James D. Watson Quotes
No good model ever accounted for all the facts, since some data was bound to be misleading if not plain wrong.
Watson, James D. The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA. Atheneum, 1968, p. 51.
Berelson had done a major compendium of research and found that the high quality studies with very good data were usually done in studies or programs that were not very important, while the most important areas were usually informed by poorer data and less rigid studies. As an example he gave the extensive data that the defense department then had on the relative physical fitness prowess of the marines verses the other services, but had little or no data as to whether the marine was a better fighter, had better judgment in crises, was more skilled with weapons system of the time etc. The Education Department had great data on the performance of students on mathematics tests but almost none on how to teach mathematics.
James Dewey Watson KBE is an American molecular biologist, geneticist and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material". In subsequent years, it has been recognized that Watson and his colleagues did not properly attribute colleague Rosalind Franklin for her contributions to the discovery of the double helix structure.
