Talk:Rosalind Franklin/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions about Rosalind Franklin. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

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1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine [1]

Alun/Wobble,

It's so nice to have you back! Sorry to say you are wrong as usual of course. All I need to do is to refer you straight to the autobiography of the late Maurice Wilkins: Chapter 10, page 257, the paragraph which starts "King's' share of the Nobel Prize"; but have you even bothered to read anything other than books by Watson/Sayre/Maddox to fuel your apparent obsession with the late Rosalind Franklin? It doesn't look like it! 195.92.168.164 21:38, 12 November 2005 (UTC) MP

I'm glad to see that you have finally realised that you need to use citations and references to verify things Martin, it's about time. How can I be wrong? I have stated that it is too long, in the wrong place and refers to events that occurred after her death. You may disagree that it is too long, or that it is in the wrong place, but that is a question of opinion, and not fact. The fact that these events occurred after her death is surely not in dispute. Your quote from Wilkins's book does not address the issues I have raised.

I can find no reference to the prize having been awarded to the King's team as a whole on the Nobel Prize web site or on the Wikipedia Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine article. Wilkins may have been happy to be magnanimous in victory, and declare the prize as recognition for the work of all at the lab. This is not the same as the prize being awarded to the whole laboratory. The Nobel web site is clear and unambiguous, the 1962 prize went to three people, not two people and an institution. Nobel prizes can be awarded to institutions, the 1999 Nobel Prize for peace was awarded to Médecins Sans Frontières [2] for example.

I can also quote Wilkins's book: p242

The prize to Francis, Jim and me was awarded in the category 'Physiology or Medicine', and was for work on nucleic acids generally rather than DNA in particular, embracing our years of work since the Double Helix.

I have emphasised the me so you are under no illusion that the prize was to Wilkins. Your source is not definitive. The Nobel Prize [3] surely knows who it awarded the prize to?Alun 06:10, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

"King's' share of the Nobel Prize"; Alun ('Wobble'), which of these six words don't you apparently understand? Maurice Wilkins was a very modest, unassuming man (do try to read his autobiography) and accepted 'his' (33.3%) share of the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the whole of the King's College London team.

The prize to Francis, Jim and me Martin, which part of this quote don't you understand?. Do try to keep up, I know it must be hard for you.

Martin you seem to have such a limited understanding, I am starting to sympathise with you. It must be so hard for you to be so completely incapable of understanding the most simple facts. Why don't you go to the Nobel Website? Are you afraid that other sources don't support your assertion? You cannot rely on a single reference when all others contradict it, including one from the same source you are using..Alun 05:21, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1962/index.html
Please stop repeating the myths surrounding the determination of the structure of DNA, and let's concentrate on the facts. Unfortunately you seem to be letting your apparent obsession get in the way of the truth. The truth is out there, just not in this article! 195.92.168.163 20:35, 13 November 2005 (UTC) (MP)

What myths? Be specific. If you believe there are specific myths or inaccuracies in the article then please state them.

We have had this conversation many times before. You have several times complained of apparent myths, but refuse to point specific ones out when asked to. You really need to be specific in your comments or they are meaningless. This comment in particular

Please stop repeating the myths surrounding the determination of the structure of DNA

has no meaning whatsoever unless you are prepared to be specific about what you consider to be the myths in the Rosalind Franklin biographical article. If you cannot do this then will you please stop making these accusations. You are needlessly filling up the talk page with what I can only describe as drivel. Alun 05:21, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

To user 195.92.168.164: I think Alun andJWSchmidt have come to the conclusion that it makes sense to have a short statement such as
Franklin is most noted for her contributions to the discovery of the structure of the DNA double helix.
above the table of contents. Would you be willing to remove your longer statement from the introduction? --JWSchmidt 22:25, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree entirely. Alun 07:28, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

"Franklin is most noted for her contributions to the discovery of the structure of the DNA double helix."

I am sorry to have to say bluntly to both Alun ('Wobble') and John that this short statement is a travesty of the truth; it is a masterpiece of understatement which even the most average reader will soon realise simply does not reflect reality. It is almost like recording Adolf Hitler's contribution to the German system of motorways (the high speed autobahn network) without recognising WWII and the Holocaust! Gentlemen, whether you like it or not Franklin's contribution to the determination of the structure of DNA is a most contentious matter; if only Alun ('Wobble') had bothered to read Maurice Wilkins' autobiography, you would soon realise that there are two sides to every argument. Seriously Alun, try to convince me that you have actually read Wilkins' autobiography and your opinions just might command a bit more respect. I think's that all for now. 195.92.168.163 20:17, 13 November 2005 (UTC) (MP)

Firstly I do not have to convince you of anything. You are not the arbiter of this page. Secondly, just what do you think Rosalind Franklin is most noted for if not for her contributions to the discovery of DNA? There is no mention in the introduction of how extensive her contribution was, simply that she is well know because of the work she did on DNA, and not for another reason. You do not seem to understand that every statement does not have an underlying meaning. All the above statement says is that her fame is due to her work on DNA. This is a simple and factual statement. Do you have any evidence that she is famous for another reason? Or are you implying that Franklin didn't do any work on DNA? Unless you do then have made no case at all.

Gentlemen, whether you like it or not Franklin's contribution to the determination of the structure of DNA is a most contentious matter

Be that as it may, the correct place to record the facts is in the body of the article. You seem to be incapable of:

Recognising a fact
Understanding which facts are relevant to which sections of the article, you scatter them about the article willy nilly.
Understanding what the fundamental purpose of the article is
Sticking to the point in hand

I urge you to go and read some Wikipedia policies and guidelines before you make any more edits as you seem to have a complete and utter misunderstanding of what wikipedia is and what it is for.Alun 05:02, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

'Wobble' Alun, this debate is just too silly for words! (It reminds me of a Monty Python sketch, which not so funny.) Where did you get your brief from to be a quasi-defender of the late Rosalind Franklin's scientific reputation, without having read all of the available literature? You imply that you have read the late Maurice Wilkins' autobiography, but did you really understand it and put it in the context of the books by Crick, Maddox, Sayre, and Watson? To be honest with you, since no one bothered to answer my previous question (see archive) about what a 'Wiki' biography is supposed to achieve, I confess that I do not really understand what Wikipedia "is and what it is for". IT IS DEFINATELY NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR ALL OF THE EXISTING SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE ALREADY IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN! It seems to be a forum for people like you and John Schmidt to argue over semantics, without having read the available autobiographies and biographies. In other words, it seems to be a complete waste of internet space and everyone's time and effort! You need to know what you are talking about, which Alun half the time you just don't appear to! You should try running some of your odd statements past Brenda Maddox and Lynne Elkins before trying to cast them in stone on "Wikipedia" as other people reading them will get the wrong idea. The person I feel sorry for is the late Rosalind Franklin of course; you already know what James Watson has recently said about her (see archive) but tell us why you are so obsessed with her memory? All for now, but think on what I have said and do calm down a bit! 195.92.168.167 16:06, 14 November 2005 (UTC) MP)

For the attention of Martin Packer (and editors of this page)

Nothing you have written is relevant to the debate we are having. You have never answered a direct question about what the myths you refer to actually are, and yet you have repeatedly mentioned them. This seems to be little more than an attempt to discredit other people's posts by referring obliquely to myths that you seem incapable of specifying. You also continually try to discredit me by claiming you have read extensively about the lives of the people involved in the discovery of DNA, while disparaging my knowledge, and yet you display no evidence of this in your contributions to the article, nearly all of the changes you have made have been factually incorrect, or in direct contravention of wikipedia policies. You persist in insulting and being offensive to me without reason. You have made me very angry on numerous occasions and I have lost my temper with you at least twice. No one on wikipedia has ever insulted me like you have or made such personal attacks. I have had to take time out from this page in order to recover and calm down from your insulting and offensive behaviour. If you do not understand what wikipedia is for then why don't you find out? I have several times asked you to visit the policies and guidelines pages. If you did this you would be able to find out for yourself what WP is for, instead of expecting other people to spoon feed you. You generally ignore what people tell you about the rules on WP anyway. You have continued to treat this talk page like an open forum on any subject concerning the discovery of DNA. You complain that no one bothered to answer my previous question (see archive) about what a 'Wiki' biography is supposed to achieve, but you have never bothered to answer a direct question, not once. You evade all direct questions by changing the subject and impugning the integrity or ability of the questioner. This is a classic example. I have asked you directly to answer several questions, one about the Nobel Prize web site, another about these myths and a third about why you think the statement Franklin is most noted for her contributions to the discovery of the structure of the DNA double helix is incorrect (can you show a different reason for her fame, or have some evidence that she was not working on DNA?). You have once again ignored these questions and made a personal and unfounded attack on me.

I do not really understand what Wikipedia "is and what it is for". IT IS DEFINATELY NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR ALL OF THE EXISTING SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE ALREADY IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN!

You are quite right, you do not understand (something that has been apparent to me since you started to leave posts here), but more importantly, you have made no attempt to find out, so there's no point in complaining about it, the relevant information is abundantly available had you sought it out. And no WP is not a substitute for all the existing scientific literature, and neither does it try to be. Just so that you know, wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Here's a list of some Wikipedia rules, all of which, by the way, you have managed to break.

Verifyability: Wikipedia should only publish material that is verifiable and is not original research. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. For that reason, it is vital that editors rely on good sources.
Neutral point of view: Wikipedia policy is that articles should be written from a neutral point of view, representing all majority and significant-minority views fairly and without bias. According to Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales, NPOV is "absolute and non-negotiable. The policy is easily misunderstood. It doesn't assume that writing an article from a single, unbiased, objective point of view is possible. Instead it says to fairly represent all sides of a dispute by not making articles state, imply, or insinuate that only one side is correct.
No original research: Wikipedia is not the place for original research. Citing sources and avoiding original research are inextricably linked: the only way to verify that you are not doing original research is to cite sources who discuss material that is directly related to the article, and to stick closely to what the sources say.
From no original research: Wikipedia:No original research is one of three content policies. The other two are Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Verifiability. The three policies are complementary, jointly determining the type and quality of material that is acceptable in the main namespace. They should therefore not be interpreted in isolation from each other, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three.

What all this effectively means is that any point of view, which has a reputable source to support it can be included. If anything that is included is disputed, then the alternative point of view should be included (if it has a reputable source reference), in order to maintain neutrality.

It seems to be a forum for people like you and John Schmidt to argue over semantics, without having read the available autobiographies and biographies.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it is important to get things right. Sometimes this involves discussing the wording of statements as it is easy to write something that can be interpreted in a different way. I do not always agree with JWSchmidt, but he is always relevant and to the point, and he often makes very good points and argues his position while addressing my concerns. You on the other hand have never argued your position, you have simply adopt the attitude that everyone else is wrong, I have never known you to answer a single direct question regarding the content of the page or statements you have made. There is no requirement to have read all of the literature you claim to have read in order to contribute to this page (and yes I read Maurice Wilkins book, you may not think I understood it, but that is a matter of opinion not fact, I have the opinion that you have misinterpreted it). There is no requirement at all for contribution to this page, that's why it's called the encyclopedia anyone can edit. But there is a requirement to provide verifiability, something you have struggled to do, partly because your statements are generally vague to the point of being meaningless (like your myths assertion), and partly because you seem to have read a lot of literature while understanding virtually none of the content. Your position on Wilkins's Nobel Prize (and it was to Wilkins as the Nobel Prize website makes explicit http://nobelprize.org/) shows this beyond doubt. Wilkins was a very modest man, and obviously wanted to make it clear that contributions to the prize were made by numerous people that had worked in the department over a number of years. This is standard stuff for all prize winners, they want to include everyone. But it is evident form the most perfunctory piece of research that the prize was awarded to Wilkins. You want to include a POV, inaccurate and unverifiable statement on a wikipedia page, based on what you think is the truth. This is against virtually everything wikipedia stands for.
I am seriously thinking of taking this to the mediation cabal (The Mediation Cabal provides unofficial, informal mediation for disputes on Wikipedia, and is composed of volunteers who wish to assist people in resolving conflicts). If we do not get a mutually satisfactory outcome, then we may have to go to full arbitration ( Arbitration differs from Mediation in that the Arbitration Committee will consider the case and issue a decision, instead of merely assisting the parties in reaching an agreement. If the issue is decided by Arbitration, you will be expected to abide by the result. If the case involves serious user misconduct, Arbitration may result in a number of serious consequences, as laid out in the Arbitration policy). In the interests of fairness I think it only right to point out to you this comment on my user talk page Martin and Rosalind Franklin. Alun 19:59, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

'Wobble Alun',

At the risk of my 'enraging' you even further, can you please complete the following paragraph from Miss Franklin's biography:

"Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 1920 - 16 April 1958) was a British physical chemist and crystallographer who made very important contributions to the understanding of the fine structures of coal and graphite, DNA and viruses. Franklin is best known for her contributions to the determination of the structure of the DNA double helix."

By answering exactly WHO (in your opinion) actually determined the structure of DNA please?

You have just removed the words 'by Watson and Crick in 1953' of course -so what is your own evidence to support this deletion of a very well known fact? I think you owe us all an explanation for this course of action as quickly as possible - or restore these six words? 195.92.168.164 18:28, 18 November 2005 (UTC) (MP)

I don't need evidence to remove it. It is in the wrong place. You have persistently inserted text into the wrong place in the article. In the introduction to Rosalind Franklin's autobiography we should try to be as concise as possible, and stick to what she did (and not what other people did). I would have thought this was blatantly obvious, but then you have consistently treated this article as if it were a general article about DNA (there is a separate article on DNA). You have even said that you do not understand what Wikipedia is for or what should be included in the article, given this it seems strange that you insist on making changes to a page you do not understand. It is more appropriate to make a simple statement acknowledging that she is best known for her contribution. The fact that Crick and Watson elucidated the structure is well known and will not come as revelatory to people reading the article. There is plenty of reference to the Crick and Watson model in the main body of the article, nowhere is this concealed.Alun 04:59, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

'Wobble Alun',

Thanks for your reply, but not surprisingly you have not convinced me of the merit of removing the few words "by Watson and Crick in 1953"...to leave these few words out is patently ridiculous, my friend. You need to review the above 'reasons' for your rather odd decision to leave them out.

Whatever anyone thinks of the actual circumstances in which the determination of the structure of DNA was achieved in 1953, it was principally achieved by Francis Crick and James Watson; this is a fact, it is beyond dispute, and was recognised by the award of the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine to them, jointly with Maurice Wilkins. To do otherwise, is a bit like denying that The Holocaust took place during WWII; any serious student of the DNA period recognises that some 'injustice' took place, but the real tragedy was Franklin's premature death.

Sorry but please seriously re-consider reinstating those few KEY words - but even if you don't, the whole world recognises Watson and Crick's achievement in 1953, even if you don't for whatever reason. I do welcome your comments on the MSN Encarta biography of Rosalind Franklin, which fortunately cannot be changed on-line without going through their editorial process. Lynne Elkins has said it is "excellent" by the way, what do YOU think of it? Best wishes, 195.92.168.164 10:06, 19 November 2005 (UTC) (MP)

Yes OK Martin, if you think it's that important. It is not patently ridiculous to leave these words out, because as you correctly point out the whole world recognises Watson and Crick's achievement in 1953, so we don't really need to put them in the introduction, and the main body of the text includes this fact. It really doesn't need to be in the introduction. To claim that something as petty as this is equivalent to Holocaust denial is rather disgusting. How can you compare the murder of over six million people to the omission of two names from an encyclopedia? You need to get some perspective, man. If you feel so strongly about this, then I will not remove it again if you want to re-insert it as, though I disagree, I am not strongly against, I just feel these words shouldn't be there. I did have a look at the Encarta article, I was not overly impressed with it, to be honest, but this is not a chatroom and is certainly not the place to discuss it. This page is for this article and none other. Alun 18:57, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Alun for re-instating those important five words and one number; 'Holocaust Denial' is an extreme comparison, but the alleged leading person concerned was arrested in Austria the other day. Please let me have all your comments on MSN Encarta/Rosalind Franklin on :martin@packer34.freeserve.co.uk and I will bring them to the attention of Brenda Maddox and Lynne Elkins (she thought it was "excellent") in case they want to advise MSN Encarta of would-be changes; alternatively you can try: davhi@microsoft.com (who I have already advised of your comment.) I look forward to hearing from you as your 'Wiki' biography is better than MSN Encarta's in my opinion; at least you know the difference between Bragg father and son, MSN Encarta don't!

