History of the Double Helix

The History of the Double Helix

In our study of the sociology of science, reading James Watson’s account of the discovery of the structure of DNA in The Double Helix gives us an insight into how science works as a “collective activity.” To illustrate how the norms of science work through this description of events I chose specifically to look at the system of hierarchy among the scientists, how the scientists share information between labs, and how credit is allocated when the findings are published. By looking at these three topics and also comparing them to Robert Merton’s Ethos of Science, I will be showing the inner trappings of how the society of scientists functions.

In the scientific community during the 1950’s, there was a definite hierarchical system of power and prestige in place. The base of the structure is the lab where the scientists conduct their research and their experiments. Each lab has anywhere from one head scientists to a group of them who determine the direction that the lab is going to take. The head scientists are also the authorities on who may do research and on which topics; the other scientists working at the lab must gain the permission of the lab head in order to start working on or to continue working on a specific field or idea. The issue of attaining permission from the head of their lab was one that Watson and Crick faced time and time again. Crick, for instance had to gain and re-gain permission countless times from the head of his lab, Sir Lawrence Bragg, to work on the DNA model rather than on his thesis. On one such occasion, after an upset visit from the scientists from the King’s lab, “the decision was thus passed on to Max that [Crick] and [Watson] must give up DNA.” (61)

The hierarchy is not only constrained to each individual lab but between labs as well. The more findings, discoveries, and publications the scientists at a particular lab acquire, the more notoriety that particular lab incurs. When one individual lab has the distinction of being the site where many significant discoveries were made, the scientists at that lab are also catapulted to a new level of renown and thus have more clout in the scientific world. The idea of hierarchies and status works in opposition with Merton’s norm of Universalism though. The norm states that scientific claims should be evaluated based on scientific criteria and not based on the status of the individual. In Watson’s story, there have been many instances where the status (or status to be obtained) of the individual and the individual’s lab was more important that what they were actually trying to discover.

Among the individual scientists there is also a system of hierarchy. The more work a scientist personally has published and placed in his credit the higher up on the scale of science he is. With this climbing of the ladder in the scientific community, comes many new opportunities, such as being able to decide one’s own research topics and even getting more funding for one’s projects. Also, the more published work a scientist has under his belt, the more his colleagues come to seek his advice and ask him to collaborate on assignments with him.

When looking to Merton’s norm of Disinterestedness, which states that the pursuit of truth is more important than personal gain and status, it is easy to see that the Crick’s motivation was not in-line with the norms of science. Even though Crick was thought to have been a scientific genius before he had any of his findings published or before he received his Ph. D, Crick had a problem with others in the scientific community taking him seriously; “His concern was not without reason. Although he knew he was bright and could produce novel ideas, he could claim no clear cut intellectual achievements.” (39) Crick needed to have some of his work published to give him credibility.

The true political nature of the scientific world is brought to the surface when an observation is made into how information and evidence are shared among the scientists and how progress is checked using colleagues to de-bug theories and ideas. It proved to be very important for Watson and Crick to have had a diverse number of friends all over the world to whom the could refer if they were stuck in a problem and needed help or if they needed an objective eye to look over their work and let them know if they made any mistakes. For example, Watson writes, “The unforeseen dividend of having Jerry share an office with Francis, Peter, and me, though obvious to all, was not spoken about. If he had not been with us in Cambridge, I might still have been pumping for a like-with-like structure.” (122) Watson further goes on to say that Maurice did not have “structural chemists” in his lab, which makes one wonder, if he did have more help with a diverse background in his lab,