Horace Freeland Judson (April 21, 1931 – May 6, 2011) was a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

and later with more prominence a

historian A 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 st ...

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

including authoring several books, including ''The Eighth Day of Creation'', a history of molecular biology, and ''The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science'', an examination of the deliberate manipulation of scientific data.

Life and career

Horace Freeland Judson was born on 21 April 1931, in Manhattan, New York. He contracted

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe s ...

at the age of 13, and the disease left him with a withered right arm. Judson matriculated at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

at age 15 and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1948, and worked for seven years for ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' magazine as a European correspondent in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. He subsequently wrote for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', '' Harper's'', and ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

'' among others. Judson spent nine years on the faculty of

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

and then four years as a research scholar at Stanford University. He was the director of the now defunct Center for History of Recent Science and Research Professor of History at

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Chartered in 1821 by the United States Congress, GWU is the largest Higher educat ...

. In 1987 Judson was awarded a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

. ''The Eighth Day of Creation'' arose out of Judson's acquaintance with

Max Perutz Max Ferdinand Perutz (19 May 1914 – 6 February 2002) 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 haemoglobin and myoglobin. He went ...

; In 1968 came the idea of a book about the discovery of the structures of cellular

macromolecules A macromolecule is a very large molecule important to biophysical processes, such as a protein or nucleic acid. It is composed of thousands of covalently bonded atoms. Many macromolecules are polymers of smaller molecules called monomers. The ...

. Following a discussion with

Jacques Monod Jacques Lucien Monod (February 9, 1910 – May 31, 1976) was a French biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1965, sharing it with François Jacob and André Lwoff "for their discoveries concerning genetic control of e ...

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 ''

'' in November and December 1978. Following the publication of the book, Judson deposited the tapes and transcripts of the interviews at the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. He appears in ''

Dont Look Back '' Look Back'' is a 1967 American documentary film directed by D. A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in England. In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library o ...

'', D. A. Pennebaker's documentary film about Bob Dylan, in which he is subjected to what he believed to be a contrived tirade of abuse from Dylan. During Judson's interview, Dylan launches into a verbal attack on ''

'' 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 believed the confrontation was contrived to make the sequence more entertaining. "That evening", said 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".

Personal life

Judson's first marriage ended in divorce. His second wife, Penelope Jones, died in 1993. 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 won the title of Fastest Knitter in America in 2002, appearing on Good Morning America in October of that year. His younger daughter, Olivia Judson, is a science journalist and currently a research fellow as an evolutionary biologist at Imperial College London 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), but left science to pursue a new career as a self-employed artist. Judson was an atheist.

Publications

Articles

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Books

*''Heroin Addiction: What Americans Can Learn from the English Experience'' (1975). Vintage Books, *''The Search for Solutions'' (1982). Holt Rinehart & Winston, *''Science in Crisis at the Millennium'' (1999). New York Academy of Sciences,

References

External links

*His daughter reminisces as she clears out his house: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/the-task/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Judson, Horace Freeland 1931 births American historians American science writers 2011 deaths MacArthur Fellows University of Chicago alumni