195.92.168.166 09:49, 20 November 2005 (UTC) (MP)

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!

MSN'S "ENCARTA":

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564570/Franklin_Rosalind_Elsie.html

Come on 'Wobble Alun', PLEASE do tell us what (in your opinion) is wrong with it? Thank God Bill Gates doesn't allow everyone a free hand to edit. (A clue: it is short, concise, and factual but not 'opinionated'.) I have asked Lynne Elkins and Brenda Maddox to comment on it...195.92.168.165 18:44, 14 November 2005 (UTC) (MP)

Verifiability

I urge all editors to read Wikipedia:Verifiability. This is official wikipedia policy. I would like to point out this section in particuluar:

Articles should contain only material that has been published by reputable or credible sources, regardless of whether individual editors regard that material to be true or false. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. For that reason, it is vital that editors rely on good sources. Alun 13:25, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Alun ('Wobbler') read and enjoy http://www.bsn.org.uk/view_all.php?id=11022 ; even I don't agree with some of this rubbish! John, please spot the most obvious error. (This is produced by HM British Government by the way.) They have just been advised of the most substantive error, the rest is a matter of opinion. 195.92.168.163 21:17, 13 November 2005 (UTC) (MP)

Alun ('Wobbler') I take it you have not objection to the following being inserted as a bit of post-1953/pre-1958 Rosalind Franklin history?

In 1956 Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin and James Watson jointly attended "The Nature of Viruses" meeting in London at the Ciba Foundation.

According to American scientific historian Lynne Elkins (quote) "Things were quite amiable virus-wise between Franklin and Watson. I think she even caught a ride with him once in the mid-fifties when she was in the US, but they were never friends as Watson likes to say. There was correspondence with her showing Watson first drafts of her papers for comments, as she did with Don Casper as well. When she could not get an ARC grant to come to the US, Watson helped her get US funding. Bragg also wrote her letters of recommendation." (her e-mail to Martin Packer November 26 2005 re. http://www.novartisfound.org.uk/SirGordonTribute.htm)195.92.168.164 15:49, 27 November 2005 (UTC) (MP)

This sort of material is fine as long as it's properly referenced, though I would not consider it per se of great importance. I am aware that she had some dealings with Watson obout viruses. There is no reason why they should not have been amicable. Rosalind Franklin, as far as we are aware never knew her work had been used by Crick and Watson in their model of 1953. Alun 06:14, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Maurice Wilkins not discoverer

I have removed Maurice Wilkins name from the introduction. I do not think he can be credited here as a discoverer of the structure as he is not a co-author of the original 1953 paper by Crick and Watson. Is there a good reason for his inclusion? Wilkins makes it clear in his book that his part of the Nobel Prize was primarily for his work on DNA post 1953. Alun 06:16, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

How important were Rosalind Franklin's data

I'm intrigued by this quote from the Francis Crick article:
It is also not clear how important Franklin's unpublished results that were in the progress report actually were for the model building done by Watson and Crick. After the first crude X-ray diffraction images of DNA were collected in the 1930s, William Astbury had talked about stacks of nucleotides spaced at 3.4 angstrom (0.34 nanometer) intervals in DNA. A citation to Astbury' earlier X-ray diffraction work was one of only 8 references in Franklin's first paper on DNA[5]. Analysis of Astbury's published DNA diffraction data and the better X-ray diffraction images collected by Wilkins, Gosling and Franklin revealed the helical nature of DNA. It was possible to predict the number of bases stacked within a single turn of the DNA helix (10 per turn; a full turn of the helix is 27 angstroms [2.7 nm] in the compact A form, 34 angstroms [3.4 nm] in the wetter B form). Wilkins shared this information about the B form of DNA with Crick and Watson.
I wonder if we should include something like this here? Could the structure have been elucidated without Franklin and Wilkin's data? Even if it could, it is still evident that their data were actually used. The statement also seems to be somewhat confusing, implying that Franklin's data may not have been necessary, but also saying that the X-ray work at King's was important for the clues it gives to the structure. I get the impression that Franklin's X-rays are considered to be the only ones that are clear enough to be useful in predicting the conformation of the bases mentionned in the quote, but my impression may be wrong. Can anyone expand on this with a view to including it in the article? Did Wilkins produce X-ray pictures from which the number of bases per turn etc could have been elucidated?
Maybe we should also include something like this (again from the Crick article):
In an effort to clarify this issue, Perutz later (June 1960) published what had been in the progress report, showing that nothing was in the report that Franklin herself had not said in her talk (attended by Watson) in late 1951. Further, Perutz explained that the report was to a Medical Research Council committee that had been created in order to "establish contact between the different groups of working for (sic) the Council". Randall's and Perutz's labs were both MRC funded laboratories.
Would the fact that the information was given in a talk by Franklin mean that it was scientifically ethical to use it without referencing it (not even as personal communication), I wonder? What's the general consensus? Alun 06:42, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

My understanding is that the X-ray images collected by Wilkins and Gosling were not very good. When Franklin and Gosling had better images, they must have measured the key reflection distances near the center and calculated the likely size of the "unit cell". This is a fundamental part of any X-ray analysis, and after Franklin's seminar talk late in 1951, everyone in Cambridge seemed to know Franklin's conclusion that either 2 or 3 DNA strands could fit into the unit cell of DNA. Franklin may not have mentioned the 34A value for the B form DNA at that time, but Crick and Watson would have asked Wilkins for that number and it is the kind of basic fact that Wilkins would have shared with Crick. When Watson says, "We used her data," I think this is the kind of thing he is talking about. --JWSchmidt 15:08, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I just found in Chapter 3 of Horace Judson's book where Watson spoke about how he knew that there were 10 base pairs in each turn of the double helix: "Oh, Maurice told me, I think, that it was ten." --JWSchmidt 00:14, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I may have copied down the wrong year for the Perutz letter. It may have been this 1969 letter to Science. I've never seen the letter, I've only read accounts of what it said. What Perutz had to say about showing Crick the 1952 MRC report containing Franklin's data never satisfied some observers who thought he should not have done it. --JWSchmidt 22:54, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

The information I used for the Crick article is also in Chapter 3 of Horace Judson's book, 4 pages after the quote from Watson that I gave above. I did get the year wrong, Judson says 1969. --JWSchmidt 00:25, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

It might add balance to include some of this material, I think these data are the nub of the matter. It does seem that the Franklin/Gosling X-rays are the important ones used in determining the structure, not the Wilkins ones, which makes the Crick article a bit misleading. What do you think? Alun 06:15, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

One additional detail that we have not discussed is that there were two ways to determine the number of base pairs in a full turn of the DNA helix. One method was to measure the position of certain spots in the X-ray images. This yields a measure in angstroms for the unit cell that can then be divided by the space between base pairs (3.4 angstroms, also estimated by measuring features in the X-ray images, but easier to estimate and had been done earlier). The estimate given by Franklin in the 1952 MRC report for the length of the unit cell of the B form was 34 angstroms. According to Watson, dividing 34 by 3.4 was not how they knew that there were 10 base pairs in a turn of the helix. According to Watson, they knew it was 10 base pairs per turn because you could just count the layer lines in the B form X-ray images. Just after the other quote from Watson (above), "I mean, it was ten. How many layer lines, you see a picture, like that one, you can count." Watson said he learned both the 34 angstrom number and the 10 count of layer lines from Wilkins on the day that Wilkins showed him the #51 photo.

In that same chapter of Judson (Chapter 3), Crick explains what he learned from the MRC report. He says that he learned that the two strands were antiparallel and that there were 2 strands not three. Watson also wrote in The Double Helix that the MRC report was useful to Crick because it confirmed in print what Wilkins had told Watson about the length of the B form unit cell.

About the way in which Watson and Crick acknowledged the source of the data: "We have been stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished experimental results and ideas of [Wilkins, Franklin and others at King's]". I know that Wilkins got to see a copy of the Watson-Crick article before it was published and he specifically asked that they change the way that the King's College work was acknowledged in the draft he saw. I'm not sure if Wilkins ever saw the final version before it was printed. In my mind, it is important that after the first Watson-Crick DNA model of 1951, they sent their model-making equipment to King's College and for more than a year they encouraged people at King's College to work on model making. Early in 1953, after Pauling published his model, Wilkins said that he was going to wait until Franklin left King's College before starting in on model making and he told Crick and Watson that they could go ahead and try again to make a model.

Yes, I don't understand why Wilkins didn't try model building before Franklin left. He seems to have favoured it as an approach, and he certainly wouldn't have needed to worry about what Franklin thought, he was senior to her, and he was working on the B form of DNA, and not the A form as she was, so he had every right to try to build a model of the B form before Franklin had left if he had wanted to. It is a mystery to me. Wilkins says in his book that he was offered co-authorship of the Crick and Watson paper but turned it down, he goes on to say that he later regretted this as he might have managed to get Franklin's name on the paper as well if he had accepted. Alun 18:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Nobody at King's was as interested as were Watson and Crick in trying to make a model in the Pauling/Crick/Watson way. Watson made the argument that if everyone in England just waited, there was a danger that Pauling would come up with a correct model first. It may have been in Wilkins' mind that it would be best if Watson and Crick found the structure before Pauling. In my view, under better circumstances, there might have been a formal collaboration between Crick, Watson, Wilkins and Franklin. Within science, it is not unusual for two research teams using different methods to work together, particularly with one group providing data and another providing theoretical analysis. Such collaboration is much easier in the course of "normal science" when a research problem is being tackled in a conventional way and everyone involved has expectations that they know how to form a collaboration that will solve a scientific problem. In the case of finding the structure of DNA, there was no conventional thinking that could stand as a basis for collaboration between Crick, Watson, Wilkins and Franklin. Mainly, you had Watson with the belief that an attempt should be made to try to find same model in the same way that Pauling had found the protein alpha helix. Crick was caught up in Watson's enthusiasm and willing to play along. Wilkins was a friend of Crick and he was frustrated by Franklin's refusal to collaborate and was willing to share Franklin's data with Crick and Watson. I still have not read Wilkins' book, but I imagine that Wilkins knew there were two possible ways to get the structure; the Franklin way and the Pauling way. Wilkins had no way of knowing if either approach would work and he probably thought it was worth trying both. I'm not sure if he felt he was collaborating with Watson and Crick.

I've never fully understood why the Pauling might get there first argument was made by Watson. Pauling's son has stated that his father wasn't really trying hard for the structure, and that most of the conversations between him (Pauling's son) and Watson in Watson's book never took place. It seems a strange argument, why should anyone but Crick and Watson really care if Linus Pauling got to the structure first? I certainly don't understand why, for example, I should feel phew, at least thet beat that Pauling fellow. To me the thing is that the structure was going to be solved sooner rather than later anyway, and Pauling's son has several times expressed the opinion that the only people racing were Crick and Watson. Others have proposed the argument that the whole we must beat Pauling thing was little more than an attempt at justification for their behaviour. I'm in two minds over the whole thing. Alun 18:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I think it is the case that Watson went to England with the hope that he would be able to work on the structure of DNA. When Watson fell into what was for him the Lucky fact that Crick and Wilkins were friends, Watson must have had a sense of frustration that he was so close and yet so far, particularly after Crick and Watson were told to stop working on DNA. In 1953, when word came to England about Pauling's DNA model, there was a chance to make the argument in Cambridge that Pauling was in the hunt and that there might be a repeat of what happened when Pauling beat Cambridge to the alpha helix. I do not recall having seen another reason given for why Crick and Watson were allowed to start working on DNA again in 1953. I can believe that Watson was probably the one person who really felt a need to act soon. We should look up the dates for when Watson knew he would be leaving Cambridge and when he actually did leave. --JWSchmidt 20:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Quite, it doesn't really work as any sort of reason or excuse. This doesn't explain why anyone outside King's should care if Pauling got to the structure first, Cambridge were not getting funded to study the structure, so how could they be beaten in a race they were not supposed to be in anyway?

make the argument in Cambridge that Pauling was in the hunt and that there might be a repeat of what happened when Pauling beat Cambridge to the alpha helix

How could there be a repeat of this when Cambridge were not studying the structure of DNA? Pauling beat Cambridge fair and square to the alpha-helix, if he had beaten King's to the DNA structure fair and square, so be it. He could not have beaten Cambridge to the structure as they were not researching it (they had no X-ray pictures of their own for example). It makes no sense to offer it as an argument as to why Wilkins would help them, why would he help them defeat his own team? Why should it matter to WIlkins if his team is pipped by Cambridge or Pauling? He still loses. Wilkins also makes it quite clear in his book that he was unaware that Crick and Watson were going to use the data he gave them in this way, I think I posted a quote from Wilkins's book earlier on the talk page which supports this. Alun 07:31, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

There is more than one kind of research. One type of research is very much tied to the collection of experimental data and the interpretation of the data that are collected in one's own experiments. By 1953, Crick had already been involved in published research of a more "theoretical" flavor (see Evidence for the Pauling-Corey alpha-Helix in Synthetic Polypeptides). Crick, and others in his lab at Cambridge, were very comfortable with the tradition that exists in physics whereby "theoretical physicists" interpret the data that are collected by "experimental physicists". There would be nothing unusual for scientist A to provide data to scientist B so that a theoretical analysis of the data could be performed. I find it interesting that Wilkins apparently has written that Watson and Crick wanted Wilkins to be a co-author on "their" DNA double helix article (the first letter to Nature). It would have been a perfectly normal collaboration for the Cambridge "theorists" and the King's experimentalists to jointly publish the DNA model. What was odd about the whole thing was that such a formal collaboration could not be established, so the three articles were published instead. Similarly, as far as I know (I have never read the article), Pauling's article with his DNA model (that was received in Cambridge early in 1953) did not involve DNA X-ray data collected by Pauling. As I understand it, Pauling's article and DNA model were based on DNA results collected by others. Once the people in Cambridge with authority over Crick and Watson knew about Pauling's article, Crick and Watson were again allowed to work on making a model of DNA. It does not matter if Crick and Watson had funding to work on DNA. Crick did not have funding to do his theoretical analysis of how helical molecules diffract X-rays. Theoreticians see data and create models without waiting to get funding for paper and pencils. "Pauling beat Cambridge fair and square to the alpha-helix, if he had beaten King's to the DNA structure fair and square, so be it." <-- This was not the thinking of the senior people in Cambridge. The fact that Pauling had gotten the alpha helix first was still a raw wound in 1953. All Watson had to do was suggest that he and Crick might be able to solve the structure of DNA and beat Pauling to the correct structure and they were allowed to work on DNA again. --JWSchmidt 16:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

There was no formal collaboration, but when it came time to award the Nobel Prize, everyone involved seemed to feel what had happened was functionally a collaboration. Watson and Crick brought the enthusiasm to build models, Crick knew the importance of the symmetry group, Watson found the base pairs, Wilkins had started the X-ray work at King's College and Franklin had brought the technical skill to get good x-ray images and do the basic analysis of the X-ray data. Out of an ugly situation where a formal collaboration could not be created, an informal collaboration was created and the structure was discovered.

