Did Watson and Crick Really Steal Rosalind Franklin’s Data?

theguardian.com

36 points·wrongc0ntinent··11 comments

Fascinating article. Though one expects better of The Guardian - from their misunderstanding of the proper use of the word protagonist, through to the bewildering closing comment:

"As the Tim Hunt affair showed, sexist attitudes are ingrained in science, as in the rest of our culture."

There seems to be an abundance of these kinds of stories about science that eschew scientific method in their own interpretation and conclusions.

I apologize for my ignorance, but this article seems to forget to mention what exactly Watson's contribution was. From reading this one gets the impression he rather delayed than accelerated the important discoveries. Surely this wasn't the case. Can anyone comment on this?

Read "The Eighth Day of Creation", it covers this in exhaustively cited detail.

Regardless of the answer to the question in the headline, Rosalind Franklin not receiving the Nobel Prize was and always will be a disgusting travesty.

She was dead. You have to be alive to receive the Nobel Prize, any of them.

To add insult to injury, it is probable that her work killed her. She had ovarian cancer, and was known for walking in front of her x-rays (at waist level) quite a lot.

I am well aware of the rule, I simply disagree with it because of cases like this.

That makes no sense. Every single time the rule is applied, somebody is posthumously denied this greatest of scientific distinctions. The existence of the rule guarantees that every year, someone will be denied their due credit in the history books, while the lucky-living take the prize.

Dead people can't use the funds to further their work.

Yes, there's not much luck associated with being dead.

There are a lot of dead people who deserve Nobel Prizes.

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