Machines Like Us

At 79, James Watson no longer gets involved in hard-graft science. He quit his last high-profile job as head of the Human Genome Project in 1992 after falling out with Bernadine Healy, the newly appointed director of the National Institutes of Health, over the patenting of gene sequences. His main functions as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) -- the Long Island non-profit, private research institute -- are to press the flesh with the great and the good to extract research cash, and to keep a beady eye on the Watson school of biological sciences.

But even as a figurehead, Watson is a celebrity. He's a regular on the global conference circuit, and his opinion is often sought by politicians -- though recent, and possibly future, presidents won't necessarily like what he has to say about them. "Bush is just a disaster, and the Clintons worry me. They get their truths from social scientists, not scientists. I'm a little afraid of their friends."

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