James D. Watson

In the following viewpoint, James D. Watson argues that restrictions should not be placed on genetic research. In his view, the impetus behind such regulations is usually an irrational fear of new technology. These fears are not an adequate basis for banning or postponing potentially beneficial experiments, he asserts. Watson discusses the fear that the first recombinant-DNA experiments sparked in the early 1970s, and compares it to the current reluctance among governments to permit the genetic manipulation of human sperm and egg cells. In 1953 James Watson, along with Francis Crick, won a Noble Prize for their discovery of the double helical structure of DNA. Watson was the first director of the Human Genome Project and is now president of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

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