Talk:Rosalind Franklin/Archive 2

references drive
Fact and Reference Check Numbered in-text citations and a corresponding a list of references were recently added to the Francis Crick article (this format). I suggest that the same be done for this article. I am trying to start with a citation for this statement: "Crick has said Franklin would have made the discovery within three months". First of all, this statement is ambiguous; what "discovery"? In Crick's book "What Mad Pursuit" he estimated that if he and Watson had not worked on the structure of DNA it may have been 2-3 YEARS before a good model of the structure was published. Also, what is the source of "Watson has stated that Franklin should have discovered the structure of DNA as much as two years before he and Crick did"? --JWSchmidt 18:09, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Most of the information here comes from Brenda Maddox Book, which is listed in the Bibliography section. I did an extensive re-write of the article about five months ago, just after reading the book. Because of this I have not referenced every little factoid to the book but used this format. Of course there was some material in the article which has remained. Both of the quotes you have mentioned were added before of after my re-write, but not by me. I tend to be of the opinion that both of these statements are not really necessary to the article anyway, they are Crick and Watsons opinions and could be viewed as attempts at justification for their behaviour anyway (see Maddox's book). Whichever way you look at it there is no reason to believe that any of the statements are necesarily accurate predictions of when a model would otherwise have been produced. Both Crick and Watson appear to have made contradictory statements about RF's role in the discovery of DNA (see Maddox's book), so it could well be that Crick has made both statements at different times of his career, no one can be expected to be consistent through the entirity of their life!!!! As to citing the quotes you mention, I agree, they do need attribution, or to be removed, I'm for removal.Alun 05:53, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Here's a websit with the same estimate of three weeks-three months mentioned by Crick. I'm never sure how useful web references are, they can just be repeating the same mistake, but this is true of all references I guess. In fact, Elkin said, Crick later estimated Franklin was herself three weeks to three months away from solving the structure of DNA. Her data, combined with strong theoretical suggestions from their colleague Jerry Donohue, made possible Watson and Crick’s correct model in early March 1953.Alun 06:38, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
 * And here Crick has generously ventured that she was three months away, but it is doubtful that Rosalind realized it, given her decision to leave the investigation of DNA to take up the crystallographic study of viruses.Alun 17:42, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I can find no supporting evidence online for what Watson is supposed to have said. It was added on 07:50, 9 August 2004 by R. fiend. Maybe we should ask him his source?Alun 09:07, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I have asked him if he remembers his source.Alun 09:18, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Here's a direct Watson quote I found in A Conversation with Jim Watson. Engineering & Science No.2 (2003), on the last page of the article, it's in pdf format. Franklin ..made some wrong choices. She should have solved the structure early in 1952 . Cheers Alun 17:58, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I guess we shoud ask Lynne Elkin what her source was for the "3 months". --JWSchmidt 11:23, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I will find my copy of Maddox's book and put in some references.Alun 10:38, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Martin Packer sent an email to Lynne Elkin and got a reply. Lynne Elkin pointed to: "Anne Sayre interview with Crick --see [the] notes to pages 166-173 [that are] on page 213-214 of her book." You can read the book online at amazon.com: the interview with Crick was done in 1970, many years before Crick said "maybe 2-3 years" in chapter 6 of his book "What Mad Pursuit".

Crick's comment: RF would have deduced structure in 3 weeks to 3 months
I have a hard time knowing if "3 months" more work on her A-form X-ray diffraction DNA data would have allowed the base pairs to be determined; I have to trust Crick's knowledge of both X-ray crystallography and Franklin to allow him to predict what would have been possible for her. I have one idea as to why he later guessed 2-3 years. The 2-3 years was an estimate based on what might have happened if Watson "had been killed by a tennis ball". I think it is the case that with Watson in England the information exchange between Cambridge and London was two way. Watson brought some information to King's (such as Pauling's paper) and stimulated Crick to push Wilkins towards trying to making molecular models. Crick wrote (chapter 6 of his book "What Mad Pursuit") "Maurice Wilkins had announced to us, just before he knew of our structure, that he was going to work full time on the problem" and give model building a try. In "The Eighth Day of Creation" Wilkins is quoted as saying, "Early in 1953, one evening before they were working on the models, Jim stopped by my lab. The sum total of our conversation was, I said 'I think Chargaff's data are the key,' and he said, 'I think so too.'" Franklin apparently also had comments in her notes indicating that she was thinking about the Chargaff ratios, so it seems that everyone at both King's College and the Cavendish lab was ready to pay attention to the bases in 1953.

At some point in her systematic analysis of the diffraction data, Franklin would have had to try to fit the structures of the bases to features in her Patterson diagrams, just as she had first done with the phosphate backbone. I can't really imagine that the blur of all the over-lapping bases could have allowed the A:T and G:C base pairs to be resolved by the method of Patterson diagrams. Ultimately, Franklin would have had to break down and resort to trying to arrange by hand structural models of the bases, just to see what configurations of bases might fit between the backbones. Without Watson there pushing Wilkins and warning Franklin about Pauling, Franklin herself might have worked at such a careful and deliberate pace that she could have ended up leaving King's before finding the base pairing rules. Given her nature, even if she had found A:T and G:C, would she have dared publish the idea of base pairing without some kind of direct support from experiments? In a hypothetical world with Watson at the Cavendish lab but prevented from himself finding the base pairs, Franklin may have been pushed to find them herself before leaving her DNA work behind, but she may have published a double helix model without the base pairs. I think this is the kind of course of events Crick described as the possibility that without the Watson-Crick model, the multiple features of the DNA structure might have ended up "trickling out" in pieces. Publication of the full double helix model with the correct base pairs might have been delayed 2-3 years. --JWSchmidt 03:43, 28 September 2005 (UTC)


 * This is all speculation. I think that this article should not become an attempt to justify Crick and Watson's behaviour (which was at least underhand). I have earlier removed lots of stuff justifying Watson and Crick before as it seemed irrelevant. I don't know what you are suggesting. Crick has obviously made two contradictory statements, I see no real reason to try and justify one while ignoring the other, if you want to mention in the article that he has contradicted himself the that's fair enough. There is really no reason to believe that it would have taken Franklin 2 years or three months, we just don't know and anything else is just speculation. I would point out that neither Crick or Watson are disinterested bystanders in this, and any comments they have made about Franklin must be viewed with scepticism. They need to justify their actions, and so it suits their agenda to make it seem like Franklin would have taken a long time produce a structure. The fact that Crick changed his analysis of the amount of time it would have taken Franklin is very suspicious. Remember Franklin had a paper ready for submission proposing a helical structure for DNA 'A'.Alun 06:03, 28 September 2005 (UTC)


 * "Crick has obviously made two contradictory statements" <-- In this case, Crick was interviewed 17 years after the event and wrote an autobiographical account of the event decades after it happened. It is easy for us to now simply say that he "obviously" contradicted himself. Alternatively, we can try to look carefully at the context of Crick's two statements and figure out what he was saying in both cases. "I don't know what you are suggesting." I was suggesting (above) how Crick may have reasoned (in 1970) about the chances of Franklin publishing a double helix model of DNA that includes the idea of base pairing. I think I first looked at the Franklin article on Sept. 25, and I was bothered by the paragraph that was about "the role that Franklin played in the discovery of the structure of DNA". It is natural for people to wonder what would have happened if Crick and Watson had not produced their model of DNA. To say "we just don't know", is an easy way to avoid having to think about the meaning of what Crick said to Anne Sayre. It is then easy to say "Crick changed his analysis" because he had "to justify their actions". The problems is, it is not clear to me that Crick did "changed his analysis", and that was the point of what I wrote (above).


 * "Franklin had a paper ready for submission proposing a helical structure for DNA 'A'." <-- This should be expanded upon in the article. I think the article should describe the nature of the Patterson analyis she performed. There is no question that this was an important result. However, it does not answer the question about base pairing. --JWSchmidt 13:33, 28 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I have been speculating about Crick's contradictory statements, and there may be a way of reconciling them. If one takes the three weeks to three months as the time it might take to get a theoretical structure, and three years as the time it might take to get enough experimental data to reasonably support the theory, then the two statements can both be accepted.Alun 16:55, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Base pairing
The question about base pairing was answered by Jerry Donohue:

Jerry Donohue wrote in 1976 Let's face it if the fates hadn't ordained that I share an office with Watson and Crick in 1952-53 they'd still be puttering around trying to pair like-with-like enol forms of the bases.Alun 05:51, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Watson's comment: She should have solved the structure early in 1952
The basis of this statement is something that we could explain in the article. I am reluctant to do so because it takes us into the domain of speculation about "might have beens":

On 21 November 1951 Franklin gave a routine talk at King's College about her research. A week or so earlier Wilkins had visited Crick and Watson in Cambridge and told them that Wilkins and Alexander Stokes had deduced mathematically (from the Wilkins-Gossling X-ray diffraction data of 1950) that DNA had a helical structure. Crick had also just solved the basic mathematics of helical diffraction theory and was well able to confirm that Wilkins’ DNA data indicated a helix. Watson asked if he could come to King's College on the 21st to listen to the talks that would be given and Wilkins said yes.

