James Watson’s The Double Helix was first published in 1968. How does it stand the test of time? There’s a strong case to be made that The Double Helix by James Watson is one of the greatest science books of all time– but I can’t recommend that anyone actually read it. Many parts of it are distasteful, especially in light of the odious old man that Watson became . “ The Double Helix reinvented the scientific memoir. Watson rendered science not as a bloodless march from Fact to Fact, but as a passionate adventure whose direction depends on the individual personalities of scientists,” says Nathaniel Comfort at Johns Hopkins University, who is writing a biography of Watson. “That was really new, and it drew countless young people into science, men and women alike, which was a big part of his intent with the book.” The Double Helix is Watson’s account of how, between 1951 and 1953, he came to work on the structure of DNA with Francis Crick.…