Yes, it was really an informal collaboration. I think it was Jerry Donohue who found the base pairs though, not Watson. Wilkins says in his book that his share of the Nobel prize was primarily for the work done at Kings in the years after the Crick and Watson structure had been published, and not for his contribution to the structure. Alun 18:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

"I think it was Jerry Donohue who found the base pairs" <-- do you have a source for this idea? --JWSchmidt 20:04, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Several:

New understanding of the hydrogen bonding that held the pairs of bonds together- this had come from the work of Jerry Donohue from Pauling's lab- had turned out to be vital. The Third Man of the Double Helix, Maurice Wilkins. p.213 of the paperback

But how could they come together in pairs? For two weeks I got nowhere, misled by an error in my nucleic acid chemistry textbook. Happily on February 27, Jerry Donohue, a theoretical chemist visiting the Cavendish from Caltech pointed out that the textbook was wrong. DNA the Secret of Life, James Watson. p52 of the paperback.

Eventually Jerry Donohue, an American crystallogropher who shared an office with us, told us that some of the textbook formulas were erroneous and that each base occured almost exclusivelly in one particular form. What Mad Pursuit, Francis Crick, p.65 of the paperback.

Like watching someone fumbling with a jigsaw, Donohue suggested Watson was using the wrong pieces....Why not use the keto form Donohue asked?...the textbooks are wrong, said Donohue Rosalind Franklin, The Dark Lady of DNA, Brenda Maddox, p.201 of the paperback.

There's also Jerry Donohue's Wikipedia article. One of the problems with the whole history of the discovery is that none of the key participants kept a diary at the time. Most of the history has come from people's recollections and memory, so often there are several related, but different versions of events. Wilkins's recolection is somewhat more unequivocal than Crick or Watson's, but then he was not present at the time. Whatever else is true, the hydrogen bonding would not have been solved without Donohue's input. Alun 07:31, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

- Nobody questions the importance of Donohue setting Crick and Watson staight about the chemical structures of the nucleobases. This does not mean that "it was Jerry Donohue who found the base pairs". As far as I can tell, Judson settled this question by asking Donohue if he had "gone further than to say which were the right tautomeric forms". Donohue replied, "no, I'm quite sure I went no further than isisting they had to use the keto forms." This is in Chapter 3 of The Eighth Day of Creation. --JWSchmidt 16:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

You asked for verifiability, I have provided it. Now you have provided an additional source. I fail to see anything contensious here, or indeed how it applies to the Rosalind Franklin article, this seems really quite straight forward. By pointing out to Watson that he was using the wrong tautomeric forms, Jerry Donohue solved the problem of base pairing, a problem which would not have been solved by Watson, who seems to have been completelly unaware that he was using the wrong form of the bases. Or if you like no, I'm quite sure I went no further than isisting they had to use the keto forms is the solution. Once the correct forms are being used there is no more base pairing problem, so yes Donohue solved the problem. Any other analysis is just sophistry IMHO. Alun 04:14, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

- - - Jerry Donohue was witness to Crick and Watson trying to figure out how the nuncleobases might be positioned inside the double helix. As part of their model making, Crick and Watson had models of the nucleobases produced which as accurately as possible represented the positions of the atoms and chemical bonds. Donohue had past experience through which he knew that the chemical structures Watson had obtained from textbooks were not correct. Donohue told Crick and Watson what the correct structures of the nucleobases were. This made it much easier for Watson to then discover the correct base pairs and the way that hydrogen bonds could form between them. Yes, it was important that Donohue was there to explain the correct structures of the individual nucleobases; this is what all of the sources and references indicate. However, it was Watson who found the base pairs. Crick's book What Mad Pursuit gives credit to Watson for finding the base pairs. As described by Judson, even Donohue said that he did not find the base pairs. It is not sophistry to accept the account of everyone who was there. --JWSchmidt 15:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I am happy to accept the account of everyone who was there. Base pairing ceases to be a problem when the correct form of the bases is used. maybe it is more correct to state that Donohue provided an essential insight into base pairing, you must accept that his input was essential to Watson, surelly? Be that as it may, this discussion has no real relevance to the Franklin article. Alun 06:44, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

There is an additional layer of analysis of the situation in which one could attempt to second guess the participants and judge what should and should not have been done by each. One can ask, "what is the consensus" about the ethics of Watson and Crick using Franklin's data? The problem is, this was a unique situation and if you want to compare the Double Helix discovery to "norm" of how scientists behave in similar situations, it is hard to know what to compare this one example to. It was not "science as usual". Some people have taken the position that there is an absolute moral standard: Franklin's unpublished data should not have been used without her knowledge. Wikipedia can certainly quote people who take this position. In my view, if you get into the game of second guessing the participants in the discovery then you have an obligation to also ask additional questions such as if Franklin was right to refuse to work with Wilkins. Also, I think you have to ask, what did Wilkins think he was doing by providing Franklin's data to Crick and Watson? --JWSchmidt 17:20, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it was wrong per se to use Franklin's data without her knowledge, but I find it hard to think of any justification for using the data without acknowleging their use and from where they were derived, this is, of course just my opinion. You make some very good and interesting points here. How can we include them in the article do you think? Alun 18:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be useful to find a quote from someone like Aaron Klug, some scientist who was willing to publically question what was done with Franklin's data. I think it is also worth mentioning that Watson has never felt great about what happened. His working title for The Double Helix was "Honest Jim", in the sense of comparing himself to a used car salesman - someone of questionable honor. --JWSchmidt 20:14, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes I like those ideas. Maybe we should have a look for some and make some suggestions. Alun 07:31, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The DNA template

I have copied to this page my contribution to a discussion elsewhere. In brief, I cannot see why two of the people are in this template. They had minor roles in the discovery of the structure of DNA.

My principle objection is the inclusion of Max Delbrück. I have re-read Judson's Eighth Day of Creation to check on Delbrück's role. He gets credit for inspiring Schrödinger and for passing on information but to give him a big billing (one of six) seems to me to be unnecessary. An unexplained sentence on p145 even says that Delbrück was "no friend of biochemistry".

In a transcript of a conversion between James Watson and David Baltimore, the President of Caltech [4], Baltimore mentioned the experiments by Oswald Avery: “One of the things I’ve always been curious about is why they didn’t have the impact that they might have. The genetics community, particularly around Luria and [Max] Delbrück, never seemed to appreciate that Avery —this is now 1944—and his colleagues had published a paper that quite clearly showed that as chemically pure DNA as you could get would transfer genetic characteristics. And yet the idea that DNA was the carrier of genetic information really didn’t take hold.”

I think it was just that everyone expected that proteins were going to be involved,” said Watson. “And also the covalent backbone—how the nucleotides were linked together—wasn’t established until ’51. It was the Avery result that was the stimulus for Erwin Chargaff to measure the relative concentrations of DNA’s four bases (adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine) and for Alex Todd to get his organic chemists to establish the covalent structure. But neither Luria nor Delbrück thought in terms of molecules."

Pauling did great work on the chemical bond and in deducing the structure of unrelated molecules, but does not rate a top six billing here either. Pauling got the structure wrong, though in the DNA story, he was someone who unwittingly applied some pressure to Crick and Watson. If you have to rank people in order of importance in the DNA story, a difficult thing to do, I would put the following people after Franklin, Watson, Crick and Wilkins:

Oswald Avery, for showing that DNA carried genetic material and for proving that it was worth studying to begin with
William Astbury, for showing them it was possible to take X-ray diffraction patterns of DNA
Erwin Chargaff, for determining the ratio of the bases
Jerry Donohue, (see acknowledgement in the Nature article)
Phoebus Levene, for getting the components right
Alexander Stokes, for working out the mathematics of helical diffraction

Obviously you could go back further and credit Pauling for his work on the chemical bond and the Braggs for inventing X-Ray diffraction, but I would draw the line before there. Since Raymond Gosling's name appears on one of the three 1953 Nature papers he should also be in there somewhere.JMcC 15:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I think everyone should feel free to add to the navigation box a link to an article about anyone who has a Wikipedia article that describes their role in the discovery of the double helix structure. --JWSchmidt 17:25, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I have checked the calendar and it is not 1st April. Delbrück's involvement is highly indirect. He inspired Schrödinger to write his book which was widely read. They do not give Nobel prizes for that. Since Schrödinger actually wrote the book, you could more plausibly argue that he should also be listed among the pioneers who discovered the structure of DNA, and way ahead of Delbrück. JMcC 14:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I have previously given the reasons for why Delbrück was initially included in the navigation box that links Wikipedia pages that are related to the discovery of DNA: Template talk:Double helix. Short summary: Watson was the "prime mover" in the way that the dicovery took place in early 1953. It is an interesting historical question to ask: why did Watson become the "prime mover" in the way the dicovery unfolded? Delbrück played a major role in both how Watson (as well as Crick and Wilkins) became interested in the molecular basis of heredity and how Watson kept his focus on DNA during his post-doc time in Europe (via Delbrück's "phage group"). --JWSchmidt 15:45, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Franklin, Crick, Watson and viruses meeting in 1956

I have removed this text from the Discovery of the structure of DNA section.

In 1956 Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin and James Watson jointly attended "The Nature of Viruses" meeting in London at the Ciba Foundation. According to American scientific historian Lynne Elkins (quote) "Things were quite amiable virus-wise between Franklin and Watson. I think she even caught a ride with him once in the mid-fifties when she was in the US, but they were never friends as Watson likes to say. There was correspondence with her showing Watson first drafts of her papers for comments, as she did with Don Casper as well. When she could not get an ARC grant to come to the US, Watson helped her get US funding. Bragg also wrote her letters of recommendation." (e-mail to Martin Packer November 26 2005 re. http://www.novartisfound.org.uk/SirGordonTribute.htm)

I fail to understand how this text is relevant to the Discovery of the structure of DNA. The text needs to find an appropriate context, but none exists in the article at the moment. There is no section regarding any friendship or enmity between Watson and Franklin, and I personally don't think there should be one. It is also totally unacceptable to include the personal information of editors in the text of the article. This sort of thing should not occur. I'm not sure if the text in parentheses is supposed to represent a citation, if it is then this represents original research and as such can not be included in Wikipedia, please see the policy page about no original research and especially please see the policy page about verifiability. If this addition to the article is as a result of personal communication between an editor and Lynne Elkins then it fails to conform to both verifiability and no original research policies. Alun 11:23, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

THE ODD INTRODUCTION TO ROSALIND FRANKLIN'S BIOGRAPHY

It currently reads: "Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 1920 - 16 April 1958) was a British physical chemist and crystallographer who made very important contributions to the understanding of the fine structures of coal and graphite, DNA and viruses. Franklin is best known for her contributions to the determination of the structure of the DNA double helix by Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins in 1953."

IF ANYONE HAS ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT THIS PRECISE WORDING, WOULD HE/SHE HAVE THE COMMON COURTESY OF COMMENTING ON THIS DISCUSSION PAGE BEFORE AMENDING IT ALUN ('WOBBLER')? TO REMOVE MAURICE WILKINS' NAME IS A NON TOO SUBTLE ATTEMPT TO RE-WRITE THE HISTORY; THE NOBEL PRIZE WAS JOINTLY AWARDED TO THE THREE OF THEM, NOT TWO. IT IS COMMONLY RECOGNISED THAT THE DETERMINATION OF THE STRUCTURE OF DNA WAS PUBLISHED IN "NATURE" IN APRIL 1953, WITH THREE PAPERS, RESPECTIVELY BY: CRICK & WATSON; STOKES, WILKINS & WILSON; FRANKLIN & GOSLING. THE 1962 NOBEL PRIZE FOR PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE WAS THEN SUBSEQUENTLY AWARDED TO CRICK, WATSON, AND WILKINS. (THERE ARE THE BASIC FACTS OF THE SITUATION!) MAURICE WILKINS WAS A CO-DISCOVERER OF THE STRUCTURE OF DNA... 195.92.168.176 12:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC) (M.P.)

ps Alun, one thing we do agree on, is the awful D.N.A. frame around Rosalind Franklin's portrait - please remove it (again) as it does her a disservice; I think the 'six-in-one' frame is inconsistent to the values of "Wilipedia" and John Schmidt should remove ALL of them. IT SIMPLY IS NOT NECESSARY, JOHN: PLEASE TAKE IT OFF! 195.92.168.176 13:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC) (M.P.)

I refer you to the above section Maurice Wilkins not discoverer. The text in this section reads:

I have removed Maurice Wilkins name from the introduction. I do not think he can be credited here as a discoverer of the structure as he is not a co-author of the original 1953 paper by Crick and Watson. Is there a good reason for his inclusion? Wilkins makes it clear in his book that his part of the Nobel Prize was primarily for his work on DNA post 1953

You are the only one re-writing history history. There was only one paper reporting the structure, the other papers supported the structure. Please provide verifyability for your assertion. I have never heared of a Crick, Watson and Wilkins model, and I don't think any one else has. Your revisionism is getting tiresome, please refrain from including unsupported and unattributed material in the article. We also agreed on the inclusion of Crick and Watson's names in the introduction as a compromise. You now seem to be intent on breaking that agreement.

The Nobel prize citation reads:

for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material[5]

The award of the Nobel Prize was not for the discovery of DNA, please get your facts straight. Alun 14:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Alun 'Wobbler', just for once words almost fail me! Everything you say runs in the face of all of the scientific literature on the subject; have you even bothered to read any of it since our previous discussion. You really need to! Thank God for MSN Encarta for a more dispassionate view of Miss Franklin, which just cannot be altered at the whim of anyone apparently obsessed with re-writing the history of the period. The facts are quite simple, Alun - presumably you are going to rewrite 'Wiki' history of Crick, Watson, Wilkins and not forgetting Sir Lawrence Bragg, Gosling, Stokes, Wilson, and always last but not least, Sir John Randall? Alun, you need to go and lie down in a quiet room somewhere -in Scandinavia- and ask yourself why you are so determined to fly in the face of the facts. Read all the available literature+ - understand it - and then re-write the 'Wiki' biography of Franklin - but first please take off John Schimdt's awful frame (again)? 195.92.168.176 14:16, 7 December 2005 (UTC) (M.P.)

p.s. +Try starting with "The discovery of the DNA double helix" from: *** DNA Changing Science and Society (ISBN:0521823781); Edited by Torsten Krude, CUP 2003: The Darwin Lectures for 2003, on Rosalind Franklin's involvement in the determination of the structure of DNA. (You can find cheap copies on: www.abebooks.co.uk)

You are continuing with your habbit of not providing verifiable sources and attacking the ability/intrgrity of other editors when you have no source or evidence to support your claim. Can you please explain to me why you appear to believe that Maurice Wilkins is generally accredited along with Crick and Watson with the publication of the 1953 paper outlining their model? He is not a co-author on the paper and the 1962 Nobel Prize is not for the discovery of DNA. You state The facts are quite simple and that I am determined to fly in the face of the facts. What facts? you have failed to produce any. I have simply and clearly asked for verifyability from a good source as per wikipedia policy. Given that you have consistently failed to make yourself au fait with Wikipedia policy (regardless of the fact that I have on severl occasions asked you to read the policy pages so that we can have any discussion with the same frame of reference) I find it strange that you feel you have the right to unilaterally decide what should be in or out of the article. I can find no reference to Wilkins having made any contribution to the building of the Crick-Watson model, and indeed the evidence that does exist makes it clear that Wilkins himself was unaware that Crick and Watson were building a model. Wilkins is not an author of paper in which the model was elucidated and neither is he credited with the discovery in the general literature. That Wilkins contributed is not in doubt, the claim that he is a co-discoverer has never been made, to my knowledge, untill you made it here. When you can show clear and verifiable evidence that he is a co-discoverer (something that would require proof of his direct involvement with the model building, or some published literature refering to a Crick, Watson and Wilkins model) then I fail to see that you have provided verifiability. As such I see no reason why he should be credited (uniquely as far as I can tell) here as a co-discoverer. If you persist in re-inserting Wilkins name then I shall ask for mediation from the mediation cabal. I am considering a request protection for this page so that no one will be able to edit it, as you have consistently contributed you interpretation and opinion as fact, as well as original research and I cannot remember you ever having provided verifiability. You seem to be fundamentally incapable of separating you opinion from fact and seem to have the attitude that your opinions are self evidently factual and correct and therefore do not require verifiability. It is imposible to get any sort of straight answer from you. I don't think you have ever directly answered any of my requests for details, rather vague pronouncements about facts and myths seem to be as far as you can get when it comes to producing sources. You claim to be far better read than any other editor of this page, but display no evidence of this when it comes to supporting your edits. Being vague, claiming superior knowledge, bullying and impugning the ability/integrity of other editors is not a substitute for verifiability from good sources. I urge you once again to read the relevant pages and produce proper and verifiable sources (these must be published or they are not verifiable and may constitute original research). I would also ask you not to continue with you habit of bullying those who disagree with you. I am going to remove Wilkins's name from the introduction now, if it is re-inserted I shall imediatelly request protection for this page and mediation. If you provide proper verifiability for him being a co-discoverer of the structure of DNA then I will happily re-insert his name myself, untill such time you have no case. Alun 16:55, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

My "habbit"? First law of arguing with a pedant is to spell-check!

