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Rosalind Franklin’s research was crucial to discovering DNA’s double helix structure 🧬 but it was James Watson & Francis Crick who received the credit & Nobel Prize.

Unknown to Franklin, the pair saw her unpublished data & X-ray diffraction images, inspiring their model. They never acknowledged her contribution until after her death.

How many discoveries & innovations of #women do we attribute to the men who took credit for their ideas?

https://theconversation.com/sexism-pushed-rosalind-franklin-toward-the-scientific-sidelines-during-her-short-life-but-her-work-still-shines-on-her-100th-birthday-139249 #history #science #HistoryRemix
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Start with Emmy Northern. And then go look up rejectedprincesses.com.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Franklin was an absolutely brilliant experimentalist but this common take seems unfair. Her contributions were in fact acknowledged early on -- Watson was the first to suggest she should have shared in the Nobel and she became close with Crick. But her bosses at MRC were frustrated because she refused to model, and in fact she even made fun of Wilkins for proposing a helical structure. Her data were essential, she was brilliant, and I can't imagine the prejudice against women...
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

@yona may the three involved in the theft be forgotten and Rosalind be remembered
@yona
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

And then she also contributed much to what we know about viruses. #Franklin #hero
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

"Still, she probably freely shared her knowledge with Watson and Crick, rather than having her X-ray images used without her knowledge, as Watson himself implied" This is poppycock. PBS Nova talked to Watson and Wilkins in the '90s and it's pretty clear the data was gotten without her knowledge or consent. https://youtu.be/V9GuA27FJBg?t=266
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I always thought it likely that she knew. The more interesting question is, I think, whether Watson and Crick were fully aware of their plagiarism, and if they were, how they squared their theft with their conscience and obligations as scientists.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I think "a new paper confirms" is a misstatement. This Comment is an opinion piece, not a peer-reviewed paper. Still a very cool story ☺️
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Reminds me of this joke:

Lecturer: What did Watson & Crick discover?
Woman in audience: Rosalind Franklin’s notebook

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I remember my mother, a microbiologist, insisting this was the case 50 years ago.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Barbara McClintock with jumping genes needs more prominence … IMHO
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Knowing it's a helix is not the same as understanding the double-helix structure. In fact, I believe Linus Pauling beat Crick and Watson to publication with a paper incorrectly showing it to be a triple helix. This article lacks clarity a bit.

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