Franklin's notes for her presentation on the 21st show that she was thinking of a structure of DNA that must be a multi-chain helix with the phosphate backbones of the nucleotide chains on the outside. She had done the routine categorization of the type of crystal she was dealing with in DNA: monoclinic, face-centered. She also had a crude estimate of the density of the molecular structure, an estimate which could not distinguish between two possibilities: 2 nucleotide strands or 3. Correctly interpreted, the monoclinic symmetry indicated that a DNA molecule could be flipped end-for-end and produce the same shape, indicating (when considered with the density data) that there must be 2 anti-parallel phosphate backbones. A major gap in her thinking concerned the nucleotide bases. Her notes indicate that she had no insight into the idea that nucleotide base-pairing might hold strands of nucleotides together.
 * Brenda Maddox gives March 1952 for the solving of the monoclinic symmetry, and May 1952 for photograph 51 (so important to Watson). So not a year before the Crick and Watson model. Solving to structure would have meant using photograph 52, which Franklin didn't use in her work because she was not studying DNA 'B', and it was a picture of DNA 'B'. We can extend our what if hypothesis and ask, what if Franklin had been working on DNA 'B' and Wilkins on DNA 'A'. Franklin, correctly, didn't trespass on her colleagues work by trying to use photograph 51. If your point is that Franklin and Wilkins should have been collaborating, then I agree entirely. This seems to be in large part the fault of Randall. Wilkins has himself noted that Randall frequently played members of staff off against each other. I believe that there has been speculation (probbably in Maddox's book) that Randall's letter to Franklin about her being the only one working on x-rays may have been deliberatelly missleading. The blame for no collaberation surely lies at the door of Randall, it was his responsibility to ensure that his principal investigators worked well together. It was poor management to split the work in so arbitrary a manner.Alun 05:51, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
 * monoclinic symmetry I am relying on what Horace Judson said in his book "The Eighth Day of Creation". He cites as his source Franklin's notes for her talk at the November 1951 King's College colloquium- notes that were originally given to Aaron Klug: "She wrote in her colloquium notes that the unit cell of the crystalline state could be indexed as monoclinic, face-centered." In her colloquium notes she used both "spiral" and "helix" and included the length of a turn of the helix for the crystalline form, "Suggests 27 A is length of turn of spiral," and "Xtalline form involves some strain of helix". Franklin's B form image from (1952 which Watson saw early in 1953) was not needed by Franklin in order for her to recognize the helical nature of DNA. Her images from 1951 had shown helical features.
 * Maddox is somewhat hazy about this. She implies that Crick got the monoclinic symetry in January 1953 from Franklin's December 1952 MRC report, and that Watson was shown photograph 51 in December 1952, Wilkins himself only having just been made aware of it's existence. Watson seems to think this picture is very important!!!Alun 03:29, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Randall. I think it is instructive to recognize that in the period that Franklin came to King's College, Randall was hiring dozens of people to staff this ralatively new and rapidly growing Medical Research Council laboratory. It is possible for me to imagine that a main part of the problem was one of poor communication between Randall, Wilkins and Franklin. Randall may have been so busy that he expected people like Wilkins to manage new arrivals. Such a distribution of responsibility is not unusual in large laboratories.
 * Yes, that's the impression I get as well. Still, I think the division of work between Franklin and Wilkins should never have been allowed. These were two of his senior investigators, it was Randall's job to bang heads together and make them cooperate. He seems instead to have weakened the whole project by allowing Franklin to work in isolation, and Wilkins to become too close to people outside their group.Alun 03:29, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Model building
In hind sight, Watson knew that at the end of 1951 Franklin was almost at the point Watson and Crick reached over a year later; the point at which Watson had made the critical move of playing with molecular models in order to explore how the bases must fit into the middle of a double helix. Could Franklin have discovered nucleotide base-pairing early in 1952? In the week after Franklin's November 1951 talk, Crick and Watson constructed an error-filled DNA model with the phosphates in the middle. After they showed it off, they were in the dog house, told to stop working on DNA and they sent their equipment for making molecular model components to King's College for the use of the DNA workers there. Crick tried to get Wilkins to make DNA models but neither Wilkins nor Franklin did so. This is the point, late 1951 to early 1952 for which it is so easy for Watson to imagine a different outcome at King's College. What if Franklin had spent a few weeks collaborating with Wilkins to fit the bases into the center of a model of the DNA molecule? Would they have recognized that Franklin’s calculations were most compatible with a double helix? Could they have found the A:T and G:C base pairs by trial-and-error as Watson eventually did a year later? In Watson's mind, the answer is "yes", that is what "should" have happened. It might be better to say that such a chain of events "could" have happened if Franklin had not been committed to careful and conventional X-ray crystallographic analysis of her data rather than playing with molecular models. --JWSchmidt 18:52, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Again this is just speculation. I don't think anyone would dispute that Franklin and Wilkins could have produced a structure much earlier if they had collaborated and had not had such a poor personal relationship. Again I don't know what you are suggesting. The the suggestion that she should have had the structure seems like an accusation, the same could be said of Wilkins, he should have had the structure earlier if he had been collaborating with Franklin. This seems like a crude attempt to allocate blame. It seems to have been Watson's strategy all along that the best form of defence is attack. He has consistently belittled Franklin and her work, in order to justify his own underhand behaviour. I really don't want this article to become something which tries to justify Crick and Watson at the expense of Franklin..Alun 06:03, 28 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I have not gone back into the history of this page. It may be that there were (in the past) attempts to "justify Crick and Watson at the expense of Franklin" that should have (and were) removed. I am not suggesting that this article become something which tries to justify Crick and Watson at the expense of Franklin. I started out trying to understand this statement from the Sept. 25 version of the article: "Watson has stated that Franklin should have discovered the structure of DNA as much as two years before he and Crick did". The article now has the Watson quote: "She should have solved the structure early in 1952". "I don't know what you are suggesting" <-- I was suggesting how Watson may think in order to say, "She should have solved the structure early in 1952". My efforts are aimed at trying to understand what happened in 1953 and include in the Franklin article a coherent account of what was going on in 1953.