I'm sorry to say Alun, I just cannot take you that seriously any longer! What has the late Rosalind Franklin done to deserve you as her leading supporter? (Any progress on reading the literature - if so, we can then, and only then, continue the debate!) Best wishes, MP 195.92.168.170 17:22, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

ps Those three DNA papers in "Nature" (171) were as follows of course:

J.D. Watson and F.H.C. Crick: "A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid", 25 April 1953, 737;

- M.H.F. Wilkins, A.R. Stokes, and H.R.Wilson: "Molecular structure of deoxypentose nucleic acids", 25 April 1953, 739;

- - R.E. Franklin and R.G. Gosling: "Molecular configuration in sodium thymonucleate", 25 April 1953, 742.

pps Don't forget Maurice Wilkins was offered joint authorship of the first Watson-Crick paper!

The criteria for editing Wikipedia articles are quite simple. One must provide verifiability, one must provide all points of view and one must not conduct original research. When you have read this literature, and practice it properly, then you may understand how to edit these pages properly. You have avoided the question I asked you (again). I do not know what this comment is supposed to mean Any progress on reading the literature. What literature? It is evident that your edits are not supported by any of the conventional literature about Rosalind Franklin or the discovery of DNA, as you are unable to verify it (either in this case or in the case earlier where you stated that Wilkins's Nobel prize was to the group at King's). If you are right, why have you never provide verifiable sources? I would draw your attention to the fact that of the three papers you list only one describes a structure for DNA and only two names are on it. Wilkins was offered co-authorship of the paper, but turned it down, could it be because he knew he had not been involved in the discovery do you think (just a wild guess)? Alun 18:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Wilkin's Nobel Prize in introduction

I have removed this sentence from the introduction as it has no relevance to introduction to Rosalind Franklin's biographical article. Can someone please explain why this is relevant in the introduction? The Nobel prize was awarded several years after Franklin had died and is not an important part of her life. The award of the prize is mentioned in the body of the article, which is its correct location. Text similar to this has repeatedly been removed from the introduction. If it re-appears can the editor please give a proper explanation for its inclusion? This seems little more than an attempt by an editor to include Wilkins's name in the introduction in any way possible, to what end I do not know.
Her colleague at Kings College London Maurice Wilkins subsequently shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Watson and Crick
Alun 18:26, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

and for the last word on the subject a quote from Wilkins' (Wiki) biography

Most textbooks describe the double helix as the "W-C" (for "Watson-Crick") model of DNA, but there is a longstanding tradition at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory of referring to it as the W-C-M-F model with the M for "Maurice" and the F for "Franklin." (see Maurice Wilkins.

195.92.168.169 20:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC) (M.P.)

This is good stuff. Find the reference and put it in, unfortunatelly we cannot use one wiki page as a verifiable source for another wiki page (wikipedia obviously can't verify itself!!), so we need another source for verifiability. A quick google search produced nothing to substantiate this, it doesn't seem to be properly verified in the Maurice Wilkins article either. Lets try to find something to support this and we can put it in. This sort of thing may well fit in the intro as it directly relates to Franklin and is of some note. Alun 06:33, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Alun/Wobbler, I have seen it in print somewhere before and I have brought it to Professor Olby's attention; but I think I will have to ask CHSL to verify it! (Have we actually agreed on something?) 195.92.168.176 13:36, 8 December 2005 (UTC) (M.P.)

This is great information, but for it to be verifiable it must be from a source anyone can get hold of, like a book or website (so anyone can verify it personally) the policy calls for a good source, but a published book will usually count as a good source. Any sort of personal comunication is not in the public domain and so is not verifiable (and probably constitutes original research). If you can try to remember where you saw it written, and give the citation then I think it would be an excellent addition to the article because it shows that Wilkins's and Franklin's contributions to the model are recognised as equal to those of Crick and Watson by a highly prestigious laboratory. Unfortunatelly I have drawn a blank trying to find reference to this using several google searches, but it might be the sort of thing that is not common knowledge outside the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory. We most certainly agree on this. Alun 17:59, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Alun/Wobbler, sorry to say there is NO verification of it from CSHL; I have received the following message from them:

"Jeff: As far as I know, this entry in Wikipedia is INCORRECT, as is the sentence that precedes it. Jan can confirm. I recommend that Martin Packer should cut the entire "W-C-M-F" sentence and change "Many" to "Some" and "have long felt" to "believe" in the preceding sentence, making it, "Some in the molecular biology community believe that since Franklin died early, and Wilkins was much less of a publicity-seeker, that Watson and Crick have in the popular mind overshadowed Wilkins and Franklin to an undeserved degree."

This (in bold) looks like as big an American urban myth as "Sir Francis Crick" - which appears in 16 American scientific books - my reply to CSHL was as follows:

"Peter/Jeffrey,

You are more than welcome to change the wording for yourself on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Wilkins at the bottom of the paragraph entitled "DNA"; somehow I thought it was too good to be true. (Fortunately it is not duplicated in the Franklin biography.)

I presume this is what you Americans colloquially call an urban myth; the sooner it is deleted off "Wikipedia" the better by the way; I have copied your statement onto the Franklin biography discussion page so the editor of it can understand what is happening.

regards,Martin Packer"

195.92.168.174 18:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC) (MP)

Irrelevant names in template with photo

A while back I queried the relevance of Max Delbrück and Linus Pauling to the discovery of the structure of DNA. Somehow it got buried under the other discussions. The only comment I got was by the perpetrator. Someone else must also think that the only four people worth putting in the template are Wilkins, Watson Crick and Franklin, assuming that you have a template at all. If you want to add more people, you have to add about ten before you to Pauling and about thirty before you get to Delbrück. See discussion about one metre upwards. JMcC 19:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

JmcC,

I read your comments the other day and copied straight them onto John Schmidt; I agree with everything you said. There is a lot more to the discovery of the structure of DNA than John's template; I am sorry to have to say that it reflects adversely on John personally, especially his current refusal to remove it.(If I knew how I would!)

Anyone who has read Olby's The Path to The Double Helix and Horace Freeland Judson's The Eight Day of Creation (and also looked at the somewhat ridiculous University of Oregon website on Pauling) will see that the "perpetrator" as you call him needs to scrap it. Sorry John, it serves no useful purpose and makes you look silly! Out of respect for the six scientists concerned, it should be removed NOW.

195.92.168.176 20:12, 8 December 2005 (UTC) (MP) Also copied to John Schmidt's personal e-mail address.

I also agree with your above list of contributors. I think we should stick to four. There has also been some debate about the aesthetic nature of the template. I removed it some time ago because I was asked to, but it has made a re-appearance recently. We can have a vote on this if you would like, it's a good way to solve wiki disputes, we just need to decide if the vote is for removal of the template or for removing Pauling and Delbrück. Alun 02:28, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

There is nothing magic about the names I placed in the navigation box. They happened to be people who were important for the discovery of the structure of DNA and they had Wikipedia articles that described their roles. It was my hope and remains my hope that additional names will be added to the navigation box. There are many options for modifying the navigation box to try to make it less of a visual shock. It could be made smaller. It could be moved to the end of an article. The colors could be changed. The point of the navigation box is to be an aid for Wikipedia users. I ask you to try to imagine a student who might have been told one name (maybe Franklin) and starts to research DNA at Wikipedia. Might such a student benefit from a navigation box that leads to the rest of the DNA structure story? If you think the navigation box is ugly, modify it. If you think there are more important people to add to the box, add them. If you do not want the navigation box on a page, remove it. There is also a guideline at Wikipedia by which editors are asked to assume that other editors are acting in good faith for the benefit of Wikipedia. I have repeatedly explained the benefits of navigation boxes. There are thousands of them in use at Wikipedia. You are free to complain about the fact that I see benefit in the DNA structure navigation box, but I think you have to admit that I am not "forcing" something unusual on you. In September I added the navigation box to the Franklin article. The navigation box was removed. Someone else added it back. I think it (or a modified version) should be somewhere on the Franklin page, but the one time I added it was enough for me. If you take it off I will not add it back. When it was taken off the Franklin page before I did not complain. --JWSchmidt 03:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

John, the "navigation box" is simpley not necessary and an insult to the intelligence of anyone seeing it. Compare these biographies to MSN Encarta. It serves no useful purpose and is grossly misleading! 195.92.168.175 11:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC) (MP)

reply to 195.92.168.175: Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. Is it your position that ALL navigation boxes are an insult to intelligence or does this view only apply to topics for which you already know a lot? If your problem is that you do not need a group of collected links to other pages about the DNA structure discovery and if you take those links as an insult then that is your problem. Get over it. In my view "simpley not necessary" is a meaningless point. The question is: Will there be Wikipedia users who benefit? Rather than adopt the style of "MSN Encarta" I think we can learn from how other Wikipedia articles make use of navigation aids. There are many options available. "grossly misleading" <-- you are going to have to explain this to me. --JWSchmidt 13:12, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

There is a See also section at the end of the article for related articles. Surelly this should suffice for the purpose you mention? And of course these names (with the sole exception of Delbrück) occur repeatedly in the text of the article, with links to the appropriate wiki entries. Anyone not capable of using the See also section or clicking on a link in the text is not going to be able to use the navigation box either. Alun 18:02, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Wobble/Alun: "Most textbooks describe the double helix as the "W-C" (for "Watson-Crick") model of DNA, but there is a longstanding tradition at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory of referring to it as the W-C-M-F model with the M for "Maurice" and the F for "Franklin."

I am afraid to say you were quite right about verification; CSHL have deleted it. What can have been the motivation of the sad person who invented it in the first place? It doesn't bear thinking about..

As for the debate above, Mr. Schmidt needs to read a lot more books about DNA if he really thinks his six scientists in his template were the main 'movers & shakers'! Everyone concerned stood - as Isaac Newton said - on the shoulders of giants; it is the last three or four who get all the credit for a huge body of work, thanks mainly to Sir Lawrence Bragg's ability to nominate Nobel candidates of course. Fortunately the template has just disappeared, John. (MP)195.92.168.165 20:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

key participants in the race for dna/the chemical bond

let's all take a breather from the above fruitless debate, and look at:

http://osulibrary.orst.edu/specialcollections/coll/pauling/dna/people/index.html

195.92.168.168 21:12, 9 December 2005 (UTC) (MP)

ps and once you have finished that one, then try another 'Oregon' listing:

http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/specialcollections/coll/pauling/bond/people/index.html

Removal of navigation box

While I admit to not being the biggest fan of the navigation box, and also admit that I have removed it once in the past (because of a request to do so), I now feel that it should stay, at least untill a consensus has been reached. Although I personally do not like the style of the box, this is just aesthetics, I would probably have preferred a simpler style. The real issue seems to be the relative importance of the names in the box. This is easily solved by adding the missing names that are considered more important. The fairest thing then would be to list the people in the box alphabetically. I have not done any work with templates and so need to swot up a bit on this sort of thing. One constructive thing that could be done would be to come to some sort of consensus for the, say ten most important people in the discovery, and stick to those in the box. I think this is a good starting point. What do others think? Alun 12:46, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I have been playing arround with the template and have added the suggestions of JMcC. I have also put people in alphabetical order as any order of importance is always going to be disputed by someone. Any comments? Alun 13:27, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Relative importance in the popular mind

User:195.92.168.165 has recently been removing the navigation box and lead images from many of the DNA related articles, and also added the following text;

Some in the molecular biology community believe that since Franklin died early, and Maurice Wilkins was much less of a publicity-seeker, that Watson and Crick have in the popular mind overshadowed Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin to an undeserved degree.

Whilst I might agree, this shouldn't be copied to every related page, shouldn't be in the lead para and, most importantly, shouldn't be inserted as an unsourced opinion. If someone can find a good published version of this sort of sentiment, it would probably be appropriate to include that. -- Solipsist 10:57, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

The above statement was made by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. CAN THERE BE ANY BETTER SOURCE FOR THIS VERIFICATION OF THE FACTS? 195.92.168.173 11:29, 10 December 2005 (UTC) (MP)

Personal communication does not count as a verifiable source. Verifiable information must come from a published source. Verification means that another user/editor of wikipedia can check the facts by looking in the appropriate source text, be it a website or a book. Any source that is not generally available (like a personal email) in not verifiable, however eminent the person or organisation the source is from, I believe this statement comes from a personal email communication. Further sending enquiries to people in order to get access to their opinions, beliefs or any other information would constitute original research, which is also against wikipedia policy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it's purpose is to include information already generally available. Remember verifiability is not truth, conversely a truth, whatever the source, cannot be included without it being verifiable, and as I say, for it to be verifiable it must be available to all people (which is why a published source is the best). I urge you once again to read this page Wikipedia:Verifiability. I would imagine that most people would agree with the above statement, but it is an opinion and it isn't as yet verified. Alun 12:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

A NEW SOURCE OF INFORMATION ON KING'S COLLEGE LONDON AND THE EPIC 'BATTLE' FOR DETERMINING THE STRUCTURE OF DNA

Genesis of a Discovery: DNA Structure, ed S. Chomet, King's College London 1993; published by Newman Hemisphere Press, London

I have just ordered a copy on the recommendation of Franklin's next biographer (Lynne Elkins) and will let everyone know what it is like. 195.92.168.167 13:16, 10 December 2005 (UTC) (MP) ps It's not on "google book search" or "amazon" or "abebooks" by the way; hopefully it deserves a wider readership! It would appear to be a valuable source of the real facts as opposed to the popular myths surrounding this contensious scientific period. Apart from Rosalind Franklin, I hope it says something about Sir John Randall to put his major contribution into historic perspective. He is "the forgotten man of DNA" in my humble opinion, and in the absence of an autobiography, deserves a sympathetic 'scientific' biographer. (His scientific papers are in the CAC, Cambridge, England)

that amazingly stupid 'DNA Discovery' template now contains 12 scientists names! (It has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous...)

At this rate, it will surpass Alan Lightman's 22 "Discoveries" in sheer stupidity! Alan Lightman of MIT mistakenly credits DNA (17#) to Watson & Crick plus Franklin & Gosling; but on what logical basis to leave out Stokes, Wilkins, and Wilson? "17. THE STRUCTURE OF DNA James D. Watson and Francis H. C. Crick (1953); and Rosalind E. Franklin and R. G. Gosling (1953)" is how it appears on: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/11/27/lightmans_list/ for all the world to see!195.92.168.167 13:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC) (MP)

ps Seriously John Schimdt, what is the point of linking to this? MP

Phoebus Levene From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Jump to: navigation, search Phoebus Levene (1869 - 1940) was a biochemist who analyzed DNA and found Adenine, Guanine, Thymine, Cytosine and a phosphate group.

