Horace Freeland Judson, American science historian (The Great Betrayal: Fraud In Science), died from complications of a stroke he was , 80.

Horace Freeland Judson was a historian of molecular biology and the author of 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  died from complications of a stroke he was , 80.

(born April 21, 1931; died May 6, 2011)

The Eighth Day of Creation is a monumental work. Arising out of Judson's acquaintance with Max Perutz in 1968 came the idea of a book about the discovery of the structures of cellular macromolecules. Following a discussion with Jacques Monod 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.^[2] The book was partially serialized in three issues of The New Yorker 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 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.^[3]
Judson graduated from the University of Chicago in 1948,^[4] and worked for seven years for Time Magazine as a European correspondent in London and Paris. He subsequently wrote for The New Yorker, Harper's, and Nature among others. Judson spent nine years on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University 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. In 1987 Judson won a MacArthur Fellowship.^[5]
He appears in Dont Look Back, D. A. Pennebaker's documentary film about Bob Dylan, in which he was subjected to what he believes to be a contrived tirade of abuse from Dylan. During Judson's interview, Dylan launched into a verbal attack on Time 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 believes the confrontation was contrived to make the sequence more entertaining. "That evening," says 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".^[6]

Family

Horace Freeland Judson's oldest daughter, Grace Judson,^[7] is a small-business coach and writer in San Diego, after her successful 25-year corporate career; she was the Fastest Knitter in America in 2002, appearing on Good Morning America in October of that year. His oldest son, Thomas Judson, is a lawyer living and practicing in New York City. His younger daughter, Olivia Judson, is 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,^[8] was a scientist at the J. Craig Venter Institute (Rockville, MD) and left science to pursue a new career as a self-employed artist.

Publications by Judson

• Judson, H. F. (2006). "The theorist". Nature 443 (7114): 917–918. doi:10.1038/443917a. edit
• Judson, H. F. (2004). "First among Equals — Francis Crick". New England Journal of Medicine 351 (9): 858–858. doi:10.1056/NEJMp048233. PMID 15329422. edit
• Judson, H. F. (2003). "“The Greatest Surprise for Everyone” — Notes on the 50th Anniversary of the Double Helix". New England Journal of Medicine 348 (17): 1712–1714. doi:10.1056/NEJMon035356. PMID 12711749. edit
• Judson, H. F. (2001). "Talking about the genome". Nature 409 (6822): 769–769. doi:10.1038/35057406. PMID 11236976. edit
• Judson, H. (1995). "The world we have lost". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 758: 427–440. PMID 7625708. edit
• Judson, H. (1994). "Structural transformations of the sciences and the end of peer review". JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association 272 (2): 92–94. PMID 8015139. edit
• Judson, H. (1993). "Frederick Sanger, Erwin Chargaff, and the metamorphosis of specificity". Gene 135 (1–2): 19–23. PMID 8276259. edit
• Judson, H.; MacKay, I. (1992). "History in the Bay of Naples". Immunology today 13 (11): 459–461. PMID 1362059. edit
• Judson, H. (1983). "Thumbprints in our clay: Unraveling the controversy over genetic engineering". New republic 189 (12–13): 12–17. PMID 11651757. edit
• Judson, H. (1980). "Reflections on the historiography of molecular biology". Minerva 18 (3): 369–421. PMID 11610977. edit
• Judson, H. (1975). "Fearful of science: Who shall watch the scientists?". Harper's 250 (1501): 70–72+. PMID 11661234. edit
• Judson, H. (1975). "Fearful of science: After Copernicus, after Darwin, after Freud comes molecular biology. Is nothing sacred?". Harper's 250 (1498): 32+. PMID 11664517. edit

 

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