 * When people are not aware of the state of affairs in 1953 it becomes very easy to characterize Watson's blunt and judgmental statements ("should") as a "crude attempt to allocate blame" and self-serving justification of what many people conclude is "underhand behaviour". There are other possible reasons for why Watson said that Franklin should have solved the structure early in 1952. In particular, as I outlined above and what I was trying to suggest, is that maybe it is not unreasonable for Watson to have thought that Franklin should have behaved differently. She took over a project that was important to others around her and she was reluctant to cooperate with and listen to other people. If we think about the scientific community that Franklin joined in 1951, I think we can see that her behavior was outside of the norms of other people Watson interacted with in the MRC labs and the "Phage Group" that Watson had grown up in and still communicated with all the time by mail. In a fast-moving, rapidly-developing field of central importance to biology, the approach taken by others was to share information. It is true that many areas of science research were then much less competitive and investigators had the luxury to approach their work with deliberate care and caution. What "should" Watson have thought about Franklin's choice to take such a cautious approach to analysis of the X-ray diffraction data that were part of the project that Wilkins had started? Watson had come to England out of a desire to use and build upon the original DNA B-form data collected by Wilkins and Goslings in 1950. When Watson arrived, he learned from Wilkins that Franklin had taken over the project and would not collaborate. Wilkins continued the "normal" policy of sharing with Crick and Watson what he knew about the DNA X-ray diffraction project he had started at King's College. I think it is only with a kind of warped hind-sight that we can now conclude that it was Watson who behaved badly. Should Watson and Wilkins simply have said, "Franklin got this project all to her self, fair and square, so we should just move on to other things?" In my view, the only way that people can even contemplate such a thing as what Watson and Wilkins "should have done" is by remaining ignorant of the social environment that they existed in. Out of such ignorance, people easily leap to profound and absolute moral judgments about Watson's actions as being "unethical", "wrong" and "probably illegal". Once you make these judgments of Watson, then any attempt to discuss the actual conditions that Watson worked under are easy to dismiss as "useless" attempts to justify of bad behavior. If you make this move, you are free to beat your chest and make your judgments but you have also liberated yourself from the facts.
 * Watson had come to England out of a desire to use and build upon the original DNA B-form data collected by Wilkins and Goslings in 1950. This is not true. Watson went to England to ...join Max Perutz's department to study crystallography and plant viruses. (Maddox's book p.158) . He was in no way associated with the search for the structure of DNA and had been repeatedly told that this was not his area of research. Neither the Cavendish nor Watson gained funding for work on DNA. Wilkins shared information with Watson and Crick because he thought that they posed no threat to his research, because neither of them were supposed to have been working on DNA anyway. If you want to talk about social conditions then you should also apply them to Rosalind Franklin. She was patronised and undervalued by all of the senior men around her. She had been deceived by Randall into believing that she alone would be working on DNA, here's a quote from Randall's letter to her before she started at Kings This means that as far as the experimental x-ray effort is concerned there will be at the moment only yourself and Gosling.. (Brenda Maddox's biography). You seem to be prepared to make moral judgements about Rosalind Franklin's behaviour. Do not assume you alone are without prejudice. Alun 17:29, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
 * There was a whole series of excuses that were constructed in order to obtain funding for Watson while he was England. The point I made was about the original motivation that led Watson to England. When Watson started his postdoctoral work he was interested in DNA. He went to Copenhagen in 1950 to learn about DNA. While there he did experiements using radioactive DNA. In May 1951 Watson saw Wilkins talk about his 1950 X-ray diffraction results obtained with what would come to be called the "B-form" DNA. As Described by Judson in his book The Eighth Day of Creation, Watson decided while still in Copenhagen that it would be possible to use X-ray diffraction data to solve the structure of DNA. He based this decision on Wilkins B-form DNA X-ray diffraction picture and Pauling's recent success in solving the structure of the protein alpha helix. With the aid of his PhD adviser, Watson arranged to move from Copenhagen to London in a position attached to Perutz's X-ray cryatallography group. I'm sure that before going to England Watson had no idea that Crick existed, but through Crick's long-standing relationship with Wilkins, Watson soon had access to additional DNA results from King's College (late 1951) and Watson and Crick constructed their first DNA model soon after Watson arrived in England. It was AFTER they made this failed model that they were told to stop working on DNA. I think Wilkins shared his data with Watson and Crick becouse that was the normal social practice of the scientific culture they existed in. It is important to understand what "experimental x-ray effort" means. Franklin was hired as a technical expert, she was never told that Wilkins, who had initiated the DNA project she was invited to join, would not be participating on the theoretical interpretation of the data she collected. This was so obvious to Wilkins and Randall that Randall would not have even thought to have to make the point in his letter to Franklin. Junior members with specialize technical skills are frequently recruited to join research groups. They do not walk in the door and and refuse to collaborate with the existing members of the lab. "Do not assume you alone are without prejudice." <-- I am very much aware that we all can fall into the trap of havig unsupported beliefs. We need to carefully look at all the facts. --JWSchmidt 19:34, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
 * So are you saying that he was accepting grant money under false pretenses? Taking money from grant authorities while having no intention of doing the work they were paying him for? That is a very serious accusation. Franklin was not hired as a technician, where do you get this stuff? You are more guilty than me of displaying bias in your interpretation of events. You accuse me of having already decided that Watson was a cad. You seem to have already decided that Franklin was wrong and difficult, and that Watson and Crick acted honourably, your are more guilty than me of trying to fit the facts to your preconceived agenda.Alun 05:51, 29 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I think we have to step back and get the facts clear. It is not constructive to assume that because you "know" Watson was a cad, there is no point in discussing his motivations. I agree that it is correct to be skeptical about what Watson says, but I think it is wrong to dismiss what he says without constructing a rational argument for doing so that is based on facts of what happened in 1950-1953. The Franklin article is still very light on facts and most of the facts are poorly referenced. I suggest that we do the hard work of listing and referencing the facts without being blinded by trendy moralistic judgments that are not obviously founded on the facts --JWSchmidt 15:48, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I do think that Crick and Watson behaved badly. I do not think that the article reflects my views. It is undoubtedly true to say that the use of another scientists work, without their knowledge and therefore without their contribution being acknowledged is a serious breach of scientific protocol. I do not think this is a contencious statement.Alun 17:29, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
 * "the use of another scientists work" I think it is instructive to ask why it was that Crick was given access to the administrative progress report from late 1952 containing Franklin's results. Crick asked permission to see the data and recieved it. Watson and Crick did not want to propose yet another structure that could be easily disprooven by data that Franklin may have had in hand. It is important to be realistic about just what was learned from that report. Did it contain any important information that was not already available from other sources? Did the report simply confirm that Franklin's results could not disproove what Watson and Crick already thought they knew? If so, then the acknowledgment given by Watson and Crick in their paper may have been appropriate. --JWSchmidt 19:58, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
 * So are you saying that it is normal and accepted scientific practice to build a model based on another scientists data (x-ray crystallographs and MRC report) and to publish this model without giving them co-authorship? Crick and Watson have both said that their model would not have been possible without Franklin's work. I am not saying that they shouldn't have been given fair access to her work, I am saying that they should have made a proper acknowledgement of who's work they had used in order to construct their model. In normal scientific practice this would have meant giving Franklin and Wilkins co-authorship of their paper, possibly even Jerry Donohue. You have taken my statement out of context in order to distort it's meaning to back up your prejudice. What I actually wrote was the use of another scientists work, without their knowledge and therefore without their contribution being acknowledged is a serious breach of scientific protocolAlun 05:51, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I can't help but think that you have double standards. You say that we shoudn't judge Crick (and especially) Watson's behaviour because of the situation at the time. And yet you also write about Franklin that She took over a project that was important to others around her and she was reluctant to cooperate with and listen to other people. If we think about the scientific community that Franklin joined in 1951, I think we can see that her behavior was outside of the norms. You do not seem to be prepared to make the same allowances for Franklin's behaviour that you do for Crick and Watson's. You need to be more even handed and try to address Franklin's motivations as well.Alun 12:52, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Rosalind Franklin biographical article, not DNA discovery article.
While I think it is fine to mention Crick's two statements about how long it may or may not have taken Franklin to elucidate a structure (as long as they are referenced), I see no reason to try and justify them, or explain them, but to note that these are his opinions and not fact (and are indeed contradictory). The same goes for Watson, we could mention his statement that she should have discovered the structure earlier, but it is not the ppurpose of an encyclopedia, surely, to justify other's views. Let's remember this is a Rosalind Franklin article, not an article on the discovery of the structure of DNA. Personally I think the article would work just fine with both of Crick and Watson's statements left out altogether, then we don't have to get into a complicated explanation about who knew what and when. It is a biographical article remember. I am worried it is becoming something with a different agenda. I don't see what all this speculation about 'what if history had been different' has to do with finding references. We could just as easily speculate how far Crick and Watson would have got without access to other scientists data, would they have been capable of producing the sort of X-ray data Franklin was producing, would they have been able to design and operate an X-ray machine? Could they have produced pictures of this sort of quality? If we are going to speculate how far Franklin had come in two years, we should speculate as to how far Crick and Watson would have come given the same starting point. Find the statement or quote, reference it, put it in it's known context, surely that's our modus operandi here?.Alun 08:50, 28 September 2005 (UTC)


 * A danger we face is that motivation to ignore details (we don't have to get into a complicated explanation about who knew what and when) becomes strong when the details do not seem to support the conclusions one has already reached. I think it is clear (from the huge number of books that have been written about the discovery of the structure of DNA) that there is a complex story to be told with many details. We need to resist the temptation to ignore the details and just allow Wikipedia to simply repeat politically correct conclusions that have been drawn by others.