This biographical article about a chemist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_Levene"

pps JOHN, WHAT ARE YOU ON? THIS LOOKS NOTHING LIKE WILLIAM ASTBURY! [Photo=Dna-split2.png] THE TEMPLATE IS LOOKING REALLY SILLY NOW; JUST HOW MANY MORE 'DNA' SCIENTISTS DO YOU INTEND ADDING? 195.92.168.165 15:29, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

ppps AND THIS LOOKS NOTHING LIKE THE LATE MAX DELBRUCK EITHER! [|Photo=Bacteriophage diagram.png|] SERIOUSLY BIOGRAPHIES DO NEED PORTAITS OF THEIR SUBJECTS, NOT SCIENTIFIC DIAGRAMS/PICTURES!! 195.92.168.165 15:40, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Biographies cannot always have pictures of the subject due to copyright restrictions. You should take a look at some of the other templates JWSchmidt has used, Jerry Donohue for example or Alec Stokes these are very good. I quite like the old one now it has more names on it, the base pairing thing works much better with more names on it. I added the extra names to the old template because JMcC suggested it above (see The DNA template discussion above). I would like to draw your attention once again to the fact that talk pages are not a chatroom. Please refrain from posting links to other websites here unless they are directly related to the article. I am warning you that I will start to remove any information you post that is not related to wikipedia and Rosalind Franklin's biographical article. I am refering to your A NEW SOURCE OF INFORMATION ON KING'S COLLEGE LONDON AND THE EPIC 'BATTLE' FOR DETERMINING THE STRUCTURE OF DNA post and the numerous other post you have made like this one (I remember one was something about Asperger syndrome). If websites have information for the purpose of verifiability then that is of course a different matter. Alun 18:59, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Template

I have also been playing arround with JWSchmidt's Double helix template. I have not done this before and am not proficient in HTML so please be understanding. I have modified the template quite a lot and put it on the article page. I have made the template monochrome, my only concern is that it might look a bit like it's a bit too sombre now!!! Please give me some feedback. Alun 06:53, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

There's also one if there's no picture at William Astbury. Alun 07:57, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm not that keen on this sort of template at the head of an article. It would probably be better to use a more standard navigation template at the foot of each article — something like Template:Philosophy topics. -- Solipsist 14:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

There is {{a footer template}} for Discovery of the DNA Double Helix. --JWSchmidt 14:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I am now relativelly ambivalent about which navigation template to use. They are a bit more hidden away at the bottom in long articles though. I don't understand why you say it is more standard to use a navigation template at the foot of the page. Most of the articles I have seen put the navigation/info boxes on the top left: English people, Wales, Anarchism, Athelstan of England. Alun 22:27, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

INTRODUCTION TO ROSALIND FRANKLIN'S BIOGRAPHY

I am asking an expert in the field (a Visiting Fellow of King's College London) to assess whether the following is an accurate and fair assessment of Rosalind Franklin's career: "Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 1920 - 16 April 1958) was a British physical chemist and crystallographer who made very important contributions to the understanding of the fine structures of coal and graphite, DNA and viruses. Franklin is best known for her contribution to the DNA double helix discovery by Francis Crick and James Watson in 1953, assisted by her colleagues Gosling, Stokes, Wilkins, and Wilson of King's College London, all lead by Professor John Randall."

All I ask is for it not to be amended or deleted until the person concerned has commented on it; in my own personal opinion, it 'under-estimates' the role played by Maurice Wilkins but there seems to be a consensus in favour of not ranking him alongside Watson and Crick (?). But if anyone knows why Alan Lightman (M.I.T.) credits the DNA discovery to Crick, Franklin, Gosling, and Watson but ignores Stokes, Wilkins, and Watson - then please let us all know asap? All for now..195.92.168.164 21:44, 14 December 2005 (UTC) (MP)

The correct place for Maurice Wilkins's role in the discovery is Maurice Wilkins's biography. Please do not clutter up the introduction with unecessary detail. These people have their own biographical articles, appear in the text of this article (their correct place) and also appear in the navigation bar. I see absolutely no purpose in including their names in the introduction. Your attempt to put Wilkins's name in the introduction serves no purpose than to promote your opinion that Wilkins's contribution should be stressed at any and all times, even in inapropriate places. As it happens I agree that Wilkins's contribution is at least equal, and probably greater than Franklin's, and also agree that he is not given enough credit for his work. Irresepective of this I do not think that it is appropriate to try and include his name in the introduction for this reason. This is not the place to champion personal favourites. Had the assertion that the model was known as the W-C-M-F model in certain places been true, then it may have been worthy of inclusion. But it goes to highlight how important good sources are. The question is not whether this is accurate or fair (it is both), but if the introduction is the correct place for it. The introduction does not claim that her contribution was individual. Will you put a similar statement in the introduction of Maurice Wilkins's article? Remember sources need to be verifiable. A personal communication is not verifiable, however eminent the source. Alun 06:20, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Alun/Wobble: eventually we will arrive at a form of words which reflects reality/sanity: "Franklin is best known for her contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953; her contribution was part of that made by the rest of the King's College London team under the director of Professor John Randall" is (in my opinion) sane and sensible - somehow I doubt you will agree with this? Do you really understand the concept of scientific team work or are you simply 'obsessed' with Dr. Rosalind Franklin's iconic memory? I think you need to take a break (again). 195.92.168.164 08:51, 16 December 2005 (UTC) (MP)

You do not seem to have any understanding whatsoever of what an introduction is for or about. This space is for the most basic of information concerned with the subject of the article. Please refrain from cluttering it up with unecessary detail. This information is available in the main body of the article. You are continuing with your practice of fundamentally misunderstanding the appropriate place for information. You continually do this sort of thing, I have had to repeatedly move information from the references section to the External links section due to this inability of yours. I would also remind you that is not the place for editors of articles to recomend certain texts. Wikipedia does not exist in order for you to review/recomend certain texts or books, I note that you have made the same recomendations at other articles associated with the discovery of DNA. You also seem to be completelly incapable of correctly formatting your edits. Please look at the relevant pages regarding style WP:MOS. Alun 12:49, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I repeat:Alun/Wobble: eventually we will arrive at a form of words which reflects reality/sanity: "Franklin is best known for her contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953; her contribution was part of that made by the rest of the King's College London team under the director of Professor John Randall" is (in my opinion) sane and sensible - somehow I doubt you will agree with this? Do you really understand the concept of scientific team work or are you simply 'obsessed' with Dr. Rosalind Franklin's iconic memory? I think you need to take a break (again)? 195.92.168.164 08:51, 16 December 2005 (UTC) (MP)

I agree with you about scientific contributions being generally about team work. But it really is of no relevance, what is relevant is whether this information belongs in the introduction or not. There is ample information regarding the other members of the King's team in the article. If you can give a good reason why this information should be included in the introduction then you might have a point. I think no good reason exists, this is not an article about the King's team, it is about Rosalind Franklin, and the introduction should concern itself with her contributions, not those of others, a brief description of their respective contributions should be included in the introductions of their pages. One of my concerns is that you are trying to use this information to imply that Franklin's work was provisional on the work of others, but you do not seem to be so keen to do this in the introduction of Wilkins's biography, for example. This displays a distinct bias against Franklin. I think you want to detract from Franklin's work in a prominent position in the article because you believe she has unfairly had more recognition than Wilkins. To put it simply you are implying that Franklin couldn't have contributed without her male colleagues help, but you make no mention of Franklin's contribution in the introduction of Wilkins's biography. Your insulting of other editors when they do not kowtow to your whims is becoming tedious, please try not to use insulting terms like sane in your posts, your insults reflect more on you than on others. Alun 17:14, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Last paper at Faraday society

Can we please have a source for this edit?
within minutes of her last paper being read at the Faraday Society
It's a nice edit, but because there is so much inacurate and unreferenced material continually creaping into the article it needs to be properly verified. I've had a brief look in Maddox and Sayre but can find no reference to this in either work, but I might have missed it. We might need to remove this bit from the intro if it doesn't get referenced. Alun 11:11, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Sexual discrimination

The contribution by PM Poon about discrimination was a fully referenced quote from a verifiable source. Please understand that verifiability is the basis for inclusion in wikipedia and not truth. Because this quote was from a reputable source and was fully verifiable it should not have been removed. If an editor feels that a particular edit is POV then the correct procedure is to include any (and all) alternative (verifiable) POVs, so that overall the article is neutral. I have created a section about discrimination in the article and included referencs to the fact that Randall's group at the time was unusual in that it had a relativelly large female component. I have also refered to class consiousness. I may include some reference to being Jewish in a C of E dominated institution if there are sufficient sources for this. Alun 10:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Martin Packer about "Wikipedia" and the DNA story

The following is copied from the Francis Crick Discussion Page; it is intended to throw some light on what "Wikipedia" means in the context of the ongoing Watson-Crick-Wilkins-Franklin "who dunnit?" debate, which have been so strongly represented in these pages. We all seem to take our contributions to "Wikipedia" very seriously, yet none of us have done original research and few seem to read all the available literature. To get a common framework of understanding requires everyone to have at least read the same books of course! Only then can an informed debate take place on these pages...

NATURE in its latest issue are encouraging scientists to make a much greater contribution to "Wikipedia" articles, something I support; the inherent danger of "Wikipedia" is that 'stupid' people can take everything appearing as gospel, a trap I fell into with the fictious "W-C-M-F" nomenclature of the Double Helix model at CSHL (it's not reality of course!),SO LET'S ALL MAKE A NEW YEAR RESOLUTION: MORE FACTS AND LESS OPINIONS? A happy Christmas, 195.92.168.170 15:18, 23 December 2005 (UTC) (MP)

John, thanks for such a long and erudite reply; however I would take issue with that awful phrase "the supervisors of Watson and Crick"; IF you know who they are, why not simply name them? There is however one 'famous' name conspicuous by its absence in the above explanation: Sir Lawrence Bragg of course - who always gets left out of the DNA story! (Much the same applies to Sir John Randall too.)

My personal theory of exactly what happened in the DNA era revolves around the roles played by Sir Lawrence Bragg and Sir John Randall; no one recognises them as leading personalities in what Robert Olby called "The Path to The Double Helix", but they were influential and competitive not only with each other, but also with Linus Pauling.

Sir Lawrence Bragg not only 'pulled the strings' at the Cavendish Laboratory, but he also played the major role in getting the formal recognition which Watson, Crick, and Wilkins deserved, ie the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. His relationship with Linus Pauling is well documented, but unfortunately there is little on file about his close relationship with his opposite number at King's College London, Sir (as he became in 1962) John Randall. Not only did the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge collectively beat Linus Pauling, but they also saw off their closest rivals in this country! Thanks only to Sir Lawrence Bragg, were the efforts of the King's College London team recognised through Wilkins' share of the Nobel Prize. Yes, life can be unfair to the likes of Rosalind Franklin, but the real tragedy of her life was early death through cancer and not her being 'robbed' of posthumous recognition in the Nobel Prize.

Just think how differently the D.N.A. story might have been if Randall had employed Crick, rather than Crick going to Cambridge under Sir Lawrence Bragg? To some extent, Watson and Crick as the "winners" in the race for the structure of D.N.A. determined how the history of the period has come to be written, especially through Watson's "The Double Helix" of course. Both of them (and others) have influenced the content of books written about them and their contempories - just read the long list of acknowledgements in books by De Chadarevian, Gribbin, Hunter, Judson, Maddox, McElheny, Olby, Ridley, Sayer etc.; this is not to critize these authors, but it is not until you read P.G. Abir-Am's "Noblesse Oblige: lives of molecular biologists" that you realise there are alternative views!

So where does this leave "Wikipedia"? You have the spectacle of silly people arguing over dubious points of detail in biographies - which remind me of the Victorian debate over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? (or something like that); the arguments are interesting, but do they really contribute anything to the content? No, the medium through which these fruitless debates are conducted to some extent determine both what is said and how it is said, but at the end of the day, better information is to be found in books. (Where else is the "Wikipedia" information obtained from?)

That's all for the moment, John; do keep up the good work and next year, revise a lot of what you have written on "Wikipedia" in the light of Bob Olby's authorised biography of Francis Crick! 195.92.168.170 14:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC) (MP)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Francis_Crick"

You are quite right. Better information is avalable in books. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and cannot be comprehensive. Editors of all encyclopedias must be selective and try to portray as much as possible in a brief article. You still do not seem to appreciate that the criteria for inclusion in wikipedia do not include facts as you call them (all history IMHO is open to interpretation). The criteria for inclusion in wikipedia are:

Verifiability: As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. For that reason, it is vital that editors rely on good sources.
Neutrality: NPOV is an official Wikipedia policy which states that articles should be written from a neutral point of view, representing all views fairly and without bias. According to Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales, NPOV is "absolute and non-negotiable". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, a compilation of human knowledge. But because Wikipedia is a community-built, international resource, we cannot expect collaborators to agree in all cases, or even in many cases, on what constitutes knowledge in a strict sense. We can, therefore, adopt the looser sense of "human knowledge" according to which a wide variety of conflicting theories constitute what we call "knowledge." We should, both individually and collectively, make an effort to present these conflicting views fairly, without advocating any one of them, with the qualification that views held only by a tiny minority of people should not be represented as though they are significant minority views, and perhaps should not be represented at all.
No original research: Original research refers to material added to articles by Wikipedia editors that has not been published already by a reputable source. In this context it means unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, and ideas; or any new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts, arguments that, in the words of Wikipedia's founder Jimbo Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation".
The three content policies...are complementary, jointly determining the type and quality of material that is acceptable in the main namespace. They should therefore not be interpreted in isolation from each other, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three.

If all editors used these criteria when editing then wikipedia would be much less prone to errors than it is. Though it is only marginally more prone than Britanica, and wikipedia has the advantage that stable versions will have been thoroughly verified.

I almost laughed out loud when I read your comment MORE FACTS AND LESS OPINIONS. You have been the most consistent at including unsupported opinion as fact on this article, you then attempt to intimidate other editors when they simply ask for you to verify what are essentially your opinions, because ultimatelly you cannot do this. Be that as it may, now you know that facts in wikipedia constitute a wide variety of conflicting theories. If you cannot accept that other people will have a different point of view to you, and that in wikipedia this point of view has equall validity, then you are in the wrong place. This place is not for you to use exclusivelly to promote your personal interpretation of history, and that's fundementally what you want to do. Why for example did you remove PM Poon's edit without giving a reason? He had verified it from a good source. The only explanation can be that it did not conform to your personal POV. Why do you consistently put inapropriate things in articles? Your request for help with a biography of Francis Crick appeared in the introduction to the article, I would have been incredulous if it had not been typical of the conteptuous way you treat these articles, as if they were your own personal soap box. I mean just who do you think you are to abuse an encyclopedia article in this way? I have said it before but it is true, you do not appear to have the slightest idea of what wikipedia is or what it is for. Alun 19:28, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

this has everything to do with this particular article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm

Wikipedia survives research test

John Seigenthaler criticised Wikipedia's reliability The free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica, a study shows. The British journal Nature examined a range of scientific entries on both works of reference and found few differences in accuracy.

Wikipedia is produced by volunteers, who add entries and edit any page.

But it has been criticised for the correctness of entries, most recently over the biography of prominent US journalist John Seigenthaler.

Open approach

Wikipedia was founded in 2001 and has since grown to more than 1.8 million articles in 200 languages. Some 800,000 entries are in English.

It is based on wikis, open-source software which lets anyone fiddle with a webpage, anyone reading a subject entry can disagree, edit, add, delete, or replace the entry.

 We're very pleased with the results and we're hoping it will focus people's attention on the overall level of our work, which is pretty good

Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder It relies on 13,000 volunteer contributors, many of whom are experts in a particular field, to edit previously submitted articles.

In order to test its reliability, Nature conducted a peer review of scientific entries on Wikipedia and the well-established Encyclopedia Britannica.

The reviewers were asked to check for errors, but were not told about the source of the information.

"Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopedia," reported Nature.

"But reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively."

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales welcomed the study.

"We're hoping it will focus people's attention on the overall level of our work, which is pretty good," he said.

Writing style

Nature said its reviewers found that Wikipedia entries were often poorly structured and confused.

