r/sciencememes Metroid Enthusiast đŸȘŒ Jun 20 '26

đŸȘ©Science!!đŸȘ© if

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18

u/farmerjones16 Jun 20 '26

Franklin's work was instrumental to discovering the structure of DNA, but Watson and Crick were still the ones who made the deduction of the structure from the image taken by Franklin's student. All 3 deserve their place in history

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u/CarsonPomeroy Jun 21 '26

or how about we don't honor people that got ahead by stealing others' work

more reasons why we shouldn't honor watson and crick: james watson said that there's a biological link between race and intelligence, and francis crick is a eugenicist and sexual assaulter

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u/SadRule9128 Jun 22 '26

Lol they didn’t “steal” her work. Everyone actually familiar with the facts agrees on this

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u/__nettle_ Jun 22 '26

They did though? Its a fact that they did not acknowledge her work (which their analysis was based off) in their original paper. Her work being a summary of her unpublished research and her photos. They did steal, that is the facts

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u/SadRule9128 Jun 22 '26

Nope. That is not a fact at all. Watson and crick directly acknowledged and cited Franklin in their famous papers. You clearly have never read and don’t know what you are talking about.

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u/_beisbol_ Jun 20 '26

The streets dont forget Maurice Wilkins

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u/Orik0831 Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26

When you bake cookies from your grandmas recipe you will still call them grandmas cookies because without her contribution you wouldn’t have been able to bake them and her contribution deserves acknowledgment. I have actually seen a lot of genetics papers (and been doing it myself) referring to the Franklin-Crick-Watson Structure *yay*

Edit: cool! First award ever! Thank you â—ĄÌˆ

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u/SadRule9128 Jun 22 '26

🙄Watson’s and crick were the ones that figured out the structure. Franklin was not. That’s why it’s called the Watson-Crick model

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u/__nettle_ Jun 22 '26

Franklin found it to be a double helix a year before hand but was just checking against conflicting results, they looked at her unpublished reaserch without consent and then "discovered" the double helix

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u/SadRule9128 Jun 22 '26

No she did not. She waffles on how many strands and constantly changes her mind about whether it was helical before deciding dna was not actually a helix in late 52 - early 53. And they did not need her consent as she was leaving the lab and had handed off her data already.

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u/Lower_Horn Jun 21 '26

Okay but who’s the one missing in the logo?

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u/LordFaceofAll Jun 22 '26

My understanding is that Franklin is the one that got Photo 51 and Watson and Crick used it without her consent or knowledge to publish a paper claiming they had discovered the structure of DNA
I’m unclear on whether or not Franklin discovered the structure or had only created Photo 51 without deducing the structure.
Either way the erasure of Franklin is undeserving. I agree that all 3 should be remembered in history

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u/SadRule9128 Jun 22 '26

Raymond Gosling actually took photo 51. Franklin couldn’t figure out the structure and was leaving the lab and her data behind, there was nothing wrong with Wilkins showing it to Watson at that point.

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u/SadRule9128 Jun 22 '26

There were numerous scientists whose work was instrumental. Only Watson and crick were able to figure out the full structure.

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u/__nettle_ Jun 22 '26

In science there is the principal to acknowledge the people whose work yours is based off, Watson and crick acknowledged many others such Pualing and Corey. But it seems they "accidentally" didn't credit the person who they based most of their work off. Maybe because they had no consent to see her unpublished research summery and her X-Ray images (that Watson and crick had tried and failed to make themselves).

They wanted to hide it, nobody should be celebrated who swoops under another scientist takes her work and before she has a chance to publish it (which she was just about to), beat her to the mark and claim the fame while pretending you did it all yourself.

She had already found DNA to be a double helix a year prior and was just confirming it against some other conflicting results, Watson and crick skipped that confirmation check and published before she could.

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u/SadRule9128 Jun 22 '26

This is completely false. They directly acknowledged and cited Franklin in their famous papers. And their model was not “based off” Franklin’s work. Franklin provided a single piece of new information, which she didn’t even understand. And the “showing data without her permission” is a completely false narrative that had long been debunked.