Talk:Maurice Wilkins/Archive 1

Caption
DR. LOFTHOUSE

OK SO WHO WROTE THE SILLY CAPTION TO THE COLOUR PICTURE? IT WAS CAPTIONED "KING'S COLLEGE LONDON", WHEN IT IS OBVIOUSLY "KING'S CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE"; SOMEONE JUST CANNOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE! Nitramrekcap 10:47, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

PS AS THE ILLUSTRATION HAS GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH MAURICE WILKINS WHATSOEVER (HIS CAMBRIDGE COLLEGE WAS ST. JOHN'S BY THE WAY) I SUGGEST THAT WHOEVER ADDED IT IN ERROR SHOULD REMOVE IT ASAP? Nitramrekcap 10:57, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I'll remove the picture. The caption on this image at wikimedia commons says "King's College". Does anyone know of a public domain or GFDL image of Wilkins? --JWSchmidt 12:24, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Well Done John for changing the image and tidying up the layout of the text; I will send you a good image of Wilkins by e-mail; BUT please do something about those horrible multi-coloured boxes, the colours don't do justice to the six scientists concerned AND what about adding all of the rest of the King's College LONDON team? Nitramrekcap 12:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)


 * If you have an image, please make sure you know its copyright status. If you give me a list of what you count as the King's College LONDON team, I will make a navigation box to link them together. --JWSchmidt 12:39, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

DNA structure research at King's College London 1947-1959 Maurice Wilkins | Rosalind Franklin | Raymond Gosling | Alec Stokes | Herbert Wilson

CONGRATULATIONS TO WHOEVER ADDED THE KCL LOGO AND LINKED FIVE OF THE "KING'S COLLEGE LONDON" SIX TOGETHER! BUT WHERE IS SIR JOHN (TURTON) RANDALL - THE LEADING LIGHT OF KING'S DNA RESEARCH? ALSO AT THE RISK OF BEING PEDANTIC, LET'S HAVE THEM IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER? Nitramrekcap 15:06, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Mr Schmidt I guess you are associated with King's College and so wish to support it, but Wikipedia is not the medium for this. As I understand the objective of an encyclopaedia, articles are supposed to be about the title at the top of each page. The main illustration of this article on Maurice Wilkins should therefore be a photograph of Maurice Wilkins. A photograph of his house would perhaps tell more about his personality than a picture of the college and its logo. The article already quite clearly states he worked at King's College. Why is a photograph of King's College and its logo needed to illustrate this simple fact? They will have greater relevance in the article about King's College. There are already hyperlinks in the article for all the people involved in the discovery of DNA's structure, where they had any relationship with Maurice Wilkins. Duplicating links to these people is not necessary. However I could understand why the King's College web-site might wish to commemorate the pioneers of DNA in this way. JMcC 20:35, 19 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I have no association with or interest in King's College and I have made no attempt to "support it". It is a service to wikipedia readers to provide ways of helping them find multiple articles that are related to a topic that they are interested in. Most people who come to the Maurice Wilkins article will do so because of his research on DNA. Such wikipedia users may want to make use of a navigation box linking to other pages about the discovery of the structure of DNA. Wilkins was part of a group of people at King's College who participated in research on DNA. Nitramrekcap suggested that there be a way of linking this group of pages together. Some of us have been making an effort to find an image of Wilkins that can be used on wikipedia. The image of a building at King's College is a place keeper until a better image can be obtained. --JWSchmidt 22:15, 19 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Good to see that someone else, User:80.177.0.93, agrees with me about the irrelevant logo and photo. I also notice that it has been removed from Rosalind Franklin's article.  Somehow the consenus there must have been to remove it.  If so, the same reasoning should apply here.  Incidentally why are Linus Pauling and Max Delbruck associated with King's College? JMcC 14:39, 4 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Two editors of Rosalind Franklin's article felt that since Franklin had not gotten along with people like Wilkins, Wikipedia should not include her in a navigation box with people like Wilkins. In my view, Wikipedia should help the reader. Many people who come to the articles about Wilkins and Franklin will find it useful to have a navigation box linking to other people involved in the discovery of the structure of DNA. Linus Pauling and Max Delbruck are not associated with King's College. What we need is a Wikipedia editor who can get someone to allow a photo of Wilkins to be used under the GFDL. --JWSchmidt 18:51, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Having just now written an article related to the discovery of the structure of DNA, I was disturbed to note that Rosalind Franklin's name was omitted from the list of scientists who contributed to work on the molecule. In fact, the sordid story of her seminal research at King's College, London being shown to Watson & Crick without her knowledge in advance of their 1953 papers in Nature, was first described by Anne Sayre in "Rosalind Franklin & DNA" (Norton, 1975). followed by Brenda Maddox's "Dark Lady of DNA" (Harper Collins, 2002) This is well-known by now, since a film on PBS titled "The Secret of Photo 51' on the subject was screened over PBS and raised quite a storm. A university in North Chicago was renamed the "Rosalind Franklin University of Science and Medicine". In my humble opinion, she was the principal discoverer of the structure of DNA. Nobel laureates Watson, Crick & Wilkins were very bright people, but Rosalind too was brilliant and her Photo 51 - an x-ray diffraction photo of the hydrated form of DNA, and calcultions were indispensable for constructing their correct model.