The Encyclopedia Britannica declined to comment directly on the findings; but a spokesman highlighted the quality of the entries on the free resource.

"But it is not the case that errors creep in on an occasional basis or that a couple of articles are poorly written," Tom Panelas, director of corporate communications is quoted as saying in Nature.

"There are lots of articles in that condition. They need a good editor."

Wikipedia came under fire earlier this month from prominent US journalist John Seigenthaler.

The founding editorial director of USA Today attacked a Wikipedia entry that incorrectly named him as a suspect in the assassinations of president John F Kennedy and his brother, Robert.

The false information was the work of Tennessean Brian Chase, who said he was trying to trick a co-worker.

Wikipedia has responded to the criticisms by tightening up procedures.

Next month it plans to begin testing a new mechanism for reviewing the accuracy of its articles*.

especially for Alun/Wobble and John Schmidt

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9071-1961321,00.html

festive greetings to almost everyone! 195.92.168.165 14:24, 30 December 2005 (UTC) (mp)

(MP) ps * and not before time of course!

Yes, it'll hopefully keep your poor edits out. Alun 05:54, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Alan, what I find real amusing about you personally is that you take yourself so (too) seriously on this subject, without apparently knowing the FULL facts. Just remind us of which books on Franklin etc that you NOT read, since there are obviously so many! Compared to John Schmidt's entry on Crick, I find 'your' Franklin article quite appalling, made worse by the indifferent level of research and poor debate. You need to get rid of that attitude and research the whole subject fully before arriving at what are currently spurious conclusions; remember she was 'robbed' of life, not credit for the discovery of the structure of DNA; she was part of the KCL team under Randall and not working independently; she remained on good terms with Crick (especially Crick), Watson, and Wilkins before her untimely death. Alun, you need to get a life my friend and give REF a rest please? (Then try talking to Lynne Elkins about her!) 195.92.168.165 14:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC) (mp)

As your edits have been hugelly irrelevant and tremendously innacurate, I find it hypocrytical in the extreme for you to accuse others of not knowing the FULL facts. You have consistently included your opinion as fact and have rarely been able to verify any of your edits. It is you who seem to have, at best, a tenuous understanding of the history. Your work is, in my opinion, generally sloppy and inacurate, rarely does it include anything of note or substance. It is you who need to go back to your books. You have consistently cherry picked information that supports your opinion, while disparaging and maligning others who have a different opinion, even when they provide verification (something you seem to think you are above). You are not the expert you claim to be, your edits have proven this in abundance by being misleading and lacking in any factual content. You do not have any authority to demand anything from other editors, except that they provide verifiability, neutrality and no original research. Given that you disregard these policies when it comes to your own edits, your attitude is patronising and hypocritical. Your constant personal attacks really do show you for what you are, Martin. You are either effusivelly friendly, when I agree with you, or overly aggressive when I do not. You do not even have the nouce to address me by my proper name (my user name is Wobble and not Wobbler and my given name is Alun not Alan), another example of your blaze attitude to the facts. I have a life, by the way, and enjoy it tremendously, I enjoy editing wikipedia, but I am very frustrated by having continually to check this page for the irrelevant drivel continuously included by you. Alun 06:14, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

'Wobbling Alan' (sic), I am sure you do "enjoy editing wikipedia", but the $64,000 question is 'does anyone enjoy reading it?' You have a responsibility to record the true facts, not just opinions my friend; the debate over Franklin's contribution (or otherwise) is already overheated and has little or no relevance to the scientific history of molecular biology. MP

Somewhat childish isn't it MP? By the way I'm not your friend. We all have a responsibility to record the true facts (well we don't actually but I don't suppose you have read the neutral point of view policy). It is you who have repeatedly refused to verify your edits and who has deliberately removed the edits of others that have been verified. It is you who need to get your facts straight, MATE (sic), and it is you who include your opinions as fact. You are once again trying to use attack as the best form of defence by accusing me of doing what you are in fact doing. I repeat it is you who have the blaze attitude to the facts. It is you who have consistently refused to back up your edits with sources, and it is you who have tried to include original research in this article. The few times I have managed to get you to produce proper sources you have been forced to withdraw your edits because the sources do not concur with what you have written. You seem to want to ignore sources that don't conform to your POV (or opinion if you prefer). There should not be a debate over Franklin's contribution on this article, wikipedia has a strict no original research policy. You have asked in the past if wikipedia should repeat the mistakes (sic) of others, but wikipedia can only use published material as a source of information, so the purpose is to include all opinions, that is the nub of the neutral point of view policy. All published points of view should be included and referenced in order to produce neutrality. This is a policy, I do not make it up. I really do not understand what you are doing editing here when you not only refuse to conform to the policies, but actively oppose them. I have had to remove your edits in the past, not because they were point of view, but because you had no source to back them up. For example your contention that Wilkins's Nobel prize went to the whole team at King's, when in truth only Nobel Peace prizes that are ever awarded to organisations (this is just one example of many). Alun 15:31, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

DNA Pioneers

DNA Pioneers William Astbury Oswald Avery Erwin Chargaff Max Delbrück Jerry Donohue Raymond Gosling Phoebus Levene Linus Pauling Sir John Randall* Erwin Schrödinger Alec Stokes Herbert Wilson

It's nice to see Sir John Randall 'recognised' in this short list; sometimes people who get over-excited by the fruitless debate over Rosalind Franklin's contribution etc, tend to forget that the KCL laboratory she worked in was under his direction - along with the rest of the King's College London DNA team: Gosling, Stokes, Wilkins and Wilson. For more information, read "D.N.A. Genesis Of A Discovery", published by "Newman Hemisphere": 150 pp. @ £10.50 from Newman-Hemisphere, 101 Swan Court, Chelsea, London SW3 5RY or phone: 07092 060530. Airmailed copies to the USA cost £20.00 by the way. MP

ANYONE WANT TO TRY TO 'RE-WRITE' THE HISTORY OF D.N.A.

http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/watsoncrick.html

which refers to Rosalind Franklin's contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA in very straightforward (i.e. non-emotive) terms. Comments on this very good article are more than welcome! MP 195.92.67.75

THE CURRENT INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH NOW READS AS FOLLOWS

"Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 1920 - 16 April 1958) was a British physical chemist and crystallographer who made very important contributions to the understanding of the fine structures of coal and graphite, DNA and viruses. Franklin is best known for her contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, while working at King's College London under the direction of physicist John Randall. By the time the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine was awarded to Crick, Watson, and her colleague Wilkins, she had been dead for 4 years. (Subsequently she has become a 'feminist icon' in the literature.)"

Again, does any care to comment on the above, as well as on the "Time" article on Watson and Crick?

mp195.92.67.75 19:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't make clear the relevance of her death and the Nobel Prize; the implication is that had she been alive she would have won, but if a reader does not know that the prize goes only to living people, that will pass them by. And even though I think she clearly deserved it, that is something that has been debated are argued over... I don't think the Nobel line should be in the intro. The parentheses around the last sentence are unneccessary. I think something (with references, without which such a statement would quickly be removed) to the effect of "many consider Watson and Crick's unauthorized use of her DNA photographs to have been paramount to stealing the credit for the discovery the molecular structure of DNA" would be good.--ragesoss 16:22, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

or even better, something like "The status Franklin's contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA is the subject of considerable debate; some consider Watson & Crick's use of her data to have been simply the way science operates, while others claim Franklin was essentially robbed of credit for a discovery that would otherwise have gone to her."--ragesoss 16:33, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

MP finds it impossible not to tinker with the into. I think his ultimate intention is to remove all mention of RF from the intro and imply that all the work was done by the male scientists at King's, and that somehow she accidentally got her name on some papers, or something. We agreed several months ago on the wording I have just changed back to. The intro should be short and sweet, mentioning little more than who she was and what she is best known for. All the other stuff mentioned in the intro is correctly located in the main body of the article. There is no purpose in mentioning the Nobel prize in the intro, this is a biographical article and she was long dead by the time it was awarded, so it comes at the end of the article. The intro is for the most important things she achieved in her life. When MP objected to the current wording of the intro several months ago he even tried to imply that RF is in fact not best known for her contribution to the structure of DNA, something that I still find baffling (maybe she was a world class skateboarder or something?). Alun 15:40, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

The Nobel Prize org itself recognizes that Franklin had a role in the discovery of DNA, and quotes Watson himself as saying that she deserved a share of the prize for chemistry. What the Nobel organisation says is as follows "Many voices have argued that the Nobel Prize should also have been awarded to Rosalind Franklin, since her experimental data provided a very important piece of evidence leading to the solving of the DNA structure. In a recent interview in the magazine Scientific American, Watson himself suggested that it might have been a good idea to give Wilkins and Franklin the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and him and Crick the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine – in that way all four would have been honored.

Rosalind Franklin died in 1958. As a rule only living persons can be nominated for the the Nobel Prize, so the 1962 Prize was out of the question. But she may have been a nominee while she was still alive. The Nobel archives, that among other things contain the nominations connected to the prizes, are held closed. But 50 years after a particular prize had been awarded, the archives concerning the nominees are released. Therefore, in 2008 it will be possible to see whether Rosalind Franklin was ever a nominee for the Nobel Prize concerning the DNA helix.". If Watson admits that Franklin's experiments were key to DNA, why does anyone else object? My sister, a Biology professor, says its commonly accepted Franklin's were the key experiments to unlock DNA. I am baffled why Franklin is not more prominently mentioned. If you can't accurately report something, then maybe the whole article should be removed.

Franklin could not have recieved a Nobel Prize as she was dead. The fact remains that dead people cannot be given the prize. All else is speculation. There is reference to the Nobel Prize in the article, I see no merit in mentioning it in the introduction as the introduction is about the important contrbutions of the person, so the prize is not relevant to the section. I fail to see how omiting reference to the prize in the introduction is considered inaccurate reporting. I would like to know why you seem to be claiming that the article makes no reference to her role in the discovery of DNA, have you read it? In actual fact this is the largest and most prominent section of the article. There has been some dispute about the importance of her role in the discovery of the structure of DNA on this talk page (there are verifiable sources from both sides of the debate), especially the fact that she had the same pieces of the jigsaw to hand as Crick and Watson, but failed to elucidate the structure, and that other DNA X-ray diffraction patterns produced earlier and by other people (notably Maurice Wilkins) may have been of sufficient quality for a correct interpretation. Franklin's contribution to the structure of DNA is well known, and I think it is generally accepted that the structure would have been discovered much later without her work. I am amazed by your accusation of inaccuracy, this has been a very hotly debated article and I think that most of the arguments have been made several times over (see archived talk pages above, and this one), and supporting references have been supplied by many contributors. If you can find inaccuracies in this article then please be more specific (a general accusation of inaccuracy cannot be addressed unless you specifically say which parts of the article are inaccurate. We all want a good neutral accurate article, even if we have differences of opinion as to how to attain it) and bring them up for discussion on the talk page, please also provide relevant sources to support of your assertion, we can then try to get a consensus as per wikipedia policy on maintaining a neutral point of view. It is also a good idea to sign your posts on talk pages so people can identify you, the best thing to do is to set up an account, you can then sign your name by typing four tildas (~) at the end of your post. Hope you continue to show an interest here and on other articles, and welcome. Alun 14:04, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Obituary removed from wikisource

The obituary purportedly by Aaron Klug was incorrect, it has been removed from here and from wikisource (by User:Apwoolrich), please see Rosalind Franklin on Wikisource. Franklin's obituary in the Times in 1958 was by J. D. Bernal. If we can get a correct source for this text then we can re-insert it. Please also see Royal Society Attribution?. Alun 05:45, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Trying to rewrite scientific history again, and again, and

What is the point in apparently trying to rewrite 1950's scientific history? It is NEVER going to 'retrospectively' achieve anything at all! The world has moved on since 1953, i.e. 53 years ago, and this meaningless debate over Rosalind Franklin's contribution towards the discovery of the structure of D.N.A. based on hearsay and rumour (rather than the hard facts found in the literature) is futile. The only scientific opinions on the subject which really matter are those of her contempories and serious scientific writers such as Freeland Judson, Maddox, Olby, Ridley, Sayer and especially from the feminist perspective: Pnina G. Abir-Am of John Hopkins University. I still find it difficult to take Wikipedia seriously as I have yet to be convinced that any of the contributors to the Rosalind Franklin entry/debate have actually read any of all the relevant literature! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nitramrekcap (talk • contribs)

MP

Um...what is your point? Do you have a specific gripe about the article, or are you generally venting your spleen at the general nature of debate on this talk page? This talk page is to discuss the article, so please keep your posts relevant to specific sections of the article. I agree with you entirelly about your observations above, by the way, I just don't know what meaningless debate over Rosalind Franklin's contribution towards the discovery of the structure of D.N.A. you are refering to. I think this ground has been covered in so much detail by this talk page that all debate (meaningless or otherwise) has ceased in regard to Franklin's contribution. I think we are all agreed that her contribution was significant, but she did not discover the structure, and there lies the rub. I agree with you that some people want to conclude that she should be considered a co-discoverer, but ultimatelly neither Franklin or Wilkins were involved in the actual elucidation of the structure. So Crick and Watson are rightly credited with the discovery. I do not think there is any disagreement on this by the main editors of the article. I have been thinking of a major rewrite of the article by the way. I think I might remove some of the more detailed observations of what happened in 1952-53 and try to make the article more neutral in tone.

I'll set you straight on one thing Martin, I do not think that the general wikipedia community really cares whether you take it seriously or not. Wikipedia will always have its critics (and that's a good thing), but I do not think it will change it's core philosophy just because you don't like it, you may find it hard to believe, but you are not that important. Alun 05:12, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Alun,

"I think I might remove some of the more detailed observations of what happened in 1952-53 and try to make the article more neutral in tone" This is the first sensible thing you have said for a long time! Just remind me (again) whether you have read the majority of the literature on the period? I have, and believe it or not, can take a fairly balanced view of things from a historical perspective; the trouble with the ongoing debate about Rosalind Franklin is that it is mainly from the 'hysterical' perspective. It reminds me of the other futile debates in the mass media, such as over Black Slavery or The Holocaust - YES THESE THINGS HAPPENED, but no amount of breast-beating in the early 21st Century is ever going to make up for the devasting effect such events had on society in their respective centuries. The trouble is that no one bothered to listen to Maurice Wilkins in his autobiography, and as yet there is no biography of Sir John Randall; all we get on the internet is the constant drip, drip of inuendo and half truths, and even downright lies of course aimed at Crick, Watson, and Wilkins. Does anyone ever stop to think what the families of Crick and Wilkins must think of remarks made about their late husbands/fathers/grandfathers? No, it's all very one-sided Alun - so do try to be a bit "more neutral" in future please? MP 81.78.115.247—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nitramrekcap (talk • contribs)

Please refrain from personal attacks. I wish you would also refrain from comparing these events to the holocaust, you have done this before, it is this which seems like hysteria to me. If you really do see parallels in the two events, then I can only conclude that you have lost all sense of perspective. I fail to see the relevance of anything you have said, there is nothing in the article that might cause offence to any of the families of those involved, and who do you think you are to make such a claim in the first place? There is no censorship on wikipedia and you have no right to set yourself up as some sort of moral arbiter. I do not understand what you mean by any ongoing debate, seems more like a monologe to me, you are talking to yourself, I for one have absolutely no idea what you are refering to most of the time as your complaints are so non-specific that it is impossible to identify what it actually is about the article that you are are getting so upset about. As for your having read all the available material (how can you possibly know? and much of the material you make reference to is irrelevant to the RF article), why is it that you have included more inaccracies and unverifiable material to the article than any other contributor? I seriously doubt your claim. Your constant claims of rewriting history seem odd. Isn't all history constantly being re-appraised and re-interpreted, this is the whole basis of the study of history. But your point is irrelevant to this article, as wikipedia does not allow original research (See WP:NOR). All of the material in the article has been published before from reliable sources (see WP:RS). As there is only material included that has been previously published it seems an odd claim. There is a references section in the article, you can see what the sources are for yourself. The main source texts I have used are Maddox's and Wilkins's books. You seem to have a very limited understanding of wikipedia policies and guidelines, and seem to have absolutelly no idea about the rules for inclusion of material into articles. If there are alternative points of view to those expressed in the article, then the correct procedure is to include all alternative points of view, with references. This will generate neutrality (see WP:NPOV), it is not acceptable to remove any POV that you might not like. If you have any specific comments about the article, please make them, but can you please stop making meaningless complaints? You have consistently failed to make any specific complaints about the article (and I have several times asked you to make some), and so I can only assume that your comments about rewrting history are groundless. I have several times suggested that you might like to try a major re-write of the article yourself, as you are so obviously unhappy with the article as it stands. Given your track record for including incorrect and unverifiable material in the article, and the fact that you seem to have a contempt for the policies of neutrality, no original research and verifiability it is probably just as well that you have not undertaken a major edit. Alun 07:50, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Alun,

This card tells me as much as I really want to know about Rosalind Franklin and the determination of the structure of D.N.A.; she wrote it herself, she obviously had a sense of humour, but at the time she was sorely mistaken. Life is too short to argue "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?", so I will leave you to your apparent obsession in the vain hope that not too many people will be mislead by the article - which I have NOT undertaken a major edit of - as I personally do not 'over-estimate' her role in the DNA saga. Please note the reinstatement of the following words to the very opening paragraph: "by Francis Crick and James Watson in 1953, assisted by her colleagues Gosling, Stokes, Wilkins, and Wilson of King's College London, all lead by Professor John Randall."

