In 1962, James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine for deciphering the structure of DNA in the early 1950s.

In 1962, James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine for deciphering the structure of DNA in the early 1950s. Watson’s book The Double Helix is an account of their discovery. It was controversial at the time it was published and it remains so today. One key theme of The Double Helix, in fact, is the intense desire that scientists have, at least according to Watson, for professional recognition and credit. Especially notable is Watson’s description of scientific practice as he shows scientists as human beings, displaying their good and bad attributes. In this sense, it is interesting to compare Watson’s description with other accounts of the scientist’s life we have encountered, such as that of Marie Curie