Curiosity, Dread, and the Risks of Knowing:

James Watson’s Warning Still Stands

“I figured that my current burden of existential dread is just about right.”

— Steven Pinker, on why he chose not to check whether he carries the Alzheimer’s risk gene

James Watson — who won the Nobel Prize for his role in discovering the structure of DNA — became one of the first humans to have his entire genome sequenced. He had long argued that understanding what is written in our DNA is not just a scientific goal but a human imperative. In 2007, he agreed to have his entire genome tested and publish the results.

With one exception.

Watson refused to have his ApoE gene sequenced. He left it unread. For him, and for the public record.

Why? Watson’s grandmother had died of Alzheimer’s. Carrying one copy of the ApoE4 variant roughly doubles your risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Nearly a quarter of the population carries at least one copy.

Watson didn’t want to know if he was among them. With no effective treatment available, learning his ApoE4 gene status wouldn’t have made a difference in prevention or amelioration of Alzheimer’s. But Watson might have had to live for decades knowing he was at significant risk for the fate he dreaded.

Watson was not alone in his choice. Steven Pinker — a vocal champions of rational inquiry — also had his genome sequenced, and also asked not to test his ApoE status. Pinker’s explanation, quoted above, is a poignant statement about the hazards of knowing.

Watson and Pinker’s caution is widely shared across the medical community. Many major academic genetic testing centers today will not test for ApoE4 status at all — recognizing that when there is no treatment to offer, the information can do more harm than good. Some centers will test, but only after genetic counseling that helps patients think through what they may be opening themselves up to.

But other centers report ApoE4 results routinely, sometimes without any counseling. Patients are left to absorb life-altering probabilities on their own. People requesting broad genetic testing often assume that the answers they obtain will be reassuring—that they will be among the lucky ones.

Sometimes they are not. I have seen patients fall into serious depression after learning their ApoE4 status without any preparation or support, blindsided by news they had never seriously prepared themselves to receive.

When James Watson died in 2025, his obituaries covered his Nobel Prize, his role in elucidating the structure of DNA, the unacknowledged debt he owed to Rosalind Franklin (who did not share the prize despite her central role in the discovery), and the remarks that, in his final decades, made him one of science’s most controversial figures.

Watson used Franklin’s landmark X-ray images of DNA — shown to him without her knowledge — without properly crediting her. He then portrayed her in his 1968 memoir The Double Helix as dour and uncooperative. He later admitted those judgments were wrong, but only after the book had shaped how the world saw Franklin.

Watson was brilliant. But he was also a man whose views on race and gender ranged from reckless to indefensible. On race, in 2007, he told a journalist he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because intelligence testing showed, he claimed, that Africans and Europeans were not equal. He apologized. Then in 2019, on camera, he said his views had not changed at all. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory stripped him of every remaining honorary title and called his statements “reprehensible and unsupported by science.”

The scientific consensus is unambiguous: there is no genetic basis for differences in intelligence between racial groups. His claims were not brave heterodoxy. They were wrong.^1,2

Still, Watson leaves many instructive legacies. I keep thinking about the one the one part of his genome he chose not to read.

Twenty-three million people have now submitted their DNA to commercial services. These kind of tests are inexpensive. The results arrive quickly, and the process may feel as casual as ordering something online. But the information that comes back — sometimes in categories people didn’t know they were testing for — is not casual at all. It cannot be unseen. It cannot be unknown.

I am not arguing against genetic testing. For many conditions and circumstances, knowing is lifesaving — opening critical treatment options (as in cancer), or helping prospective parents make informed choices about devastating inherited diseases. But before you spit into a tube and mail it off, consider Watson’s question: what will I do with knowledge about a disease I can't prevent or delay? Do I want to know my future in order to plan around it — or only to satisfy my curiosity, trusting that I'll be able to handle bad news?

Watson had his conclusions. Pinker had his. They were arguably two of the most qualified people on earth to make that calculation.

I suggest that the rest of us consider making our decisions carefully, not impulsively.

I’m Carol Efron, MD — physician, psychiatrist, and novelist. This is the third in an occasional series on science, story, and the questions that sit at the edge of both.

Notes

1. Nathaniel Comfort, “James Watson Saw the True Form of DNA. Then It Blinded Him,” The New York Times, November 16, 2025. Comfort is a historian of genetics at Johns Hopkins University and the author of a forthcoming biography of Watson. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/opinion/james-watson-dna.html

2. Nathaniel Comfort and Matthew Cobb, “What Rosalind Franklin Truly Contributed to the Discovery of DNA’s Structure,” Nature, Vol. 616, April 25, 2023, pp. 657–660. DOI: 10.1038/d41586-023-01313-5. Available at: nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5