-laboratory strains that inevitably accompany any race to solve an important problem. Reading them shows the intensity of the discovery process, the feeling of elation when you finally crack a particularly difficult problem and discover a piece of truth that (you hope) no one else has ever known. They also describe the fear of not being able to get something into print before that ‘so and so’ at the ‘University of Somewhere Else’.  

Such rivalry – let’s call it ‘creative competitiveness’ – can be a spur to scientific advance, so long as it is not taken to excess. Rivalry provides both reassurance that the problem is sufficiently important for others to try for the same prize and the impetus to raise your game. 

One thing to remember, however, is the other lesson from the Double Helix: Watson on his own would probably not have solved the problem, and neither would Crick. And if Wilkins and Franklin had got on as well as Watson and Crick, the story would have been very different. Rivalry as a driving force is very useful, but do remember to collaborate as well. The result is usually better.