195.92.67.77 MP195.92.67.77—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nitramrekcap (talk • contribs)

I can well believe that you are prepared to draw all your conclusions from a single, rather small joke card. I would point out to you that this card refers only to the crystaline form of DNA (or A-DNA if you prefer). Dr. Franklin was well aware that the paracrystaline (or B-DNA) was a helix. This is important as it somewhat dispells your assertion that Dr. Franklin was somehow anti-helical. You are quite right that ultimatelly crystaline DNA was found also to be a helix. It is in the nature of scientists to be sceptical, and she believed that the data she was getting did not necessarily indicate a helix. She may well have been playing Devil's advocate, we may never know. Both Wilkins's and Maddox's book indicate that while RF was unconvinced as to the nature of crystaline DNA at the end of 1952, she was well aware of the helical nature of the paracrystaline form. I believe she published a paper in the Summer of 1953 outlining evidence from her Patterson function analysis that did indeed indicate that crystaline DNA was a helix. Like all good scientists she was prepared to draw differing conclusions based on the available evidence of the time. If you can provide me with a good reasons for why you think the names of all researchers working in the King's group deserve to be in the introduction of the article then I would be gratefull, I can see no real reason for their inclusion in this section. Alun 10:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite

I have begun a major rewrite of the article. I am trying to make the article more neutral in tone. I am trying to address your concerns regarding an over-emphasis on personality in the article, and also JWSchmidt's concerns about finger pointing. I have primarily relied on Maddox and Wilkins as sources, my reasoning being that Maddox's book (as far as I am aware) is the only comprehensive biography of Franklin, and Wilkins was actually at King's at the time, and so is a first hand source. I am about half way through. I have decided to recount events at King's in a roughly chronological order and have kept to the known facts rather than any interpretations. I will add a seperate section at the end of the article where I will deal with RF and controversies in general. I believe this is probably a better way to organise the article as the controversies surrounding her came to light many years after her death. I will give a balanced account of the various controversies and give all sides to the various accusations/assertions. Primarily I think they constitute accusations of sexism at King's (easily dealt with), of class consiousness (again easily dealt with) and of use of her data by others, this may be more tricky and I would value any comments you might have on my text when it is completed. Alun 10:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I look forward to it; your approach sounds spot-on.--ragesoss 03:19, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

TWO VIEWS OF FRANKLIN AND BRENDA MADDOX'S BIOGRAPHY OF HER

From Publishers Weekly

Her photographs of DNA were called "among the most beautiful X-ray photographs of any substance ever taken," but physical chemist Rosalind Franklin never received due credit for the crucial role these played in the discovery of DNA's structure. In this sympathetic biography, Maddox argues that sexism, egotism and anti-Semitism conspired to marginalize a brilliant and uncompromising young scientist who, though disliked by some colleagues, was a warm and admired friend to many. Franklin was born into a well-to-do Anglo-Jewish family and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. After beginning her research career in postwar Paris she moved to Kings College, London, where her famous photographs of DNA were made. These were shown without her knowledge to James Watson, who recognized that they indicated the shape of a double helix and rushed to publish the discovery; with colleagues Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he won the Nobel Prize in 1962. Deeply unhappy at Kings, Rosalind left in 1953 for another lab, where she did important research on viruses, including polio. Her career was cut short when she died of ovarian cancer at age 37. Maddox sees her subject as a wronged woman, but this view seems rather extreme. Maddox (D.H. Lawrence) does not fully explore an essential question raised by the Franklin-Watson conflict: whether methodology and intuition play competing or complementary roles in scientific discovery. Drawing on interviews, published records, and a trove of personal letters to and from Rosalind, Maddox takes pains to illuminate her subject as a gifted scientist and a complex woman, but the author does not entirely dispel the darkness that clings to "the Sylvia Plath of molecular biology."

From Library Journal

Rosalind Franklin is known to few, yet she conducted crucial research that led to one of the most significant discoveries of the 20th century-the double helical structure of DNA. Because of her unpublished data and photographs, Francis Crick and James Watson were able to make the requisite connections. Until recently, Franklin was remembered only as the "dark lady"-a stereotypically frustrated and frustrating female scientist, as profiled in Watson's 1968 autobiography, The Double Helix. Maddox (whose D.H. Lawrence won the Whitbread Biography Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize) does an excellent job of revisiting Franklin's scientific contributions (to the point of overloading nonscientists) while revealing Franklin's complicated personality. She shows a woman of fiery intellect and fierce independence whom some saw as haughty, though to family and close friends she was warm and devoted. Maddox displays a unique voice in recounting Franklin's story, using letters written to family and friends for much of the text. Her voice subtly draws us in while holding us at arm's length, much like Franklin herself. By the end, the reader is bristling that Franklin should be mostly forgotten, but this biography provides some recompense. Recommended for public libraries with science collections and all academic libraries. --Marianne Stowell Bracke, Univ. of Arizona Libs., Tucson

JUST THOUGHT THAT THESE WERE WORTH SHARING WITH YOU, ALUN? 81.78.105.246mp —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nitramrekcap (talk • contribs) ps I see "Dark Lady" as a romantic Shakespearian sonnet allusion...

two relevant articles from backcopies of "the listener"

Alun,

You are really starting to worry me, as the following two pdf's must surely be very relevant to your more neutral biography of Franklin:

http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/SC/B/B/K/G/_/scbbkg.pdf

"The Double Helix Revisited--Francis Crick and James Watson Talk to Paul Vaughan about Their Discovery of the Molecular Structure of DNA = The Listener, December 14, 1972.(for the very last paragraph!)

http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/SC/B/B/K/H/_/scbbkh.pdf

"The Race for the Double Helix: Providence and Personalities" = The Listener, 11th July 1974.

This is NOT a school playground where you can just delete someone's comments as you did mine, this is a seriously significant period of U.K. scientific history, which Political Correctness cannot readily rewrite! Why do you think you have the "Wikipedia" 'monopoly' on the memory of the late Rosalind Franklin AND why do you think you can base your rewritten (more neutral) version purely on the 2002 Maddox biography, however good it is? 81.76.185.195 MP81.76.185.195 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nitramrekcap (talk • contribs)

You treat it like a school playground, you fail to follow the simplest of rules for editing or for contributing to the talk page. I didn't say I was basing my rewrite exclusivelly on Maddox's book. Where do you get that idea from? You are in breach of wikipedia guidelines about talk pages, see below. Alun 12:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Keep it relevant

Martin, this space is to discuss the article, it is not a repository for miscellaneous information or sources regarding the discovery of the structure of DNA. Neither is it a chatroom. Keep all posts relevant to the article, unless posts are about the article (what to include and how to include it), then they have no place here. If anyone finds a good source of information, then they should include it in a neutral way in the article and add it to the references section as per wikipedia policies on neutrality, verifiability and no original research. I direct you to What talk pages are for, and especially this Talk pages are not for general chatter; please keep discussions on talk pages on the topic of how to improve the associated article.
Talk pages are also not strictly a forum to argue different points of view about controversial issues. They are a forum to discuss how different points of view should be included in the article so that the end result is neutral. Alun 11:44, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite completed

I have completed my rewrite. The article is now fully referenced, all statements in the article should be easy to verify if one has the correct literature to hand. There may be some typos etc and it probably needs proofreading. Here's what I have done and why.

I have given a rather broad overview of RF's career and have included her research in TMV, I thought it was important to show that she was in fact a very successful scientist.
I have included a controversies section at the end of the article. I have concentrated on the three things I think are most well know and discussed, namely.

Sexism at King's
Use of her work
Recognition of her contribution during her lifetime
Nobel prize.

For these three controversies I have stated the controversy, and have tried to give an account of why things transpired the way they did, I hope I have covered all POVs.

Controversies I have not covered are.

Class consiousness. I think this is only speculation on Maddox part, and it doesn't seem to be important enough to include in an encyclopedia article.
Helical/antihelical ideas. This was a difficult one to leave out, but I felt that an explanation would have increased the size of the article considerably. I am not convinced it is of general interest, there also seem to be very differing interpretations of this in the four books I have looked at (Crick/Wilkins/Maddox and Sayre). I think covering this would just lead to too much confusion for someone unfamiliar with the main players.
Franklin/Wilkins relationship. Again I think this would lead to a dramatic increase in the size of the article. This would also lead to the introduction of personalities, something Martin has rightly pointed out that we should avoid.

Obviously there will be criticism about what I have included/excluded and that is only right and proper. I am assuming that anything I write will draw the ire of Martin Packer, and am totally unconcerned about that, I have no time for people who constantly complain, but who are unprepared to engage in editing the article in a constructive way. I think and hope the article is significantly more neutral than before, it is certainly better verified and I believe all the statements made have been properly referenced. I would like to include a picture of photograph 51 that I have aquired from the internet, but I am unsure of it's copyright status, it is now over 50 years old and the copyright may have expired. I still need to do some research on this. Alun 12:30, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Alun, conscious of the fact that this is definately NOT a chat room -you have not drawn my ire, in fact it is a considerable improvement on the original. BUT you have only used a limited number of sources and I am sorry to say it shows: you definately need to read the Norton Critical Edition of "The Double Helix" for the "Three letters to the editor of Science" by Perutz, Wilkins, and Watson. I happen to have received a hard copy today of pages 207 to 211 inclusive, so if you e-mail me your home address on: martin@ packer34.freeserve.co.uk, I will pop them in the post to you?

Also you really do need to read "Noblesse Oblige: Lives of molecular biologists" by Pnina G. Abir-Am (John Hopkins University) from "ISIS" (1991). This is THE classic feminist/scientific tract, but contains some good points about Crick and Perutz, and others.

Alun, as it's your personal article - there is little or no point in my drawing attention to other errors/ommissions, but to be a really FIRST CLASS article, it needs a lot more research other than just using Maddox/Wilkins - as in your bibliography. At the moment, I am researching something a lot more interesting, but will resume my critique later this week. Do e-mail your address! regards, MP 81.78.67.102—Preceding unsigned comment added by nitramrekcap (talk • contribs)

Martin, I do not need to do anything. I have spent more time and more effort on this article than you have. I find it offensive in the extreme that someone who has introduced so many errors into the article, and who seems incapable of making a coherent edit should feel that have the right to take such a superior attitude. When you have shown that you are capable of improving the article, rather than just introducing errors that cannot be verified, then I might start to consider your opinion as slightly more than merely inconsequential. Your constant incorrect assertion that the funeral card proves that Franklin was anti-helical is a good case in point, you do not even appear to understand the difference between crystalline and paracrystalline DNA. Someone who uses information they do not understand to back up an erroneous proposition is really not worth taking seriously. By the way you suggested earlier that the funeral card told you all you needed to know, so it appears that I have at least used more sources than you. You will note that I have extensivelly used The Third Man of DNA, it is a very good book and all edits regarding the discovery of DNA have used both Maddox and Wilkins. I have not used Watson's book because he was not at King's and so it is unlikelly he knew what was going on there, did you even know that? I do not believe Watson's book is about Franklin at all, so why is it relevant? You still seem to be under the illusion that this is a DNA article, you are obsessive on this point. This is a Rosalind Franklin biographical article, I have told you this many times, but you seem to be pathologically incapable of understanding the simplest of concepts. Alun 18:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Alun, what can I say? My offer of a hard copy of The Three Letters to The Editor of Science was meant sincerely (believe it or not) as you are obviously not yet aware of them, and continue to believe the half-truths, lies and innuedoes surrounding the 'release' (sic) of Rosalind Franklin's information outside King's College London. The truth is already out there, as they say but no one is prepared to go that extra mile to read other than the most popular literature. (I literally have the truth in black and white in front of me as I type this message to you.)

Get yourself a copy of the Norton Critical Edition of "The Double Helix", read it, and interpolate it into your otherwise good article. Perutz's letter is dated 10th April 1969, Wilkins' letter is dated 10th April 1969, and Watson's letter is dated 19th May 1969. Perutz and Wilkins are both dead, while Jim Watson is alive and kicking ("ass"); anyone who refers to the 'release' (sic) of Franklin's results needs to read these three letters, which set the record straight.

This is not "original research" on my part, the Norton Critical Edition is well known to anyone with a SERIOUS interest in this era of science; the non-issue is done and dusted (apart from appearing in error on Wikipedia); Alun, get the book and open your mind to it! 81.78.120.75 MP 81.78.120.75 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nitramrekcap (talk • contribs)

Do these letters contradict the proposition that Perutz showed Crick the MRC report (Perutz admits this)? Do they prove that Wilkins did not show Watson the photograph (even Watson says he did in his book, DNA: The Secret of life? That is all that is stated here, and it is verified. There are no claims in the article of incorrect behaviour. I can see nothing wrong with including verified and undisputed material. If you have anything fresh to add to the article, please be my guest, I am not here as your personal secretary. Bear in mind that I will remove any material that is not properly referenced or that is incorrect. I am sceptical of any information you add as you have shown a propensity to include information without proper sources that is demonstrably incorrect.Alun 03:59, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Please sign your posts on the talk page, you have an account, you are User:Nitramrekcap, if you have an account you should log on each time you edit and you should properly sign your posts, or people will suspect you have an underhand motive for not doing so. Alun 03:59, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Section needs to be reviewed

"Rosalind Franklin's contribution to the Crick and Watson model of DNA

There are several controversies surrounding her contribution to the Crick and Watson model of the structure of DNA produced in 1953. The major controversies are that: Her work was used without her knowledge; that she did not get the recognition due to her and that she had no share in the Nobel Prize."

THIS SENTENCE: "Her work was used without her knowledge; that she did not get the recognition due to her and that she had no share in the Nobel Prize." IS INACCURATE AND MISLEADING! IT WAS EFFECTIVELY REBUTTED IN "SCIENCE" MAGAZINE WITH THE PUBLICATION OF LETTERS FROM ERUTZ (10.4.69), WILKINS (10.4.69) AND WATSON (10.5.69); UNLESS THE AUTHOR OF THE SENTENCE CAN PRESENT A CONVINCING CASE TO CONTRADICT THESE THREE LETTERS FROM THREE EMINENT SCIENTISTS, IT SHOULD BE WITHDRAWN. AS FOR THE NOMINATION PROCESS FOR THE 1962 NOBEL PRIZE FOR PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE, IT IS FULLY COVERED IN GRAEME HUNTER'S BOOK "LIGHT IS A MESSENGER", APPARENTLY NOT USED FOR THIS ARTICLE.