Edits by a banned user
According to the replies to this Incident report, the banned user Amorrow is known to edit using IP addresses that start with numbers such as 75, 68 and 67. Augaeth started the King's College DNA controversy article and is listed as a suspected puppet of Amorrow. I guess all edits by the following users should be carefully examined and deleted if they do not contribute to the encyclopedia:
 * -Watson
 * -Watson & Crick
 * -Watson
 * -Wilkins & Watson & Crick & Franklin & King's College DNA controversy
 * -Wilkins & Watson
 * -Watson
 * -Watson
 * -Crick
 * -Crick
 * -Crick
 * -Crick
 * Note: some of these users also edited additional Wikipedia articles not mentioned above.--JWSchmidt 03:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * -Crick
 * Note: some of these users also edited additional Wikipedia articles not mentioned above.--JWSchmidt 03:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Maurice wilkins.jpg
Image:Maurice wilkins.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 03:35, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Third Man of DNA
I have always thought "The Third Man of D.N.A." to be somewhat neglected, although it was nice to see that Matt Ridley added Wilkins's autobiography to his list of sources in the paperback edition of his Francis Crick biography! I have already made some minor corrections/additions so hopefully it will come up to the same high standard as Crick, Watson, and Franklin - eventually.

91.108.16.49 (talk)nitramrekcap —Preceding comment was added at 18:02, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Repeated image
Isn't it a bit redundant to repeat the image twice (see also James D. Watson)? Richard001 (talk) 06:30, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Bias/missing explanation
'Wilkins was handicapped because Franklin had all of the good DNA."

Please support with evidence or remove. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.29.111.79 (talk) 19:50, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Changes 12/31/2010
1. These are based largely on the obituary now cited in the "lead" part of the article.

2. I made some rearrangements and changed the sectioning. I moved the comments about security concerns to Personal life. I think this more appropriate than Education

3. The full sequence of Maurice's appointments and association with John Randall is critical to any account of Maurice's life.

4. An explanation of the background of the KCL Biophysics unit is essential.

5. I removed the sentence that quoted Crick's criticism that the unit lacked direction. The MRC hierarchy were very aware of the lines of investigation that were being pursued, and were satisfied. The unit was delving into the unknown -- this was not a military goal directed development project. A major problem of research administration is knowing which approaches to back and which to exclude, and absent knowledge that a methodology will not bear fruit, you try it. In retrospect, the approach worked extremely well. The variety of techniques that was explored is documented in reports to the MRC. Literature searches on the names of the staff associated with these show their work led to published papers (otherwise funding would not have been continued), and the extent to which these have influenced later research. In any case, the article is about Maurice Wilkins. What is the relevance of this remark, unless there is tacit acceptance of Wilkins oversight role and is meant as tacit criticism of Maurice? It gave the impression of barrel scraping for negative remarks.

4. The fact that Randall appointed scientists with degrees in biology and (at least in Franklin's case) chemistry, as well as physics, was of critical importance and basic to the idea underlying interdisciplinary research).

5. I removed the statement that Maurice's autobiography "does not specifically credit Stokes and Wilson as co-authors of their paper in Nature. Whether this was deliberate on his part or just the result of poor sub-editing by the publisher is not known." tentatively, as gratuitous, if the book does not contain a bibliography of published works or it does but omits references for the joint publications with Stokes and Wilson.

