Editing James Watson (section)

==Early life and education==
Watson was born in [[Chicago]] on April 6, 1928, as the only son of Jean ({{née}} Mitchell) and James D. Watson, a businessman descended mostly from colonial English immigrants to America.<ref name="The Nobel Foundation">{{cite web|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1962/watson-bio.html |publisher=NobelPrize.org|year=1964|access-date=June 12, 2013|title=James Watson, The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962}}</ref> His mother's father, Lauchlin Mitchell, a tailor, was from [[Glasgow]], Scotland, and her mother, Lizzie Gleason, was the child of parents from [[County Tipperary]], Ireland.<ref name="watson retires">{{cite news
|url= https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2007/oct/25/watsonretires |newspaper=The Guardian|date=October 25, 2007|access-date=December 12, 2007|title=Watson retires | location=London | first=James | last=Randerson}}</ref> His mother was a modestly religious [[Catholic]] and his father an [[Episcopalian]] who had lost his belief in God.<ref name="TimeReligion">{{cite magazine |last1=Watson |first1=James |title=Nobel Scientist: I Place My Faith in Human Gods |url=https://time.com/4259269/nobel-scientist-religion/ |magazine=TIME |access-date=30 July 2024 |language=en |date=25 March 2016}}</ref> Watson was raised Catholic, but he later described himself as "an escapee from the Catholic religion".<ref name="ggg">{{Cite book|last=Watson |first=J. D. |year=2003 |title=Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix |location=New York |publisher=Vintage |isbn=978-0-375-72715-3|oclc=51338952|page=118}}</ref> Watson said, "The luckiest thing that ever happened to me was that my father didn't believe in God."<ref name="Discover">{{cite journal | url =http://discovermagazine.com/2003/jul/featdialogue |date=July 2003 | journal=Discover | title =Discover Dialogue: Geneticist James Watson |quote = The luckiest thing that ever happened to me was that my father didn't believe in God}}</ref> By age 11, Watson stopped attending mass and embraced the "pursuit of scientific and humanistic knowledge."<ref name=TimeReligion/>

Watson grew up on the South Side of Chicago and attended public schools, including Horace Mann Elementary School and [[South Shore High School (Chicago)|South Shore High School]].<ref name="The Nobel Foundation" /><ref>{{Cite book|last=Cullen |first=Katherine E. |title=Biology: the people behind the science |year=2006 |publisher=[[Infobase Publishing|Chelsea House]] |location=New York |isbn=0-8160-5461-4 |page=133}}</ref> He was fascinated with bird watching, a hobby shared with his father,<ref name=WebOfStories>{{cite web|last=Watson|first=James|title=James Watson (Oral History)|url=http://www.webofstories.com/play/james.watson/2;jsessionid=BAD4C204C0FAA462F8C81A7C4070AD73|publisher=Web of Stories|access-date=December 5, 2013}}</ref> so he considered majoring in [[ornithology]].<ref name=Cullen>{{Cite book|last=Cullen |first=Katherine E. |title=Biology: the people behind the science |year=2006 |publisher=[[Infobase Publishing|Chelsea House]] |location=New York |isbn=0-8160-5461-4}}</ref> Watson appeared on ''[[Quiz Kids]],'' a popular radio show that challenged bright youngsters to answer questions.<ref>{{cite web|author=Samuels, Rich |title=The Quiz Kids |work=Broadcasting in Chicago, 1921–1989 |url=http://www.richsamuels.com/nbcmm/qk.html |access-date=November 20, 2007}}</ref> Thanks to the liberal policy of university president [[Robert Maynard Hutchins|Robert Hutchins]], he enrolled at the [[University of Chicago]], where he was awarded a tuition scholarship at the age of 15.<ref name="The Nobel Foundation" /><ref name=Cullen/><ref name="chicago medal">{{cite web |url=http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/07/070601.watson.shtml |title=Nobel laureate, Chicago native James Watson to receive University of Chicago. Alumni Medal June&nbsp;2 |date=June 1, 2007 |publisher=The University of Chicago News Office |access-date=November 20, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180315183810/http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/07/070601.watson.shtml |archive-date=March 15, 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Among his professors was [[Louis Leon Thurstone]] from whom Watson learned about [[factor analysis]], which he would later reference on his [[#Comments on race|controversial views on race]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Isaacson|first=Walter|title=[[The Code Breaker]]|publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]]|year=2021|isbn=978-1-9821-1585-2|page=392|author-link=Walter Isaacson}}</ref>

After reading [[Erwin Schrödinger]]'s book, ''[[What Is Life?]]'' in 1946, Watson changed his professional ambitions from the study of ornithology to [[genetics]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Friedberg |first=Errol C. |title=The Writing Life of James D. Watson |year=2005 |publisher=Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press |location=Cold Spring Harbor, New York |isbn=978-0-87969-700-6}} [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v433/n7027/full/433686a.html Reviewed by Lewis Wolpert, ''Nature'', (2005) '''433''':686–687.]</ref> Watson earned his [[Bachelor of Science]] degree in [[zoology]] from the University of Chicago in 1947.<ref name=Cullen/> In his autobiography, ''Avoid Boring People'', Watson described the University of Chicago as an "idyllic academic institution where he was instilled with the capacity for critical thought and an ethical compulsion not to suffer fools who impeded his search for truth", in contrast to his description of later experiences. In 1947, Watson left the University of Chicago to become a graduate student at Indiana University, attracted by the presence at Bloomington of the 1946 Nobel Prize winner [[Hermann Joseph Muller]], who in crucial papers published in 1922, 1929, and in the 1930s had laid out all the basic properties of the heredity molecule that Schrödinger presented in his 1944 book.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book|last=Schwartz|first=James|title=In pursuit of the gene : from Darwin to DNA|url=https://archive.org/details/inpursuitofgenef00schw|url-access=registration|year=2008|publisher=Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge, Mass.|isbn=9780674026704}}</ref> He received his [[Doctor of Philosophy]] degree from Indiana University Bloomington in 1950; [[Salvador Luria]] was his doctoral advisor.<ref name=Cullen/><ref name="watsonphd">{{cite thesis |degree=PhD |first=James|last=Watson |title=The Biological Properties of X-Ray Inactivated Bacteriophage |publisher=Indiana University|date=1951 |id={{ProQuest|302021835}}}}</ref>