On the First Opinion Podcast this week, I had the honor of speaking with Nancy Hopkins, a legendary biologist and fierce advocate for women in STEM. We spoke in the wake of the death of James Watson, the Nobel Prize-winning co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and her longtime mentor and friend.
It was an illuminating conversation. Nancy spoke frankly about how Watson, in the last 20 years of his life, began making racist and sexist statements, suggesting that science is a place for white men. “How do we deal with a true giant, you know, an Einstein type of person” who embraces ideas that “are really unacceptable and wrong and unscientific?” she asked. She praised Watson for his science and for the way he advocated for her — he encouraged her to get a Ph.D. in the ’60s — without sugarcoating her disappointment in him.
I also wanted to highlight a First Opinion by Craig Spencer, whom you might remember as the physician who tested positive for Ebola in New York in 2014 after having returned from working with patients in the outbreak in Guinea.
Last week, Craig attended the conference of Children’s Health Defense, the organization founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. before he became health secretary. Craig, a staunch advocate of vaccines, writes that more people from public health need to start going to such events. “I didn’t change any minds, nor did my convictions waver. But every conversation was honest and respectful,” he writes. While at the conference, he was a guest on the podcast “Why Should I Trust You?” alongside vaccine skeptics Pierre Kory, who promoted ivermectin during the Covid pandemic, and Bret Weinstein.
Recommendation of the week: “Sovereign,” starring Nick Offerman and now streaming on Hulu, is a brutal watch — but deeply compelling. It’s inspired by a 2010 shooting in Tennessee.