 * I think the only reason that there is a wikipedia article on Rosalind Franklin is because of her work on DNA, thus what is said in this article becomes an important part of of how Wikipedia discovery of the structure of DNA. Maybe there should be an article about the discovery as a whole.
 * I agree wholeheartedly. This whole history of these three years should be put there, not here. This is a biographical article. It is not a science or history article. Please let's stick to the point!!!Alun 17:29, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Until there is actually another page, the articles about the key players is where information about their work has to go.
 * So go and create one thenAlun 05:51, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
 * "I don't see what all this speculation about 'what if history had been different' has to do with finding references." <-- The editors of this article have to decide what the article should say. In my view, these decisions should be based on understanding the history. When people start to speculate about 'what if history had been different' they are engaging in a natural way of forcing themsleves to think about the historical details and their significance. If you already think you "know" what needs to be said about Franklin then I agree that constructing the article can seem like it is only a matter of listing the "facts". My problem with the article (Sept. 25) was that I did not percieve it as being a list of facts. I requested a systematic reference check in order to try to make sure that the article has its facts correct. In my view, the only way of knowing if we have the facts is to think about the details of what was going on in 1950-1953. --JWSchmidt 16:17, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
 * But it was a list of facts, it is you who want to bring speculation into it with your what if history had been different position, and your attempts to try and second guess what Crick and Watson meant by their statements. I can repeat ad nauseum, this is not an article about the discovery of DNA, this is a biographical article about RF. I think a detailed analysis of what was happening in 1950-1953 is fine in the appropriate place. Why put it in RF's Biographical article and not in Wilkins's, Crick's or Watson's? You are in danger of turning this into a discovery of DNA article and I do not think that this is the place for it. All I want is to try and stick to the proper subject of the article, it is not a history of three years. You only appear interested in taking a few quotes from Crick and Watson and justifying them. These quotes are both the opinions of people who, at the very least are directly involved and have a vested interest in portraying history in a specific light.Alun 17:29, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Discovery of the DNA Double Helix
I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHO HAS PUT THE AWFUL FRAME AROUND THE PORTRAIT OF ROSALIND FRANKLIN AND 'MULTI-COLOURED' REFERENCES TO FIVE OTHER SCIENTISTS - I THINK IT LOOKS TERRIBLE! I SUGGEST IT BE REMOVED?Nitramrekcap 10:25, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Another option that has been suggested is to create a new wikipedia page just for the "Discovery of the DNA Double Helix". As things stand currently, the story is distributed over the various articles for the discoverers themsleves. I thought it was useful to provide a way of linking together the various fragments of the story. There are other ways this could be done such as a more subtle navigation box at the bottom of the articles. I'm sorry about the colors. I was playing around with a way to use color to suggest the complementation of base pairs. --JWSchmidt 15:28, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

JOHN,

SORRY BUT I THINK IT IS SINGULARLY INAPPROPRIATE TO PUT THESE BOXES:

Francis Crick       James D. Watson Maurice Wilkins     Rosalind Franklin Linus Pauling       Max Delbrück

DIRECTLY UNDER FRANKLIN'S PORTRAIT! SURELY THE POOR GIRL 'SUFFERED' ENOUGH IN LIFE, WITHOUT HER HAVING TO BE BOXED IN WITH CRICK, DELBRUCK, PAULING, WATSON AND WILKINS IN DEATH? IT DETRACTS FROM HER PORTRAIT AS DOES THE LINK OVER THE TOP OF THE PORTRAIT. IT NEEDS CHANGING.(THE SAME ALSO APPLIES TO THE OTHER FIVE SCIENTISTS' PAGES)Nitramrekcap 15:39, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

ALEC STOKES AND HERBERT WILSON

ON A MORE POSITIVE NOTE, WE NOW HAVE BRAND NEW PAGES FOR THE ABOVE:

'''http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Stokes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Wilson'''

TO COMPLETE THE "WIKI" ENTRIES FOR THE KING'S COLLEGE LONDON DNA TEAM!(YES - BEFORE ANYONE ASKS - WE DO HAVE THEIR APPROVAL FOR THE USE OF THE TEXT FROM THEIR 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF DNA WEB PAGES!) Nitramrekcap 16:29, 29 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Welcome Nitramrekcap. You can do this Alec Stokes and Herbert Wilson using square brackets Alun 06:12, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the warm welcome; as a newcomer to these pages, I am amazed by the intensity of the debate over the discovery of the structure of DNA and wonder exactly what it is intended to achieve? (You cannot rewrite history of course and there is no way that the Nobel Foundation is ever going to retrospectively change things!)

Has anyone read Robert Olby's review in LRB of Brenda Maddox's book? It finishes with the following sentence: (quote) "Had she lived, some of the myths about Franklin would surely have lost their lustre in the face of such achievements." IF anyone wants this put into context, I will gladly quote the whole paragraph, but I think it says it all. Let's try to remember that she was part of a team at King's College London - unfortunately it was the LOSING team. Nitramrekcap 15:55, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It doesn't intend to achieve anything except to inform and be as accurate as possible. The beauty of these talk pages is that everyone can thrash out their position and, hopefully, consensus can be reached as to what is included or excluded in any given article. The purpose is to be as accurate as possible and present a neutral point of view (this is official wikipedia policy so it's worth reading). I read in Guardian Unlimited recently that wikipedia has become the most detailed encyclopedia in history, so it must be doing something right. So there's no hidden agenda, people devote their own time to wiki for all sorts of reasons, and it's just getting better and better. The best articles tend to come from the most heated debates, STV for example is today's featured article and six months or so ago there was some very heated debate going on. It's good to challenge and be challeged, it is official policy that this be done in the most civilised way. I hope Wikipedia gives you as much pleasure and challenges you as much as it has me. Alun 17:27, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

RF and recognition
Alun, please don't get me wrong I am impressed with Wikipedia, but the heated debate over Rosalind Franklin's contribution to the determination of the structure of DNA and whether she was 'entitled' to a share of the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine flies in the face of the evidence. The debate will not achieve anything!

You cannot judge the attitudes towards female scientists in the 1950's by the modern day standards; the whole world has moved on a lot in 50 odd years. Yesterday I was in Cambridge (England) and saw a lot of 'girl' students, in 1953 Cambridge University was a predominently male institution of course. Even if Bragg had wanted to nominate her, Wilkins' share was for King's College London as team - of which she had briefly a part for their work pre/post 1953.

As far as Wikipedia is concerned, it can never, ever (unless the information technology improves) replace printed text, and the arguments for/against the participants in the DNA saga seem to be based more on emotion than fact. Robert Olby refers to "this work (her work on the tobacco mosaic virus), marking the end of Franklin's short career, has proved of fundamental importance not only in virology but also in the study of molecular structures in living cells... Had she lived, some of the myths about Franklin would surely have lost their lustre in the face of such achievements." Enough said? I rest my case: REF = R.I.P. 195.92.168.176 23:12, 2 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Firstly she could never have shared the Nobel prize as her death made her inelligible. There's no point in even discussing it. But I'm intrigued as to what evidence you have that she would have been inelligible if she had been alive? ( whether she was 'entitled' to a share of the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine flies in the face of the evidence). She seems to have contributed at least as much (and probably a lot more) as Maurice Wilkins as far as I can see.
 * Secondly from my perspective it is the fact that her work was used without her knowledge and without her being given the correct acknowledgement at the time, which I think was irregular. I think that this would be seen as irregular even in the 1950s. She seems to have been credited correctly while in Paris and at Birkbeck. I think that her exclusion was more to do with personal antipathy than the general treatment of women scientists at the time, though undoubtedly there was a high degree of sexism.
 * Thirdly Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It's purpose it to provide accurate information. It is therefore only correct that the facts are presented as impartially as possible. This means that RFs contribution to the discovery must be presented in her biographical article. If people think her treatment was unfair, that is their prerogative, but in sticking to the facts there is always going to be a sense (rightly or wrongly) that she was treated unjustly. Her work was used, without her knowledge and she wasn't given due recognition at the time. These are facts and must be presented. Her death has certainly made the situation more poigniant than it otherwise would have been, which brings me to my next point.
 * It does seem that, had she lived, she would have gained recognition in some other field, probably that of virus research. Maybe then her DNA work would surely have lost their lustre in the face of such achievements, but not necessarily. I wonder what Robert Olby means by myths (some of the myths about Franklin), I am only interested in facts.
 * Finally, this is a RF biographical article but it seems that many people want to use it as a place to have a general discussion about the discovery of DNA. All I want to do is include her contributions as accurately as possible. One problem is that then lots of justifications for why her work went unacknowledged creep in to the text. It is very difficult to draw a line between representing her contribution fairly, while not seeming to point to the situation being unfair, which leads to justifications for the behaviour of others etc. and we're back to a discovery of DNA article.Alun 06:09, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Alun, much against my better judgement I am attempting a response:

a. "Firstly": Wilkins' share of the 1962 Nobel Prize was awarded to reflect the contribution of the King's College London team towards the overall determination of the structure of DNA - including R.E. Franklin; see Graeme Hunter's biography of Bragg Jnr., see Wilkins' The Third Man of DNA. I don't have a problem with this and fail to see why anyone else should; Franklin was not alive to see the 1962 Nobel Prize awarded of course, but the decision as to who to award it was a very difficult one, notwithstanding her premature death. So let's have less of the "she was robbed" attitude and a bit more of the King's College London DNA team were more than adequately recognised? (This is a far more mature approach to the whole issue!) b. "Secondly": Sorry this is just subjective opinion, not a factual comment; life is not always fair to everyone! The real tragedy was her premature death, not the supposed lack of recognition. Had she lived to a ripe old age, I doubt that we would be having this heated debate. She was not another Madame Curie of course, but she made a very vital contribution to the major scientific discovery of the twentieth century, as did others like Gosling, Stokes, and Wilson - and even the one man everyone forgets to mention Sir John Randall. IF you wanted to split hairs, you could allocate their 33.3% of the 1962 Nobel Prize between all six of them, to achieve very little! c. "Thirdly.. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia": Yes, I agree it is, so 'injustice' and 'poignancy' (both emotive issues, not scientific ones) don't really get a look in: you cannot mix emotion and science.
 * Don't put words into my mouth please, you are trying to argue with me over something I never said. I never said she was robbed. I said that she was inelligible and so it is pointless to speculate. I did ask you for your evidence the statement flies in the face of evidence.Alun 18:25, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
 * You are far more obsessed with this Nobel prize thing than me. I only want to mention her contribution to the elucidation of the structure in terms of her biographical article. I am not at all interested in the Nobel prize, her death had made her inelligible so it is pointless, even if she had been given co-authorship on Crick and Watson's paper she would still have been inelligible. It was me who removed the part in the Nobel prize section of the article which stated some believe that she deserved a share of the Nobel prize, leaving the far less controversial statement that her death had made her inneligible.Alun 18:25, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
 * These words do not appear in the article.Alun 18:25, 3 October 2005 (UTC)


 * 'injustice' (quote: "that she was treated unjustly") and 'poignancy' (quote: "made the situation more poigniant); slightly different words, but same meaning? As I said you cannot mix emotion and science. 195.92.168.167 10:02, 4 October 2005 (UTC) (Martin)
 * These words still do not appear in the article. You seem to be refering to the talk page. Talk pages don't have to be NPOV, articles do.Alun 13:18, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

d. The dividing lines between 'facts' and "myths" are very fine indeed; almost all of the key DNA players are now dead, so the true(sic?) facts of the matter can no longer be established, which just leaves conjecture of course. So let's concentrate on the science and not on the personalities? But put in a much wider context, just how many other people - in addition to Franklin - 'deserve' a share of the limelight? There was a lot of standing on the shoulders of giants! See the debate about a definitive list of all concerned; personally I think Olby's list is the better one. e. "Finally"...yes I agree, looked at subjectively the situation was "unfair" from the perspective of just one individual out of many. But take Chargaff for example and his contribution to DNA! He never forgave "the pitchmen" for their use of his own discovery. Overall, no amount of heated debate will 'rewrite' the history of the determination of the structure of DNA; it reminds me that someone once said the history of a war is always written by the winners. Put objectively the Cavendish Laboratory won hands down, but King's College London played an important part in a British discovery (yes, Watson is American!) and who really lost out? Linus Pauling (that's another story). Franklin needs to rest in peace... 195.92.168.169 17:48, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
 * You are right, lots of people were involved in the elucidation of the structure, but not all contributions were equal. Anyway this is a Rosalind Franklin biographical article, so by it's very nature it should concentrate on her contribution. And anyway it's not the point. The point is that the Crick and Watson model was based in large part (by their own admission) on Franklin's work, and would have been impossible without it. They used someone else's work and didn't cite it. My gripe is that this flies in the face of standard scientific practice. If you can show that I am wrong, I will be happy to admit it, but in all my years working in a university research lab I have never seen this done. If someone elses work is used, it's cited. If someone else's data are used, they are given co-authorship. I fail to see anyhting contensious in what I am saying.Alun 18:25, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Chargaff is cited in the original Crick and Watson paper .05:18, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Linus Pauling is cited in the original Crick and Watson paper (see above ref). Remember if Watson had not portrayed RF in such a negative light in his book, Anne Sayre may never have written her book, and RFs contribution may have remained obscure.Alun 05:14, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

195.92.168.169 17:45, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I only want a fair and balanced RF biographical article. You seem to think I have some other motivation. I'm sorry but you seem to totally misunderstand what I am trying to do. It is me who is trying to cut down on the references to DNA and to include more of her other work. The article is, in my opinion, far to DNA oriented. There's far more to this woman than just DNA. Please have a look at my comments in the archived discussion page here. I did an extensive rewrite of this article between 21 April 2005 and 29 April 2005. I would suggest you have a look at the two versions (the second is similar to the current one). I think I improved the article somewhat. I do not think I put any bias or POV statements in there. It is OK to express a POV on a talk page, but an article should be NPOV, I hope I have achieved this. I had intended to include a section about her work on TMV, but I have become side tracked.Alun 05:33, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Alun,

Rf article not a DNA article
I think the only way we can continue this debate is by having a common frame of reference, ie having read and understood all of the following books/articles: this should constitute a body of evidence to establish the rights and wrongs of the situation from everyone's point of view. The autobiographies of Crick and Wilkins counter-balance Watson's "The Double Helix" and put things into perspective.

Franklin: biographies by Sayre, Maddox; articles by Elkin, Abir-Am; Wilkins: "The Third Man of The Double Helix" autobiography; Crick: "What Mad Pursuit" autobiography; Watson: The Double Helix; A Passion For DNA; Genes, Girls, and Gamow; DNA: The Secret of Life; his various autobiographical works. Watson: various biographies, including "Watson and DNA" by McElheny. Hunter: "Light is A Messenger"(biography of Sir Lawrence Bragg); De Chadarevian: "Designs For Life" (post WW11 Molecular Biology); Olby: "The Path to the Structure of DNA"; Freeland Judson: "The Eight Day of Creation";

My personal reading of the history of the 'DNA' period leads me to conclude that the various arguments about Franklin's role are over-stated and are mainly an overeaction to James Watson's "The Double Helix"; you have to read both Crick and Wilkins on Franklin to put Watson's exagerated attitude to Franklin into perspective. Read Abir-Am's "Nobelesse Oblige: Lives of molecular biologists" if you want to go to the other extreme since Watson and Abir-Am are at opposite ends of the spectrum! Personally I will leave Robert Olby to settle some of the arguments in his forthcoming biography of Crick. 195.92.168.167 10:33, 4 October 2005 (UTC) (Martin)
 * I'm involved in writing a Rosalind Franklin biographical article. I don't really understand how you are contributing to the article. What changes to the article are you suggesting? Where, preciselly do you see the article going from here? I can see little that is contensious in the article, and there is nothing there that is not general knowledge. All I want to do is note her contributions. Is there any dispute over the fact that her data were used, without her knowledge, during the construction of the Crick and Watson model? I think this is an established fact. Crick and Watson have both said that her data were crucial to building the model. So it seems also to have been demonstrated that their model could not have been built at the time without these data. If these statements are true (and if you can show that I am wrong then please go ahead) then RF's contribution was essential in building the model. You are possibly right when you say the various arguments about Franklin's role are over-stated. But I'm not having an arguement about her role, I simply want to document the role she did play. Unless you are suggesting that her data were not used or were not required, and that she played no role whatsoever, I fail to see where you are going on this. If you can find something in the article which is incorrect, or overstates her role, or claims that she made a contribution when she didn't, then please change it. It would also be a good idea to leave a message on the talk page stating why you have changed it, that's what I usually try to do. happy editing.Alun 13:18, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Alun,

I forget who it was who said that America and England are 'divided' by a common language, but I will try again to explain my key point:


 * We need much less of the personalities and far more of the science! The so-called 'Watson & Crick' model was scientifically the work of the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge team (in whatever guise, MRC or whatever) and the work of 'Franklin' was in reality that of the King's College, London team. Read Wilkins' biography for more!
 * Look, you still don't get it do you? This is a Rosalind Franklin biographical article. This is neither a science article nor an article about anyone else, it certainlt isn't a discovery of DNA article.Alun 05:53, 5 October 2005 (UTC)


 * What I deplore is this emphasis on their personalities all the time: the DNA work was being done in LABORATORIES by SCIENTISTS working for the likes of Sir Lawrence Bragg (Cavendish) and Sir John Randall (King's College) respectively. As in most walks of life, you don't climb "the greasy pole" as it were, unless you are really hard-nosed. Bragg saw an opportunity to beat Pauling to the determination of the structure of DNA and he took it by giving Watson and Crick the go ahead to resume model-making, even if it meant screwing KCL in the process! Randall was obviously a difficult little man to work for - again read the Wilkins' biography if you don't believe me!
 * I can find no reference to anyones personality in the article, except for the reference to the fact that RF and Wilkins didn't get along, but no blame is attributed, it doesn't mention personality, just the fact that there was some friction between them. I don't think that this is disputed.Alun 05:53, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

