Horace Freeland Judson was a
historianA historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
of
molecular biologyMolecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...
and the author of several books, including
The Eighth Day of Creation, a history of molecular biology, and
The Great Betrayal: Fraud In ScienceThe Great Betrayal: Fraud In Science is a 2004 book by Horace Freeland Judson. The book explains that science as a discipline is not immune to fraud, and the book surveys many cases where scientific misconduct by aberrant scientists have threatened the reliability and foundations of the scientific...
, an examination of the deliberate manipulation of scientific data.
Life and career
The Eighth Day of Creation arose out of Judson's acquaintance with
Max PerutzMax Ferdinand Perutz, OM, CH, CBE, FRS was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of hemoglobin and globular proteins...
; In 1968 came the idea of a book about the discovery of the structures of cellular macromolecules. Following a discussion with
Jacques MonodJacques Lucien Monod was a French biologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1965, sharing it with François Jacob and Andre Lwoff "for their discoveries concerning genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis"...
in 1969, Judson expanded his planned book to a general history of molecular biology. The result is based on interviews of over 100 scientists, cross-checked and re-interviewed over a period of seven years. The book was partially serialized in three issues of
The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
in November and December, 1978. Following the publication of the book, Judson deposited the tapes and transcripts of the interviews at the
American Philosophical SocietyThe American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743, and located in Philadelphia, Pa., is an eminent scholarly organization of international reputation, that promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications,...
in
Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
.
Judson graduated from the
University of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
in 1948, and worked for seven years for
Time Magazine as a European correspondent in
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. He subsequently wrote for
The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
,
Harper's, and
NatureNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
among others. Judson spent nine years on the faculty of
Johns Hopkins UniversityThe Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
and then four years as a research scholar at
Stanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. He was the director of the now defunct Center for History of Recent Science and Research Professor of History at
George Washington UniversityThe George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
. In 1987 Judson won a MacArthur Fellowship.
He appears in
Dont Look BackDont Look Back is a 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically...
,
D. A. PennebakerDonn Alan Pennebaker is an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema/Cinéma vérité. Performing arts and politics are his primary subjects.-Biography:...
's documentary film about
Bob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, in which he was subjected to what he believes to be a contrived tirade of abuse from Dylan. During Judson's interview, Dylan launched into a verbal attack on
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine, and Judson himself. The film's producer Pennebaker does not believe the tirade was planned, but notes that Dylan backed off, not wanting to come across as being too cruel. However, Judson believes the confrontation was contrived to make the sequence more entertaining. "That evening," says Judson, "I went to the concert. My opinion then and now was that the music was unpleasant, the lyrics inflated, and Dylan, a self-indulgent whining show off".
Family
Horace Freeland Judson's oldest daughter, Grace Judson, is a small-business coach and writer in San Diego, after her successful 25-year corporate career; she was the Fastest Knitter in America in 2002, appearing on
Good Morning AmericaGood Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
in October of that year. His oldest son, Thomas Judson, is a lawyer living and practicing in New York City. His younger daughter,
Olivia JudsonDoctor Olivia P. Judson is an evolutionary biologist and science writer.- Career :Judson, who is the daughter of science historian Horace Freeland Judson,was a pupil of W.D. Hamilton....
, is an evolutionary
biologistA biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
at
Imperial College LondonImperial College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom, specialising in science, engineering, business and medicine...
and is the author of the best-selling
Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation; his younger son, Nicholas Judson, was a scientist at the J. Craig Venter Institute (Rockville, MD) and left science to pursue a new career as a self-employed artist.
Books
- Heroin Addiction: What Americans Can Learn from the English Experience (1975). Vintage Books, ISBN 0-394-72017-2
- The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology (1979). Touchstone Books, ISBN 0-671-22540-5. 2nd edition: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1996 paperback: ISBN 0-87969-478-5.
- The Search for Solutions (1982). Holt Rinehart & Winston, ISBN 0-03-043771-7
- Science in Crisis at the Millennium (1999). New York Academy of Sciences, ISBN 1-57331-106-5
- The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science (2004). Harcourt, ISBN 0-15-100877-9
External links
- "The Great Betrayal: A Book Review" January 24, 2005
- "The Glimmering Promise of Gene Therapy" by Horace Freeland Judson in Technology Review
Technology Review is a magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as "The Technology Review", and was re-launched without the "The" in its name on April 23, 1998 under then publisher R. Bruce Journey...
, November 14, 2006
- "Horace Freeland Judson, Science Historian, Dies at 80 by William Grimes in The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, May 10, 2011