McClintock, Barbara
c. 1976-1980
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McClintock, Barabara; Watson, James (?): May 20, 1976
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McClintock, Barabara (Cold Spring Harbor Symposium: May 27, 1980
An anecdote from
"A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock", by Evelyn Fox
Keller, W. H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco, 1983, p. 142:
.
"She [Barbara McClintock] withdrew further into her work, protected more and more by her
'inner knowledge' that she was on the 'right track,' but at the same time becoming
increasingly wary about confronting potentially hostile audiences, and even about visits
from unsympathetic colleagues. Her lab remained open to anyone who genuinely wanted to
listen or even just talk, but she had always had a quick sharp tongue and now used it to
protect herself whenever she felt the need. Lotte Auerbach, an animal geneticist from
the University of Edinburgh, was one of those who wanted to listen. She found McClintock
surprisingly patient and clear. In the space of a single afternoon McClintock was able
to explain her work in sufficient detail to leave Auerbach not only convinced, but
enourmously impressed—and enthusiastic enough to try (unsuccessfully as it
turned out) to convince others upon her return to Europe. But Auerbach also remembers
Joshua Lederberg returning from a visit to McClintock's lab with the remark: 'By God,
that woman is either crazy or a genius.' As Auerbach tells it, McClintock had thrown
Lederberg and his colleagues out after half an hour 'because of their arrogance. She was
intolerant of arrogance....She felt she had crossed a desert alone and no one had
followed her.'"
Barbara McClintock, just like Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg, had to deal with
gender discrimination. Her ideas as well as her experimental evidence were
not received with the same respect (pending verification), but were often
dismissed out of hand. However, there were especially arrogant ("aggressive")
personalities, such as Joshua Lederberg (see the views of Arthur Kornberg).
Note that in the above anecdote the word "arrogant" was used, but Joshua
Lederberg himself used the word "aggressive". When women tried to claim
equality in the workplace, and grew assertive, a frequent complaint by
insecure men was that the women were "aggressive". Among men, it was
acceptable to be found "aggressive", but definitely not acceptable to
be considered arrogant: even aggressive men rejected the description
of being "arrogant". Thus, it is understandable that Joshua Lederberg
apparently preferred to think of himself as "aggressive" rather than
"arrogant". For one example out of many where Joshua Lederberg justifies
his "aggressiveness", see Special Topics > Joshua Lederberg Interviews >
University of Wisconsin Oral History Interview: 1998 in:
http://www.esthermlederberg.com/Theft/Intellectual Theft (Archive)/NLM Pirated Correspondence/NLMPiratedIndex.html