These are the guys (Bragg and Randall) who effectively pulled the strings of Watson, Crick, Franklin, Wilkins et al to effectively achieve the determination of the structure of DNA, against the competition of Linus Pauling. The spurious allegations about Watson and Crick vis-a-vis Franklin are nothing as compared to the behind the scenes machinations of Bragg and Randall versus Pauling! What I find incredible is that having achieved for the Cavendish Laboratory the success of determining the structure of DNA, that Bragg subsequently nominated and lobbied for his own staff (Watson and Crick) and Wilkins to receive the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology & Medicine. If you read Wilkins' biography, the Nobel Prize nomination came as a complete surprise, but Wilkins knew exactly who to write to thank for being nominated, ie Sir Lawrence Bragg! (One wonders why Bragg was so very keen to see KCL's contribution recognised?)
 * I can't see how this has any relevance to Rosalind Franklin's biographical article. I do know that Pauling had wanted to meet Franklin, but that he was not allowed to leave the USA because of political repression in the USA at the time. Maybe it would have been possible for Franklin and Pauling to get the structure first if they had been able to meet, and that we would be talking of the Franklin and Pauling model now, does it really matter? I think that someone was going to get the correct structure in 1953. It matters not a jot to me who got it. I just want to be accurate in getting the facts right for thr RF article, that is, what RF contributed. You seem to be trying to argue against a point that I am not making, and am not interested in making. Can you expand on the spurious allegations please? If I'm being accused of lying I want to be told what lies I am supposed to have told.

To summarise, it is invidious in my opinion to keep blaming Watson and Crick for 'robbing Franklin'; the real power-politics of the 1953 DNA situation was at the level of Bragg, Pauling, and Randall!
 * *I can find no blame attributed to anyone in the article, or any reference to her having been robbed. Can you please point these places out to me?Alun 05:53, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

195.92.168.168 17:42, 4 October 2005 (UTC) (Martin)


 * Martin
 * I would like to point out to you that this is the discussion page for the Rosalind Franklin biographical article. The purpose of this page is to discuss the article. That means any proposed changes can be discussed, any reasons for changes already made can be given. Queries about facts or text can be made. Proposals for article mergers or deletions. In fact anything relating to the article. You seem to be far more interested in arguing with me over my point of view. This would be fine if you were pointing out a POV comment I had added to the article, I would welcome your dilligence. But you don't seem to be making any reference to the article at all, so I am finding it really hard to see how your point relates to the article. I can find no evidence in the article for what you are complaining about. In fact the two POV comments you did complain about were on the talk page, but the talk page is absolutelly the correct place to discuss opinions about the article. You say it is invidious in my opinion to keep blaming Watson and Crick for robbing Franklin, but this claim is not made in the article, or if it is I cannot find it. I welcome all constructive input, and this article could use some work, but I fail to see what you are proposing, sorry but you will have to make your complaint with the article more explicit for me. Please change any text in the article you take issue with and state in the talk ppage why you have taken issue with it and changed it.Alun 05:53, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Everyone! HERE IS THE REVISED WORDING, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT:

"Unfortunately Randall had said that Franklin alone would be working on DNA, not informing Wilkins of the decision. Maurice Wilkins was on holiday when Franklin arrived, and so he returned to find that his research project had been taken over by a newcomer. This was not a good start to a scientific relationship which went progressively downhill. Ultimately the situation resulted in Sir Lawrence Bragg of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge giving Watson and Crick the go ahead to resume model making, in order to beat Linus Pauling to the determination of the structure of DNA. In doing so, the Cavendish Laboratory team sidestepped King's College London's team to the DNA structure. Their joint effort was reflected in the way that the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine was awarded to Crick, Watson and Wilkins; Wilkins' share being for King's College London's work, including that of the late Rosalind Franklin, who had died in 1958." 195.92.168.165 20:45, 4 October 2005 (UTC) (Martin)
 * Which text are you proposing replacing? I don't like this wording. It would be more appropriate in another article, this is a RF article, not an article on the discovery of DNA. You seem to want to gut the RF biographical article of any reference to her contribution to the Crick-Watson model, replacing her contribution with a general reference about King's and erroneously stating that King's and the Cavendish were in collaboration. If this were the case why do the King's team not get co-authorship of the paper? If the use of Franklin's data was above board why is she not at least credited with a personal communication citation? You do not mention that Crick and Watson used data from the King's team, that there was no formal collaboration (everything was done informally), that Wilkins and Franklin were not in collaboration but were working independently or that Franklin's data were used without her knowledge (you still haven't provided evidence that this assertion is incorrect). Given the fact that Franklin and Wilkins's groups were working in isolation from each other, and that they were not exchanging data, I hardly think that they constituted a coherent group. You have used only the facts which support your point of view. You need to show a more NPOV. Discarding facts that you don't like because they upset your rosy picture of things won't help you, because someone in the future will surely put them back in. I will revert this if you include it. Please try to come up with something more detailed, and something more relevant to RFs role, this is her article after all.Alun 08:35, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

DNA structure research at King's College London 1947-1959
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 15:01, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

A suggestion
I am increasingly in favour of a Discovery of DNA article. Otherwise there will be considerable overlap between the various biographical articles. There is much material on this subject, and, whatever JWSchmidt thinks, it cannot all be included in RF's biographical article, there are a plethora of books out there, both biographical, historical and scientific, how can all that material be included here? It is in the nature of encyclopedic articles that they are introductory and by necessity relatively brief, this means that sweeping, speculative theories, and attempts to second guess the meaning of decades old statements must be discarded in favour of short factual information. There are numerous sources out there for people who want to get their teeth into the nitty gritty of history. Another advantage of a discovery of DNA article is that it need not limit itself to the discovery of the structure. The role of DNA as the molecule of inheritance had only just been established by the early 1950's. I think that this sort of article would fit nicely into a sort of discovery of DNA series. What does everyone else think? By the way the box around Franklin's picture is a nice idea, doesn't really work though, maybe it just needs to lose the colours?Alun 06:03, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Sorry but I still think the big box around all of the six portraits looks dreadful; it's not just the colours of the boxes, it detracts from the aesthetic impression of the page as you click onto it. I don't even agree with the six scientists named (in the boxes) for The Discovery Of The Structure Of DNA, they are essentially a matter of opinion, not fact. You could make strong cases for a lot of other names - just read Robert Olby's The Path To The Double Helix or visit the main 'Linus Pauling' web site (University of Oregon) if you don't believe me! No there was more than just these six people; so John, please take the boxes away please and hide them towards the bottom of each page - as currently it does not look professional.

Why don't we collectively try to draw up a definitive list and identify (in Newton's words) 'who stood on whose shoulders'? Nitramrekcap 16:08, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
 * That's a very good idea. Start early on with Friedrich Miescher and build up from there, including people like Oswald Avery and so on. I think this could lead to a good story like article, culminating sometime in the 60's with the elucidation of the genetic code and the lac operon. Many of these people and subjects have their own pages, so there needn't be any biographical detail or even too much science. I think this is the sort of thing you could really get your teeth into JWSchmidt.Alun 16:49, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
 * ps Someone's thinking of doing a rewrite of the lac operon article, so if anyone fancies contributing then go ahead.Alun 17:33, 30 September 2005 (UTC)


 * HERE IS THE LIST FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON 'LINUS PAULING AND THE RACE FOR DNA' WEB SITE:

William Astbury (RO: section I); Oswald Avery (RO: section III); Sir William Lawrence Bragg; Erwin Chargaff (RO: section III); Martha Chase; Robert Corey; Francis Crick (RO: section IV & V); Max Delbrück (RO: section IV); Jerry Donohue; Rosalind Franklin (RO: section V); Bruce Fraser; Sven Furberg (RO: section V); Alfred Hershey; Linus Pauling (RO: section IV); Peter Pauling; Max Perutz (RO: section IV); John Randall; Verner Schomaker; Alexander R. Todd; James Watson (RO: sections IV & V); Maurice Wilkins (RO: section V);

Those with (RO) after their names are listed in "The Path To The Double Helix", with the section of the book added; so the next question is, who is listed in Robert Olby's textbook, but are not on the Oregon State University web site, that's another 20 :

Beadle; Bergmann; Bernal; Boivin; Caspersson; Darlington; Garrod; Gosling; Griffith; Kossel; Levene; Mark; Muller; Polanyi; Schrodinger; Stanley; Staudinger; Svedberg; Vendrely; Wyatt;

I hate to say it but the sheer weight of numbers puts Franklin's own contribution into perspective, and perhaps lessens the emphasis put by the media on Watson and Crick; the award of the Nobel Prize in 1962 does not automatically give Crick, Watson, and Wilkins the sole credit for the discovery of the structure of DNA. They were standing on a lot of shoulders, to put it mildly! Let's have some comments? Nitramrekcap 18:12, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

There is some material about the discovery of DNA here in the DNA article.Alun 08:00, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Wiki style
Can we keep to correct wiki style, see here. Some internal wikipedia links were in the External links section. I moved them to a See also section. Alun 07:54, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! (A LITTLE BIT OF HUMOUR)
'''The Times October 01, 2005

DNA sculpture explodes''' A 10ft sculpture commemorating the discovery of DNA blew up as it was being installed at Clare College, Cambridge University, yesterday.

