The Rh Factor and James D. Watson On Science

In my quest to explore the deeper meaning behind Nick Redfern’s Bloodlines of the God about the Rh factor as it relates to paranormal lore, I obtained a copy of David R. Zimmerman’s 1973 book Rh: The Intimate History of a Disease and Its Conquest from my local public library.   If you like biological science, discovery, and history (the book was published in 1973) this book is great bedside reading.

None other than James D. Watson, one of the people who got credit* for discovering the helical molecular structure of DNA, wrote the forward.  Given the many nonsense claims made about science by members of the paranormal and ufological communities, I found the nature of his introductory comments quite interesting.

If you listen to what people in the paranormal community say about science, scientists are rigid, unimaginative people who routinely hide interesting results for fear of rocking some hypothetical boat that keeps their allegedly high-status lifesyle afloat.  There are, of course, people like that out there; some of them have formal degrees and work in the sciences, while others have found the paranormal a more congenial field in which to ply their wares.

What scientists actually do to achieve all their sciencey magic is always a bit of a mystery, since science is inevitably a social practice and hence imperfectly objective.  That’s a good thing, since it’s given generations of people who study the sociology of science something interesting to think about while they’re on shift at the local discount drugstore.  It also underlines a bigger issue, which is that doing science is not all that goes into doing science.  Watson:

“Most of the active hours of scientists are holding actions, waiting for the day when the reading of a newly arrived journal or book, or a chance conversation with someone down the hall, leads to a new way of thinking.  And success in large part goes to those whose thoughts, both rational and irrational, are dominated by the importance of the final objective, even to the point of seeming one-sided, if not totally unbalanced.

“And when a real idea does suddenly appear, its genesis is sometimes not that clear – often it emerges from a tortuous series of half-truths that are quickly forgotten when the whole is in.  Yet these partial truths may have been very vital to the whole process.  Only by their possession could morale have been maintained toward a goal that all too often seems conquerable by only a brain more high-powered than your own.”

James D. Watson, PhD, pp xvii-xviii in David R. Zimmerman’s Rh: The Intimate History of a Disease and Its Conquest (Macmillan, New York: 1973)

What I find interesting about this quote is how it selectively, guardedly yet explicitly embraces the irrational and/or unknown as part of the process of scientific discovery.   Watson gives as examples serendipitous encounters, perseveration, gut instincts and power plays.  He does not explain when, why or how such inputs function; the 1962 Nobel Prize winner simply acknowledges that they exist.

That’s a big step, in my view, for someone of his generation and stature to take.  His “chance conversation with someone down the hall” could be a tacit acknowledgement of Rosalind Franklin’s contribution to our understanding of the double helix structure of DNA during their competitive race to publication.  Alternatively, his comments could also be read as being about the magic of the creative process generally.

To me, what this quote points (somewhat obliquely) to is the spirit of creative, no-holds-barred enquiry that drew me to both science and what today is called the paranormal.   On the one hand, there’s a sense of wonder; on the other, there’s the sense that we somehow possess the tools to find out what’s really real about reality.  The tools may be flawed and we may be flawed, but the to me it’s still one of the most exciting shows in town, whatever tent it’s playing under.

* Rosalind Franklin was working on the problem of the molecular structure of DNA at the same time as Watson and Crick and was arguably the first discoverer of the double helix.