Reviews for Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science

The average rating for Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-11-17 00:00:00 Klaus Meyer James Watson should be avoided, at his own advice.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-07-20 00:00:00 Garrett Stauffer Quick- do you read this title as "avoid people who you find boring" or "avoid the act yourself of making others feel bored?" It turns out Watson meant it both ways (as he would have had to... any decent scientist would not leave such obvious ambiguity in his words), but it took him 300 pages to say so, thereby causing both of us to violate his advice. I don't know where to start, really. I almost stopped reading after the first chapter, where Watson comes off as an unbearable, arrogant little brat. The path to a Nobel Prize, it seems, begins by having affluent white parents with friends at the University of Chicago that will allow you to begin enrollment there at age 15 (!!!) From there, navigate effortlessly through a world populated by other affluent white men until you position yourself right where hot discoveries are about to happen. I had always imagined Watson & Crick to be old men when they discovered DNA, finally rewarded for a lifetime of labors together. In fact, Watson was only 25 when the discovery happened, and the whole thing was kind of shady. He was visiting another friend's lab when he happened to catch a glance of some images the friend and another colleague were working on. Without saying a word, he sprinted back to his own lab where he and Crick completed the double-helix theory. They offered the friend a chance to publish with them (the three would later share the Nobel Prize), but at the time he declined, not knowing how to handle the colleague who had produced the images but knew nothing of their role in Watson's discovery. By the time the Nobel was awarded, the colleague had conveniently died of ovarian cancer. Ouch. Needless to say, this did not endear me to James Watson, even though it is an honest portrayal of how science can sometimes be. Unfortunately the rest of the book, and his writing style, did nothing to win me back. While it is fairly easy to follow, the book is also peppered with stories like "Their work suggested that free lactose repressors bind to one or more regulatory regions on the beta-galactosidase gene, thereby preventing subsequent binding of the RNA-making enzyme RNA polymerase." If that doesn't exhaust you, an equal amount of space is dedicated to describing the attractiveness and dating habits of a long line of female undergrad lab assistants. Just shy of his 40th birthday, Watson finally marries one who is 19. To ice the cake, he ends with an epilogue where he bashes Harvard's present-day financial management, then calls for continued research into genetically-coded aptitude for hard sciences, and how it differs between men and women. Good luck to the scientist who goes public with the results of those studies! For all my complaining though, I did give the book more than one star because at the end of each chapter, Watson succinctly lists advice for scientists. Some of it rings so true, it is almost painful to contemplate. Some examples: 1. When intellectually panicking, get help quickly (know when to give up on "do it yourself or you'll never learn") 2. Extend yourself intellectually through courses that initially frighten you. (Even a Nobel winner got a C in calculus. He's just like me!) 3. Humility pays off during oral exams (this should be printed on a banner and hung in every lab across the country) 4. Never let your students see themselves as research assistants. (this paragraph on on pg. 134 is a beautiful summary of how to manage graduate research) This book exhausted me and I'm not surprised it took me the better part of a year to finish. Recommend only to those with academic science experience, and even then maybe just read the advice summaries at the end of each chapter.