The explosion happened as workmen carried out final work to the double helix, which was due to be unveiled to the public. Nobody was hurt.

The blast was caused after gas, thought to have formed from the concrete base, gathered inside the tubular aluminium structure and was ignited by a CO2 welder.

195.92.168.165 21:24, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

King's College London 1951-1953
Hello Martin, I have modified your text quite a lot. I do not think that it was the situation between Franklin and Wilkins which caused Bragg to allow C+W to try to build a fresh model. I think it was rather the attempt by Linus Pauling to build a model which prompted his change of heart. I think your text is in the wrong place. The article is generally chronological, while your text makes comments about the C+W model at the start of the King's section, when the model was completed at the end of RFs time at Kings. I have removed the reference to the Nobel Prize, I fail to see any purpose in including two seperate references to it in the article. I have also included the fact that RFs data were used in the building of the model, an important thing to note, given that RF is the subject of the article. Given that Wilkins didn't even mention RF in his Nobel speech, and that he and RF were never collaborators, I find your revisionist statement that the prize was accepted by Wilkins on behalf of the team (sic) somewhat strange. I have removed it. The new text also covers ground the article already dealt with and I cannot see that it adds anything new to the article.Alun 16:01, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that any formal record exists of what Wilkins actually said his Nobel speech, but the text of his Nobel lecture is available. --JWSchmidt 16:34, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Sorry, my mistake, should have checked it first, Wilkins mentioned Franklin and Alec Stokes in his Nobel Lecture as people who made very valuable contributions to the x-ray analysis. John Randall wrote to Gosling later I have always felt that Maurice's Nobel lecture did rather less than justice to this setting and particularly to the contribution of yourself and Rosalind. (in the epilogue to Rosalind Franklin The Dark Lady of DNAAlun 16:47, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Alun, we really do need a common frame of reference to continue this discussion. I have read ALL of the texts referred to in detail so expect anyone contributing to the REF article have done the same. I suspect that Wilkins' "The Third Man of DNA" has not been widely read in the USA, whereas Maddox on REF has been? Can someone give Crick and Wilkins the benefit of the doubt for a change and also recognise that scientists worked and still work in teams? These teams were led by the likes of Bragg and Randall, so the constant references to the people working under them appears to be emphasising individual personalities and not team members. All for now, but please read up on the subject area before continuing? 195.92.168.173 16:57, 5 October 2005 (UTC) ps I bet some of you can't wait to read the biography of Crick next year? It will make for more interesting debate than the one on REF! Martin
 * I can find no references to personalities in the text of the article. I have not contributed to the Crick article, and don't plan to. Scientists work in groups, RF and Wilkins could hardly be said to have worked in the same group, they certainly do not seem to have been exchanging much data or working very closely together (something which defines a group), maybe there was some re-structuring after RF left? You seem to be confusing a biographical article with a science article or a history article. This article is about RF, and so it primarily documents her contributions. I do not understand why you seem to find this so hard to comprehend. This article is about her life, it's a biographical article. Therefore anything which is mentioned should take RF as it's frame of reference. This isn't about blame or anything else, it's about facts. You keep saying that RFs contribution has been exagerated, you may well be right, I am not in a position to comment. I would like to make some comments in point format. I would very much appreciate it if you could take the time to explain which of these comments is incorrect in your opinion, because these are the fundamentals of my position.


 * Because this is an RF biographical article it concentrates on her contribution, all information should therefore be relevant to her.
 * However small her contribution may or may not have been, it seems to have been vital to the Crick and Watson model (I am assuming that you will agree that her contribution was greater than that of say Jerry Donohue, someone who's contribution was also vital).
 * It is also true that her data were used without her knowledge. This is not standard scientific practice even within collaborations or groups.
 * Once her work had been used to build the model the use of her data was not cited in the subsequent paper, nor was she even told of it's use.
 * I think the article covers these points quite well. I can find no hint of the indignation or righteous outrage in the tone of the article that you are constantly alluding to.
 * If any of these points is wrong, and what I mean is that if they are factually incorrect, then I will be happy that they are removed. I do not want the article to contain erroneous assertions.
 * I have asked you before to provide evidence that there are inacuracies in the article, but you have failed to do so.
 * If the above points are factually correct, then what we are really talking about is the fact that you do not like the article because the facts in it contradict your point of view. Articles should not reflect a contributors point of view.
 * It is one of my worst character traits that I am by nature argumentative and pedantic (it drives my wife to distraction). But I hope I am also able to concede a point gracefully if I am wrong and can be shown to be wrong. If any of the facts I have outlined above are wrong then please tell me.
 * On a different note, you seem to be under the impression that one of us is from the USA and one is from the UK. I have therefore been assuming that you are an American. Your previous post seems to suggest that you are not from the USA (your comment about Wilkins's book). If you would like to find out about me, click on my signature and it will take you to my user page, there's a brief note there about me. You can also leave messages meant for me on my user talk page if you like. Take care. Alun 17:46, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Is this Cavendish statement right?
I'm not sure this statement is correct. Both the Cavendish Laboratory and King's College London scientists were working for the Medical Research Council on the determination of the DNA structure. I don't think that in post war Britain there was enough money for the state to fund two groups that would be duplicating work. I also don't think that Wilkins would have bee so free with his data if he had been aware that anyone in the Cavendish were working on the structure. I don't think any scientist would knowingly divulge unpublished data to their competitors, and if this statement is true then that's exactly what Wilkins must have done. I will leave it there for the time being, but will be checking it's accuracy.Alun 05:30, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
 * This quote is from the Francis Crick article, Watson and Crick were not officially working on DNA. Crick was writing his Ph.D. thesis. Watson also had other work such as trying to obtain crystals of myoglobin for X-ray diffraction experiments. As I understand it Maurice Wilkins shared his data with Crick because he was under the impression that they were not in competition with him. I fail to see how both these statements can be true. There needs to be internal Wikipedia consistency, by that I mean that related articles should not contradict each other.Alun 06:03, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Here's another source; Watson had gone to the UK to ...join Max Perutz's department to study crystallography and plant viruses. (Maddox's book p.158).
 * I have removed the section that mentions that the Cavendish was being funded to research DNA. These two sources bot indicate that this assertion is incorrect.Alun 17:09, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Alun, have you read all of the literature? Best wishes, 195.92.168.169 06:22, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
 * So is that a correct or incorrect? It doesn't seem to address the question. Can we stick to the point please?Alun 09:23, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Martin, you may have read a great deal of literature about the discovery of DNA, but you seem to have a poor understanding of the facts. These two sources directly contradict what you wrote in the article concerning the work at the Cavendish. If you can produce sources which back up your claim, then please do so, and we can put it back in.Alun 17:09, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

References Section
I think it looks daft to have all these references to specific pages. If no one objects, I think I will remove them. I will concentrate on finding references for the King's section of the article (but will reference them to specific pages), which seems to be the most contensious area. If there are two reference sources that contradict each other, then I think the statement that is disputed should be removed for discussion. What's the general opinion?.Alun 05:51, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Stick to the point
Alun, have you read all of the literature? Best wishes, 195.92.168.169 06:24, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Do you understand that this is a Rosalind Franklin article and not a DNA article? You are showing a very POV attitude, and seem to fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of this article. I fail to see what information regarding Rosalind Franklin's life would appear in the literature you are refering to. If there are inaccuracies in the article then can you please point them out? If there are no innacuracies in the article, can you please explain what the problem is? You seem to be making claims without providing any supporting evidence and have come close to calling me a liar. None of these books appear to be Rosalind Franklin biographies. I have no problem with you adding provisos to the article, for example that there is some debate over the importance of RF's data that were used by C+W (but i maintain that, in using it it should have been cited). You have made no coment about any factual inacuracies in the article, even though I have repeatedly asked you to provide such evidence. Given this fact I cannot, in all honesty, see what you are complaining about. I fail to understand how reading, Wilkin's autobiograph will make you an authority on Rosalind Franklin's life! You have, as far as I can see, made no suggestion about improving the content of this article, what you have added was repeated elswhere in the article, and offered no additiona information. This is not a competition about who has read the most books by (or about) people involved in DNA research, this is a talk page for the RF article. This is not the place to peddle your (or others) interpretation of events (and whatever you may think Wilkins's, Watson's and Crick's books will inevitably be less balanced than those of impartial biographers), it is a place to discuss the content of the article, but you have made no specific comment at all regarding the content of the article. You seem to be far more interested in arguing with me over my point of view, which I tend to think is somewhat irrelevant to the article itself. Can we at least agree to stick to the subject at hand and only make specific reference to the article? I do not think that this is an unreasonable request.Alun 09:22, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Alun, have you read all of the available literature*? (IF you have not, there is simply no point in continuing this dialogue.) 195.92.168.163 19:59, 6 October 2005 (UTC)


