Talk:Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid

Untitled
Here is a first draft. I tried to make an article that would complement the information that is already present in the Francis Crick and DNA articles. --JWSchmidt 23:52, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Figure 3 enourmously helpful

 * I found figure three to be extremely helpful. I was in an "Introduction to Biology" course at University of Arizona and diagrams like this helped me "wrap my mind around the idea" as my professor used to say. If you should think about adding any more diagrams like this, please do, as they are extremely useful to us MCB students.24.251.84.221 19:45, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

sounds like an essay
This is a professional piece of work, but the article sounds a bit like an essay. Since this is an encyclopedia entry, it kind of uses a slightly patronising tone. Could this be fixed? Elle vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 23:53, 25 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I have an unavoidable point of view with respect to this article (the original article in Nature). This was among the first primary biology articles I ever read and I have a deep admiration for the authors that was established at an early age and has lasted for decades. I think that the Science pearls project is a good idea for Wikipedia, and I have been thinking about the need to cite the secondary literature that has grown up around the original Nature article by Watson and Crick. I think most of the points I made in this "essay" are supported in sources that I cited in other Wikipedia articles that are hypertext linked to this one. I was reluctant to clutter this article with a bunch of citations. I think it is dangerous for one person's perspective to dominate the description of the significance of the Nature article; for example the "patronising tone" is entirely invisible to me. The only remedy is for other people to jump in and re-write. It is usually through the process of different POVs being expressed that the need for citations to sources is driven home and Wikipedia articles become more formal and NPOV. --JWSchmidt 01:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Purpose of Article
It seems to me that this article is more about the discovery of the structure of DNA than about Watson and Crick's article. For example, the section "Origins of molecular biology" barely touches on Watson and Crick. I agree with the person above that this article is more like an essay than anything. Personally, I feel the article should be structured similarly to The Origin of Species, for example. At the moment, I'm not up for an edit, and I'd appreciate other insight anyways. Any thoughts? Thanks. Makeemlighter 19:47, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The Origin of Species is a nice article, but I'm not sure that it is a good model for Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids. The Origin was a huge argument designed to change the way people thought. Darwin spent decades building towards The Origin and re-working its details. There are 1,500 words in the middle of The Origin of Species that deal with what Darwin wrote and how it was published. The writing and publication of Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids was accomplished in a matter of weeks. The time that Crick and Watson spent collaborating on what was published in Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids amounts to a few months of effort. In the case of Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids, the published article was meant to be almost invisible. Watson and Crick basically put the Double Helix on the public stage and let it speak for itself.


 * The section "Origins of molecular biology" tries to describe how Crick and Watson were caught up in the rise of molecular biology and how they were influenced by other scientists who helped start molecular biology. Those influences are what positioned Crick and Watson to want to solve the structure of DNA at a time when most biologists were not even aware that doing so was possible and important.


 * In my view, all parts of the Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids article can be improved. I have no doubt that a major restructuring of the article's approach could improve the presentation. What is there now is basically an outline of points that one person thought should be made. That outline was not suggested to be complete and some of the points that I tried to make are probably too terse to be understood by some people. Other editors should jump in. --JWSchmidt 17:56, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

The "Discovery of DNA" Biographical table is shorter than the one in Erwin Chargaff's (and others) shouldn't the table be updated to reflect those additions? Or Is that under debate?

Lack of peer review (of the Nature article, not ours!)
According to a section in the Nature (journal) article, Watson and Crick's work was not sent out for peer review before publication, on the grounds that John Maddox felt that "the paper could not have been refereed: its correctness is self-evident. No referee working in the field ... could have kept his mouth shut once he saw the structure..." 86.132.140.63 01:38, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Needs Work
Admirable efforts, but a bit too wordy. We need to reduce the prose a bit and condense. Gautam Discuss 20:35, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Go for it! Super Aardvark 19:17, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:FirstSketchOfDNADoubleHelix.jpg
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tautomers
See Keto-enol_tautomerism. What is missing from the discussion here of model building and the discovery of the structure is the key insight that Watson received from a Pauling collaborator, and which he described clearly in The Double Helix. The original models that Watson and Crick had built had used the then-current textbook tautomeric form of the bases, which did not pair. The whole structure solution came together, almost immediately, when Watson had new model components made in the other tautomeric form (as shown in all textbooks now). This change was made based on advice from Jerry Donohue, a post doc in his lab, who had recently come to Cambridge from Paulings lab, and who knew that the textbooks were likely wrong. This help was, truly, a key part of the solution. A third key component of the solution was Chargraff's rule, that showed Watson to pair A with T and G with C. I believe Chargraff felt he should have received more credit for the help he gave. --AJim (talk) 01:01, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

On reflection, there is something more to add to the article. There needs to be a mention that DNA had already been shown to be the genetic material, there should be a mention of the Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment. Watson, as a virologist, along with many others, was aware of the Avery work, but was puzzled by it. What the Watson-Crick structure suggested was how the DNA could contain the genetic information. This was as important as how it could be reproduced. --AJim (talk) 19:11, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Figure 2
The caption of Figure 2 notes that "this figure does not depict B-DNA." In that case, what conformation does it depicted? The helix doesn't look like A-DNA or Z-DNA. To me, it looks like B-DNA without major or minor grooves. The diagram in Watson and Crick's 1953 paper included DNA's major and minor grooves; our diagram should at least be on par with the accuracy theirs. (I've tried to make this image myself in Inkscape, but haven't been able to produce anything worthwhile.) Emw (talk) 14:13, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It is simply a cartoon drawing of DNA in general. I don't think it is necessary for the caption to note that "this figure does not depict B-DNA". --Thorwald (talk) 00:09, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Content forking
This article appears to cover a great deal of material also covered at History of molecular biology. Why do we have two articles? WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 14:18, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Rosalind Franklin and image quality
I have read elsewhere that Rosalind Franklin's crystallography images were substantially more clear than those that Watson and Crick had previously seen, and that this clarity made a substantial difference to their ability to understand the layout of the DNA helix. It's been several years since I read this so I don't recall the source, but I think the page would benefit by consideration of this point. As a more literal level, the part of the page discussing how Franklin's work was shared with Crick could use some paragraph breaks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.83.42.135 (talk) 08:58, 25 April 2013 (UTC) <That is the difference between invention/discovery, all the rest is Just Innovation! "Invention(substantial scientific proof) only gets you from zero to one. Innovation is the 2 to 100%" YVON CHOUINARD president,legendary climber, businessman and environmentalist founder and owner of Patagonia, Inc. "Ask him! another "Living, Legend, Hero and Inspiration" ;{<72.12.86.181 (talk) 03:07, 18 April 2015 (UTC) JcW 4/17/2015

Collins
I removed this phrase, "along with Canadian Genetic Biologist David Collins and German Physicists Colin Cerimagic" from the first sentence. There are three papers on DNA, published on sequential pages, and the authors are: J. D. WATSON & F. H. C. CRICK; M. H. F. WILKINS, A. R. STOKES & H. R. WILSON; ROSALIND E. FRANKLIN & R. G. GOSLING. Don't know why that phrase was there, but it looks to me like vandalism. Nick Beeson (talk) 01:00, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

booklet
The word "booklet" is defined as "a little book with few pages, and a paper cover." The Double Helix was 296 pages, smyth sewn, and hard bound. Very much the definition of a "book". Nick Beeson (talk) 02:00, 25 April 2016 (UTC)