In his early-age memoir, The Double Helix, James Watson depicts Francis Crick and himself as the gold medalists in the race to discover the structure of DNA, glorifying the victory over Linus Pauling, downplaying the contributions of others, including Erwin Chargaff, Jerry Donohue, and especially Rosalind Franklin. Whose DNA X-Ray diffraction photograph 51 was used to connect the dots. Should Watson make amends?
My DNA research began during a high-school teachers’ strike, which would have been a blessing had my school not been the only institution in the city to enroll my age group. With one exception, all my friends attended schools that were not on strike,
leaving me to wander the streets alone. The exception (whose name is saved with the
editor) lived across the street, working studiously to maximize his potential. As such, he
thought little of the pastime adaptations that one had to make as the times demanded,
such as Stanga – a cross between tennis, the game of nobles, and soccer, the game of
their subjects. The game was played with a tennis ball, but the court was a section of a road, the goals opposite sections of the curb, with two fist-sized rocks to mark the goalpost. The optimal number of players was two – each playing goalie and forward. Like tennis, each player could touch the ball once, albeit with one’s foot – needless to say, we had no tennis rackets; but we played with the same sense of fair play as the gentlemen’s game demanded.
I will never forget the rejection of my proposal to play that day: “I am going to the laboratory to view chromosomes; you are welcome to join me.” But, it turned out, the Hebrew University had a biology lab up the road.
“You’re going where to do what?”
“I am going to see how cells duplicate their genetic material; it’s the basic reproduction process.”
This was light years ahead of my perception of reproduction at the time. Word on the street was that it might not be necessary to have intercourse to induce pregnancy, and those who supported sexual relationships could not provide any substantiating evidence as to the connection between the two phenomena.
“Why go now?”
“You can only see chromosomes during meiosis.”
I never heard of that holiday but tagged along, having nothing better to do. I remember peering into a microscope and seeing X-shaped bird droppings lying in a circular porthole, obscuring the green light below. Nevertheless, I maintained the composure of one who was the silent type from the recessive side of the gene pool, pretending to understand everything that was said in the room and not further question what I had seen under the microscope. A few months later, James Watson’s book The Double Helix was first published. Apparently, he was way ahead of me.

Published on CNN April 25, 2023