As a middle-class Chicago boy breezing through public school, James Watson was wickedly smart and cheeky. This ingrained in him a tendency to be intellectually provocative, which would later serve him well as a scientist but less so as a public figure. Throughout his life, his rapid-fire mumbling of unfinished sentences would convey his impatience and inability to filter his impulsive notions. He later said that one of the most important lessons his parents taught him was “Hypocrisy in search of social acceptance erodes your self-respect.” He learned it too well. From his childhood into his
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