 * A REMINDER:

Franklin: biographies by Sayre, Maddox; articles by Elkin, Abir-Am; Wilkins: "The Third Man of The Double Helix" autobiography; Crick: "What Mad Pursuit" autobiography; Watson: The Double Helix; A Passion For DNA; Genes, Girls, and Gamow; DNA: The Secret of Life, ie his various autobiographical works. Watson: various biographies, including "Watson and DNA" by McElheny. Hunter: "Light is A Messenger"(biography of Sir Lawrence Bragg); plus: De Chadarevian: "Designs For Life" (post WW11 Molecular Biology); Olby: "The Path to the Structure of DNA"; Freeland Judson: "The Eight Day of Creation"; Martin (195.92.168.163 20:06, 6 October 2005 (UTC))

ps Not forgetting Chargaff's book, the name of which almost escapes me (something like 'Herculean Fire') which I have NOT yet read! MP

A NOTE ON ALUN'S APPARENT INABILITY/UNWILLINGNESS TO ANSWER MY QUESTION

I regard this as being a perfectly normal and reasonable request:

Alun, have you read all of the available literature*? (IF you have not, there is simply no point in continuing this dialogue.) 195.92.168.163 19:59, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

A REMINDER: Franklin: biographies by Sayre, Maddox; articles by Elkin, Abir-Am; Wilkins: "The Third Man of DNA" autobiography; Crick: "What Mad Pursuit" autobiography; Watson: The Double Helix; A Passion For DNA; Genes, Girls, and Gamow; DNA: The Secret of Life, ie his various autobiographical works. Watson: various biographies, including "Watson and DNA" by McElheny. Hunter: "Light is A Messenger"(biography of Sir Lawrence Bragg); plus: De Chadarevian: "Designs For Life" (post WW11 Molecular Biology); Olby: "The Path to the Structure of DNA"; Freeland Judson: "The Eight Day of Creation"; Martin (195.92.168.163 20:06, 6 October 2005 (UTC))

ps Not forgetting Chargaff's book, the name of which almost escapes me (something like 'Herculean Fire'*) which I have NOT yet read! MP Alun, so what is your problem? These are the sources of information from which 'Wikipedia' can be corrected; what (if any) alternatives are there? You cannot update 'Franklin' references without good sources! (You are not doing her reputation any favours otherwise.) NO further discussion necessary; please get reading and then do updates!
 * "Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature"

Martin 195.92.168.167 07:52, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree, there is no point in continuing this, it is not a dialogue, more a display of petulence by someone who doesn't seem to understand the difference between debate and confrontation or between opinion and fact.Alun 16:34, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

No 'Wobble Alun', the reason why our debate is over is your apparent refusal to disclose your sources of information! Your only source appears to either SAYRE and/or MADDOX from your previous comments? And to give you the benefit of the doubt WATSON's "Double Helix" book!

This is not quote 'petulence'(sic) "by someone who doesn't seem to understand the difference between debate and confrontation or between opinion and fact"; it was an honest attempt to find out what the real issues are, ie the so called "myths" about the late Rosalind Franklin. Let's try to continue? On the other hand, what's the point! Miss Franklin must be rolling in her grave by now....


 * Miss Franklin??????Alun 10:44, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Alun, would you prefer 'Ms'? Seriously can you please have a good look at: http://www.kcl-cdu.org.uk/dna_strand_kcl.jpg "In 1993, on the 40th anniversary of the discovery of DNA, King's College London erected a special plaque in the Quad at the Strand campus to mark the College's contribution to the discovery. From left: Raymond Gosling, Herbert Wilson, Maurice Wilkins and Alec Stokes." IF you want continue a more private dialogue with me, I am on: martin@packer34.freeserve.co.uk in the U.K. (ie Birmingham). 195.92.168.166 17:59, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
 * No I would prefer Dr. Franklin. Please try to be accurate, you are displaying your bias once again.Alun 06:14, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

But first read a GOOD article about one of the DNA scientists, ie Francis Crick by John Schimdt, and then compare it to your's! You have a very long way to go my friend before your 'Rosalind Franklin' matches John Schimdt's 'Francis Crick', as you seem to be writing with 'Rosy' tinted spectacles, geddit? In case you don't, it's a play on words: Rosalind/Rosy and rose-coloured!

195.92.168.173 11:45, 8 October 2005 (UTC) (Martin)

Martin, speaking of refusal to disclose references, you have done just that at this page. The fact that you don't have a user page causes serious inconveniece in contacting you, which is why I am forced to post here. Please continue this discussion at the pertinent talk page.--Losecontrol 10:29, 9 October 2005 (UTC)



Intro
I have removed the reference to the Nobel Prize from the intro. I do not understand why it is there.Alun 05:30, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Alun, this one image says much about Rosalind Franklin both as a person (a good sense of humour!) and a scientist (narrow-minded?):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg -->

09:22, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Martin

ps I suggest you, John Schmidt and I take a break from this debate - as tomorrow I have to read the Norton Critical edition of "The Double Helix"; unfortunately it excludes Chargaff's critical review!


 * Martin, I think we have got off to a bad start ourselves. I must addmit to having been over zealous in my posting, I am sorry for that, and for the over confrontational nature of my posts. It would be much better to try be consensual. I have been thinking a lot about what you have been saying, and you have whetted my appetite to read about more of the characters involved in the story surrounding DNA, so thank you for that. There may be much to be gained by finding out about these people, though their participation in the life of Rosalind Franklin is a mere 2 years out of a research career stretching over 15 or so years. I still think it's worth remembering that most of the life and career of this remarkable person was spent doing other things. Personally I think the article should reflect that, this is just my opinion, I am not trying to pick a fight. As for the article, I did spend some time on it about six months or so ago, though much of the work in it is not mine. On reflection I think that the King's section could do with a complete rewrite, possibly shortening, to reflect the time she spent there, possibly mentioning the other reasons she was unhappy there (I believe there were some class issues and such like as well as her dislike of Wilkins), mentioning the work she did there, what she achieved etc, and finally mentioning the controversy surrounding how important her work may have actually been in the elucidation of the structure, these are just some thoughts, nothing else. I agree that the Crick article is much better, but I suspect it has had a lot more input from a lot more people than this one. There may be much wrong with this article, but I don't think there are any actual inaccuracies in it, though it may give a biased slant, something I was possibly blind to. I would like to point out (again I do not want to have an argument about this, but I think I am right on this point) that the Cavendish was not being funded by the MRC to work on the structure of DNA (something you put in the article), of course it is also true that King's had all the information required to get the structure, and that ultimately they failed. Maybe you would like to have a go at rewriting the King's section? I'm going to have a break from this article and maybe come back and have a look at it in a few months, I might write a section about her work at Birkbeck and a short one on her illness to round the article off at that point, if someone has not done it already by then.Alun 16:55, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I have been reading the Brenda Maddox biography of Franklin. I have made it to Chapter 15 and may not get past that point (except for the Epilog). I just wanted to pop in here and say that it is dangerous to rely too much on any one source. I next want to read Maurice Wilkins' autobiography. --JWSchmidt 17:33, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

John, I would strongly recommend Maurice Wikins' autobiography, it's a very good read in the early years (in Birmingham/Cambridge) and during the DNA period, but does fade a bit towards the end. If you buy the new OUP paperback rather than the original hardback, I corrected the wording of Franklin's DNA Helix (Crystalline) funeral card - see above. It helps to put the heated debate over Franklin/DNA determination of structure into much needed perspective; in that respect it is a pity that Wilkins did not produce the book earlier - as he has been the subject of a lot of ill-informed criticism, as we all know on this page. 195.92.168.170 20:25, 9 October 2005 (UTC) (Martin)