Free Avoid Boring People: Lessons From a Life in Science by James D. Watson

metabolic enzyme reactions. He devised a short lab course for me exclusively, and I got the A customary in such circumstances. But when the genial plant geneticist Ralph Cleland suggested that I follow up his uninspired cytology course with his fall offering on histological methods, I bluntly declared the course a waste of my time. Always polite in the Hoosier way, Cleland looked pained but did not challenge me. Returning with me to his bacteriology lab afterward, Luria let me have it and warned I must never again show contempt to a faculty member. Gunny took my side, making my day, saying that I had shown the kind of intellectual directness ascribed to the young J. Robert Oppenheimer.
6. Don't choose your initial thesis objective
    At the time of my first experiments, I was too naive to devise an appropriate first research objective or even to choose wisely among alternatives presented by others. I therefore started my research on a problem that interested Luria. He showed an immediate interest in my results and saw that the control experiments were done. Luria had, moreover, wisely started me off on a problem not crucial to the progress of his own research, and so at no time would I feel pressed for my experiments to keep pace with his agenda. Happily, my first experiments yielded positive answers and Luria was gracious enough not to add his name to the abstract I submitted to the Genetics Society summarizing my first months’ findings. Soon I was deciding my own experimental course and I would change my direction several times over the next two years. The two journal papers that summarized my thesis results would likewise appear under my name only, even though Luria helped me greatly, effectively rewriting many of my sentences before they were shown to other committee members, making the articles much more readable. Despite this needed help, Luria allowed me to feel that the papers belonged to me for better or worse and that I was working on behalf of no one but myself.
7. Keep your intellectual curiosity much
broader than your thesis objective
    Once a thesis is under way, it can feel like an all-consuming marathon. But my graduate experience was much enhanced by excellent courses I took over most of the time I was working on my thesis. There was always an alternative stimulation when my experiments weren't yielding the desired results. My favorite courses required long term papers and made me read original papers on topics I never would have delved into otherwise. Particularly influential in my intellectual development was the long paper I wrote at Tracy Sonneborn's suggestion on the German biochemical geneticist Franz Moewus's controversial experiments using the green algae Chlamydomonas. A recent course on scientific German let me read his original papers, including some published during the war and not generally known. Though Moewus's veracity had been challenged on the basis of results that seemed statistically too perfect, Sonneborn was intuitively persuaded by Moewus's elegant demonstrations of how genes control enzymatic reactions. Believing I had found new ways to interpret his data, I, like Sonneborn, also wanted to believe in Moewus's results. Afterward, Tracy incorporated part of my term paper analysis in a long review of Moewus's work, but to our mutual dismay Moewus was found several years later to have faked his data. It was not a pleasant outcome, but if nothing else it was a valuable lesson about the dangers of wishful thinking in research, one better learned poring over someone else's work rather than one's own.

4. MANNERS FOLLOWED BY THE PHAGE GROUP
    I REACHED New York City in mid-June 1948 after an overnight ride from Chicago on the Pennsylvania Railroad. At McKim, Mead, and White's Beaux Arts masterpiece Penn Station, I carried my luggage to an adjacent Long Island Railroad platform for the hourlong trip on to Cold Spring Harbor. A taxi whose base was the small wooden train station then brought me to