The death of a genius? What James Watson taught us about ethics, ambition, and the moral limits of science

The death of a genius? What James Watson taught us about ethics, ambition, and the moral limits of science

Authors

  • Michele Venosa Orthopaedic Department – Casa di cura Villa Betania - Rome, Italy; Department of Mini-Invasive and Computer-Assisting Orthopaedic Surgery, San Salvatore Hospital, L’Aquila, Italy
  • Andrea Vespasiani Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila, L'Aquila, Italy.

Keywords:

ethics, , limit, science

References

1. Watson JD, Crick FH. Molecular structure of nucleic acids; a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature. 1953;171(4356):737-8. doi: 10.1038/171737a0.

2. Watson JD. The double helix: a personal account of the discovery of the structure of DNA. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson; 1981.

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Published

28-04-2026

Issue

Vol. 97 No. 2 (2026)

Section

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENCE

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Michele Venosa, Andrea Vespasiani

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Transfer of Copyright and Permission to Reproduce Parts of Published Papers. 
Authors retain the copyright for their published work. No formal permission will be required to reproduce parts (tables or illustrations) of published papers, provided the source is quoted appropriately and reproduction has no commercial intent. Reproductions with commercial intent will require written permission and payment of royalties.

How to Cite

1.
Venosa M, Vespasiani A. The death of a genius? What James Watson taught us about ethics, ambition, and the moral limits of science. Acta Biomed. 2026;97(2):18228. doi:10.23750/abm.2026.18228
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