

Your browser does not support the audio element.Recent editorials in this journal have defended the right of eminent biologist James Watson to raise the unpopular hypothesis that people of sub-Saharan African descent score lower, on average, than people of European or East Asian descent on tests of general intelligence.

When Crick and Watson met at Cambridge they quickly learned that they had the same passion for solving the DNA structure. It became a race to see who could figure it out first! The Cavendish Laboratory had put together a team to try and solve the problem before an American team led by the famous biochemist Linus Pauling could. Scientists needed to understand the structure of DNA in order to fully understand genetics. In the early 1950s, scientists had learned a lot about genetics, but they still didn't understand the structure of the DNA molecule. Crick died of colon cancer on July 28, 2004. He later worked as a research professor at the Salk Institute in California for many years. They soon made their famous discovery of the DNA double helix in 1953.Īfter making the discovery and winning the Nobel Prize in 1962, Crick continued his research into genetics at Cambridge.

Crick had won several awards for his research when he met James Watson at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England. He did well in school and attended the University College London. His father was a shoemaker, but Francis soon found a love for learning and science. He also helped to form the Human Genome Project which mapped out the human genetic sequence.įrancis Crick was born in Weston Favell, England on June 8, 1916. Watson later served as director of the Cold Spring Harbor Lab in New York where he led groundbreaking research into cancer. He continued his research into genetics writing several textbooks as well as the bestselling book The Double Helix which chronicled the famous discovery. Watson (along with Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for the discovery of the DNA structure. This discovery became one of the most important scientific discoveries of the 20th century. In 1953 they published the structure of the DNA molecule. Watson and Crick found they had the same interests. There he met another scientist named Francis Crick. In 1951, Watson went to Cambridge, England to work in the Cavendish Laboratory in order to study the structure of DNA.
