today at 10:21 PM
I think this is a better article on the topic:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5
It seems like there are several different parts to the discovery of the "structure of DNA" and different people contributed.
1. DNA is helical
2. DNA is a double helix
3. The ACGT copying mechanism
Part 1 was Franklin and Wilkins. Part 3 was Watson and Crick. Part 2 is the part under debate, to what degree was the double helix clear from just Franklin's imaging?
But really, how much does it matter? It seems like the four of them each contributed a lot. The Nobel prize only went to the other three, in large part because Franklin died before it was given out.
today at 10:34 PM
It’s just a proxy debate about whether men or women are superior to the other.
today at 9:32 PM
So did Franklin provably realize the double-helix structure of DNA first or not? A lot of beating about the bush here but the article stops just short of actually explicitly making the claim it's working so hard to imply, AFAICT...
(edit: should note the HN submission title (at present "Despite what Watson said, Rosalind Franklin understood structure of DNA first") does not actually occur in TFA)
today at 10:14 PM
The original title was too long and then when I considered how to edit it I realized that the original title was too obscure for anyone not steeped in that particular literature (“photo 51”)
today at 10:11 PM
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today at 10:15 PM
Is genuine curiosity about scientific history inherently "retconning"? Would you have said that if the dispute was between Watson and some other dude?
I mean, yes, there are people who push this attribution because of identity reasons. Rejecting it for the same reasons is at least as bad, no?
today at 10:20 PM
Sure, and I'm sure there are countless people through history, lab techs, post docs, the scribe of Machiavelli, the person who washed da Vinci's shirts who made contributions - maybe major. Hell, stuff I bring up at work now will somehow make it in to our staff meeting as coming from the CEO when it was a conversation him and I had.
The questions is, why, there's clearly an obsession around it. And I honestly doubt if Rosalind Franklin we wouldn't be having the conversation, can you see any indicator to the contrary?
today at 9:43 PM
She totally did. She was the crystallography expert, she understood the meaning of the results immediately. She died and had no one to defend her so W&C were left with the credit, as was normal in the 50s and 60s (and 70s, 80s, 90s, etc).
today at 9:47 PM
Discrimination against the dead strikes again. Well, the dead are tired of taking this lying down. Time for the dead to rise up!
today at 9:22 PM
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered
today at 10:16 PM
> Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered
Yup. We all know the microscope, telescope, train, plane, internal combustion engine, antibiotics, vaccines, etc. were all developed in Africa. Let the truth come out!
today at 10:28 PM
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today at 10:27 PM
today at 9:59 PM
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today at 10:06 PM
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today at 9:39 PM
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today at 9:29 PM
No-one should take Watson seriously. He exploited institutional sexism, systemic minimization, and unequal credit distribution to aggrandize his own contribution. It's a good example of why efforts like "DEI" are important - because if you leave things to people in a position of privilege, you get a completely distorted picture.