6. I do not have time now to go further into the article. But somewhere there is a statement to the effect that Maurice never looked anyone directly in the eye. This is hyperbole. I know from many conversations that he avoided eye contact. Anecdotes when he did look me directly in the eye are non "verifiable". But short of life long recorded surveillance, "never" is unsustainable.

7. Somewhere is a comment that Crick and Watson gave permission for the consecutive publication of three papers in Nature. In a case like this, authority rests with the Editor, not the authors of individual papers. Of course, there has to be discussion, in particular to make sure everyone has manuscripts in synch. Maurice suggested that the paper that described the Fourier transform calculations by Langridge, Barnett and Mann (Journal of Molecular Biology, 2, 63, 1960) follow one of his joint papers in the journal, but the Editor made the decision to accept it (the Journal of Chemical Physics had turned it down as a letter because "it was well known that computers could be used to perform crystallographic calculations" -- not verifiable because I threw the letter out over 50 years ago.) Michael P. Barnett (talk) 15:27, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Intelligence About Him Supplied to MI5 by 'Colleagues'?
He is named in intelligence documents released by MI5 on 26 August 2010 under the heading "Communists and Suspected Communists, including Russians, and Communist Sympathisers". Several colleagues, sometime between 1951 and 54, passed on information about him - whether they knew this isn't clear. The file references and entries can be found on the MI5 website(https://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/26-august-2010-releases-communists-and-suspected-communists.html) and reads: "Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins File ref KV2/3382 - KV2/3383 1943 - 1955 New Zealand-born British scientist Wilkins is best known as one of three scientists awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962 for the discovery of the structure of DNA. This file details how, having worked on the Manhattan project in America during the Second World War, Wilkins was investigated from 1951 to 1954 as a possible candidate for a spy of antipodean origin who in 1945 had passed scientific information to the American Communist Party. An informant described him as, ‘a caricature of a scientist, in that he seems to be both incapable of dealing with ordinary human situations, and apparently uninterested by them’, and by another as ‘a very queer fish’. (KV2/3383). Security Service’s investigation in this file produced nothing to implicate Wilkins. Any clues as to the identity of other 'informants'? Could they have included a disgruntled Franklin, or is it just coincidental that surveillance information started in 1951 and ended in 1953 (the time she left King's and actively sought bench space -  in the laboratory of a self-confessed Communist, Bernal)? Could this have been the real reason Wilkins appeared not to have got on with Franklin ???? See  for one reading of events.212.139.99.65 (talk) 00:03, 18 January 2012 (UTC)Dr Lofthouse212.139.99.65 (talk) 00:03, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Stokes
Please amend the following statement -

"He published his autobiography, "The Third Man of the Double Helix," in 2003, but does not specifically credit Stokes and Wilson as co-authors of their paper in "Nature". Whether this was deliberate on his part or just down to rather poor sub-editing by OUP is not known".

As a former student of his in the 1980's, I can attest to the fact he ALWAYS and invariably credited Stokes (who taught me Kinetic Theory) and Wilson, in every lecture, in every conversation, and even at his 80th Birthday party, which I attended. The omission is purely down to poor sub-editing, and does him a great discourtesy, as he was a generous and self-effacing bloke. With regard to Rosalind Franklin being left out of the Nobel, I would also add tha the didn't actually make the rules that deprived her of inclusion - the Franklin-Wilkins unit of King's College was named in that order largely at his insistence because of it.

Dr. J. T. Lofthouse.


 * Yes the book alluded to here makes several mentions of Stokes' work & ideas - for instance, that Stokes thought the 'X' pattern of the X-Rays in itself suggested a helical structure.--109.156.80.122 (talk) 13:41, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Photo 51
It is often wrongly asserted that Wilkins "showed it (Photo 51) to Watson without the consent of Franklin [my emphasis]" as on the lead. This is a widespread media falsehood. It is explictly clear that Wilkins was the authority on all the documents and data in the lab, and that he did not require anyone's permission to show them whoever he pleased. Particularly Photo 51 was already handed over through Raymond Gosling, as Rosalind Franklin was packing up for Birkbeck College. I have justified the story at Rosalind Franklin. Chhandama (talk) 06:14, 24 March 2016 (UTC)