195.92.67.75 MP195.92.67.75—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nitramrekcap (talk • contribs)

Easy on the capital letters, please! T. J. Day 18:56, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

It strikes me that the anon user above may not have actually read the article, which includes a discussion of the controversies which is at least reasonably balanced, although still could be worked on. In any case- no need to shout. Badgerpatrol 22:13, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

There should be some mention of the implicit recognition given by the fact hers and Gosling's paper was published alongside the W/C and Wilkins contributions in the original Nature.--ragesoss 23:34, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

There is mention of some recognition It should be noted that the x-ray diffraction work of both Maurice Wilkins and William Astbury are cited in the paper, and that the unpublished work of both Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins are acknowledged in the paper. If the article doesn't mention the Franklin Gosling paper in the same edition of Nature then it is merely an oversight and I will correct it. It's a good point. Alun 09:15, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Nitramrekcap (Martin) If you had read the article properly, instead of jumping the gun as usual, you would have percieved that this is a statement of the controversy. This accusation has been made again and again, and all the article does is state that the controversy exists.

Unless you can provide evidence that these accusations have never been made then you have no case. All the article does is state the controversies. It is you who are now trying to rewrite history (to use one of your favourite sayings) by claiming that these accusations do not exist. By trying to expunge these controversies from history you are in breach of the neutral point of view policy. There is a discussion of these accusations in the following section that I think no one can call biased or unfair. I will repeat to you yet again the threshold for inclusion in wikipedia is verifiability not truth, these are real controversies and just because you do not accept them as fair does not mean that they do not exist. As for nominatios for Nobel Prizes, the criteria are freely available from many sources, including the source material used here, one source is as good as another for this sort of material, I'm sure the criteria for nomination are available at the Nobel Prize website as well. I would like to know what was refuted in the letters. Do the letters implicitly state that RF knew categorically that her material had been given to C-W before they started to build the model, and that she approved of this. If the letters state this then it should certainly be included, although I doubt the letters say this at all. They are more likely to say that the material was not obtained in any underhand way, but the article does not make this claim anyway, it simply states that she did not know that they had her data. Even if you can show that she did know that they had her data, and that she approved of it, then you still have no right to remove this information from the article, because the accusations were still made, even if they were groundless they are still a historical fact. Please log on and sign your posts in the correct way Nitramrekcap Alun 10:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Removed vandalism and personal opinion

Please do not vandalise this article, and please do not include unreferrenced information or personal opinion. The person doing this is well known to me and has vandalised this page and included incorrect and unverified information before, as well as personal opinion. It is the Martin Packer who sometimes uses the Sockpuppet account Nitramrekcap, he is also the author of numerous unsigned posts on this talk page. Alun 13:03, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

You invited criticism

Constructive criticism is welcome at wikipedia, unfortunatelly you are routinelly confrontational and destructive in you posts. Alun 11:01, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Your revised article was supposed to me more 'neutral', yet you FAIL the neutrality test in the very opening paragragh of the article:

"Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 1920 – 16 April 1958) was a British physical chemist and crystallographer who made very important contributions to the understanding of the fine structures of coal and graphite, DNA and viruses. Rosalind Franklin is best known for the controversy surrounding her contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953."

You need to permanently remove the words highlighted; you do the late Miss Franklin a very grave disservice by emphasising the so-called 'controversy' which is more a matter of opinion than fact.

You may not like it, but the fact remains that RF was relativelly unknown untill Watson wrote The Double Helix. The reply to this was the critisism of Crick and Watson's use of her data and her lack of recognition, that is when Franklin started to become well known. This is the reason for the modification to the introduction, if Watson's portrayal of her had been more sensitive, then there would never have been a controversy and she would probably have remained obscure. In this light I think the introductory paragraph is accurate enough. If you feel that the highlighted text should be removed, then that is a fair enough opinion, it is certainly worthy of discussion on the talk page. It is your arrogant attitude that is so offensive. The correct approach would be to start a discussion about the text rather than making demands like You need to permanently remove the words highlighted. Would it not have been more constructive, for example to state something like I think the text is unfair and should be modified, rather than making aggressive demands? As it is I am happy for you to remove this text. You are once again trying to blame others for your lack of balance and objectivity, it has been your mission to recast this article in your own personal interpretation of events from the moment you started editing it, and I find it hypocritical in the extreme when you claim that I am blinkered when it is you who have consistently failed to provide sources for your edits and have so often included opinion as fact, as well as consistently breaking the three main policies on editing wikipedia (verifiability, neutrality and no original research). Untill you read the three policies (and apply them every time you make an edit) your edits will always be subject to removal, any unverified edit can be removed from wikipedia at any time as per the verification policy.Alun 11:01, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

She deserves to be well remembered for her CONTRIBUTION and not the so-called CONTROVERSY; no one denies her big contribution, but not everyone agrees to some views expressed in this futile controversy!

Your hypocracy known no bounds, not only have you tried to remove the sentence about her being best known for her contribution to the structure many times, but you have even tried to argue that her contribution was minimal (so you have actually denied it in the past) and that she is not best known for this, why the change of heart? Equally this is an encyclopedia, it is irrelevant how she deserves to be remembered, this is not an eulogy, it's contents should have been previously published and should be verified, it has nothing to do with what people deserve, you are yet again trying to make a case for including opinion in the article.Alun 11:01, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

What IS controversial is your inability to accept other people's views do not automatically match with your's, and for good measure you casually ignore the three 1969 letters from Perutz, Wilkins, and Watson (despite my offer to post you a copy - which still stands). A good article requires far more reading than you have done, you cannot rely on just Maddox/Wilkins to write a good Wikipedia science article. (The truth is out there, you need to look a lot harder.)

I am perfectly happy to accept any POV that is properly verified (i.e. that has been published in a reliable source) and that is in compliance with the neutral point of view policy, it is you who has consistently behaved as if these policies do not apply to you. It is the height of arrogance in my opinion to demand that the article be changed without providing a shred of evidence for doing so. I cannot help but feel that all of your complaints are groundless, if you have real evidence, then modify the text and include references, you have made no mention as to the content of the letters, and I cannot but conclude that they have little to say on the subject of what Franklin knew of the use of her data. Remember the article only claim that she did not know that her data had been used, it does not claim that they had no right to the data, that is a different proposition. I suspect that all the letters do is state the circumstances surrounding C and W's aquisition of King's data. Unless they categorically claim that Franklin had been consulted and had released her data to C and W then they do not contradict anything in the article as it stands. If she had done this then they could have referenced her data as personal communication in their 1953 paper, but they do not do this. Neither Wilkins nor Maddox claim that Franklin was aware that Crick and Watson had her data, and your constant refering to the letters here is little more than inuendo, as is your want you have made no specific claims, and untill you do you have no case. Alun 11:01, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Equally you cannot expect other people to contribute anything while you remain 'blinkered' to other people's views of the awful 1953 DNA situation; the tragedy was her DEATH, not the lack of recognition; do read Hunter's biography of Bragg Jnr. and try to grasp exactly how the Nobel Prize nomination process worked in those days, for example. (And Learn about the roles of both Randall and Bragg Jnr.)

I do not understand what you are trying to say here, as usual your lack of specificity has rendered your complaint incomprehensible. The information in the article is all correctly referenced, none of it reflects my actual opinion or POV, which source are you claiming is blinkered, Maddox or Wilkins? What is your actual point about the Nobel Prize? You have made reference to the prize but bizarelly it seems to have absolutelly no relevance to the article. Alun 11:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

IT'S A REAL IMPROVEMENT ALUN, BUT YOU STILL HAVE A VERY LONG WAY TO GO!

195.92.67.74 mp195.92.67.74 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nitramrekcap (talk • contribs)

Please sign your posts.Nitramrekcap.Alun 11:01, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

postscript

Alun,

I am delighted to see that the opening paragraph now avoids reference to the 'controversy':

"Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 1920 – 16 April 1958) was a British physical chemist and crystallographer who made very important contributions to the understanding of the fine structures of coal and graphite, DNA and viruses. Rosalind Franklin is best known for her contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953."

At least this is something we can apparently agree on: that she is well remembered for her work and not the so-called "controversy"; let me send you the three letters to "Science" and we can have a further discussion? It will save you buying the Norton Critical Edition of "The Double Helix". I have to say that "The Double Helix" should be automatically included in the bibliography (along with Maddox and Wilkins) as it is the source of the so-called 'controversy'! If you haven't already read Crick's "What Mad Pursuit", you should do so as this text is also very relevant of course; I think "What Mad Pursuit" should also be in the bibliography by the way. (There has to be more than just Maddox/Wilkins to the REF story, what about Anne Sayre?)

My personal interest is still (believe it or not) in the science, not just the personalities as such; but aspects of how the structure of DNA was determined in 1953 do concern me of course. But I fail to see why it should have been turned into a "cause celebre" as the French would say!

Incidentally Rosalind Franklin is remembered in Cambridge (where I will be tomorrow) at Newnham College, and at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, where her former colleague Sir Aaron Klug STILL works, and I know she is definitely well remembered at King's College London. Overall I think some respect should be paid to ALL of the people involved in the D.N.A. sage, whether alive or dead, and their relations - since the situation they all found themselves in was totally unprecedented, and was made worse by the competition between the USA (Linus Pauling) and the UK (Sir Lawrence Bragg) where there were old scores to be settled from previous discoveries. At the same time there was the tension between the Cavendish and King's College London labs., with the relationships between Bragg and Randall, and Crick and Wilkins, and Franklin and Watson!! The working relationship between Crick and Watson is also interesting; all of these human relationships were complex and affected how the science worked in 1953.

The currently unknown factor concerns the role of Sir John Randall, a biography of whom would fit some of the missing pieces into the whole jigsaw; the next book to be published (in 2007) will be Robert Olby's scientific biography of Crick, which I am currently researching for. As usual I have gone on for too long, I DO admire your determination, but still think you need to do some more reading - so please contact me for copies of the three 1969 letters to "Science"? (I also have a spare copy of Bob Olby's excellant DNA 50th anniversary article from "Endeavour")

ps Before responding to this message, you may like to check out the revised opening paragraphs of the articles for Crick, Watson, and Wilkins, which now recognise Franklin's contribution.

62.25.109.194mp 62.25.109.194/62.25.109.194nitram rekcap62.25.109.194—Preceding unsigned comment added by nitramrekcap (talk • contribs)

Your points are well taken Martin. I have started to try and use Sayre's book for double referencing some of the points in the article. Maybe you are right and I should pay attention to Watson's book. If you have access to a scanner you could email me the letters in PDF or JPEG format, I would like to include them if possible. I'll send you an email and you can reply to it. I agree with you that there is much information regarding the discovery of DNA that is not covered in this article, but there are two things to bear in mind. Firstly I am always aware that much of the information does not directly relate to the Franklin article, the competitivness between Bragg and Pauling is not directly relevant to Franklin's life, though it does have some bearing on why Crick and Watson were finally allowed to try a model building approach. Secondly there is a constraint on space in an encyclopedia article, in a book one can go into very much more detail, but an encyclopedia article is always a compromise regarding what to include or exclude, because of this constraint. I think much of what you have said about the discovery of DNA and the missing information is true, but I am unconvinced that this is the correct place for it, I think this article should concentrate on Franklin's life as much as possible. I still think there is scope for a seperate Discovery of DNA article, where much more detail can be included. The article would also be a nice link between the DNA article and all the seperate articles about the various protagonists. At the moment I am occupied with several unrelated articles on wikipedia and have little time to start a new article. Possibly the starting place is to look at what can be removed from the DNA article and used instead in a new Discovery of DNA article. What's your thinking?. By the way if you log on to you account (there should be a log in button in the top right of the screen), you can sign your posts with four tildes (~). You can also watch pages by clicking the watch tab at the top of the article. When you have logged on you can click on the my watchlist button in the top right of he screen and it will tell you the latest changes to the pages on your watch list. It's very handy. Alun 12:57, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Alun, please send me the e-mail of your address as my scanner doesn't work! Best wishes, Martin

ps You should get a copy of Seweryn Chomet's KCL booklet before the very limited stock runs out!

Amendment required

"Rosalind Franklin's contribution to the Crick and Watson model of DNA. There are several controversies surrounding her contribution to the Crick and Watson model of the structure of DNA produced in 1953. The major controversies are that: Her work was used without her knowledge and that she did not get the recognition due to her."

Alun, you will very shortly be in receipt of the three 1969 letters to Science magazine from Max Perutz, Maurice Wilkins, and James Watson; you need to read, understand them, and review the above misleading statement that "Her work was used without her knowledge".

You also need to fully research this subject, including the so-called "controversy", by reading James Watson's "The Double Helix" and Francis Crick's "What Mad Pursuit", both of which should be credited in the Bibliography itself - and not as Further Reading. It is totally RIDICULOUS to refer to "The Double Helix" as being 'further reading' and it is the key text to the so-called 'controversy', and apparently continues to upset people.

As for "she did not get the recognition due to her", this is self-evident as she was not in a position to benefit from a share of the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in that she had died four years earlier. The statement "she did not get the recognition due to her" needs clarification to say that Nobel Prizes are NOT awarded posthumously, unless the nominee has already been nominated and dies before the award is announced or the award ceremony. It is a sad fact of life that Sir Lawrence Bragg in nominating Crick, Watson, and Wilkins (and lobbying for them) did not - or could not have included her - see Graeme Hunter's biography of Bragg Jnr.

IF once you have finished with Franklin, if you want to pursue another 'lost cause' (figuratively speaking), you should read another good book: Erwin Chargaff's "Heraclitean Fire" as I have this weekend, enjoy the book, and reflect on his bitterness towards Crick and Watson! There is even a hint in his book that he and Franklin could have worked together to determine the structure of DNA; I understand that Matt Ridley has written a article about all the alternative claimants to the DNA discovery, which I will advise you of when I have seen it. But in the meantime, do READ ON please!

Nitramrekcapnitramrekcap Nitramrekcap

The bibliography is only for books that are used for multiple referencing in the references section, these are credited as simply the book title and the page number in the references, this is so the whole book/author/NCBI etc doesn't have to be repeated for every reference. This is an in line referencing guideline on wikipedia. You will have observed that reference number 78 is Crick, F. H. C. What Mad Pursuit, p67 ISBN 0465091377, as this book is only referenced once it is fully referenced in the references section, it doesn't need to be in the Bibliography section. The Further reading section is for related books that are not cited in the text. As Crick and Watson were not at King's in 1951-53, neither of them worked with Franklin and neither of them have written a book about Franklin your observation is rather odd. You seem to think this article is a general article about the discovery of DNA. I really do not understand why you persist with this strange notion. This article is about RF, not Watson, not Crick and the discovery of DNA in the article is only concerned with her role, no one elses. I am at a loss as to why you consistently fail to understand this most simple of observations. The statement about the controversy is not misleading. As I pointed out earlier, this controversy did really exist and refering to in in the article is totally apropriate. Even if she did know that her work was being used, the controversy is still a matter of history that you cannot ignore. You really can't make this go away by saying that the letters prove it's wrong. The letters were written because of the controversy, so it must be a real controversy that really existed. It would be a distortion of history not to mention it. The best you can hope to achieve would be to claim that the controversy had been successfully rebutted by the letters to Science (and of course this is not true), this could then be added to the article, but it would not mean that the sentence about the controversy should be removed. Alun 03:39, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

If I may butt in- I would advise Nitramrekcap to strongly consider adopting a more civil tone when discussing issues on this talk page. I notice that his/her contributions on HERE are voluminous, whilst contributions by this user to the actual article appear to be very limited. Since Nitramrekcap seems to have a degree of knowledge in this subject, I would expect the reverse. I personally find Nitramrekcap's comment above somewhat patronising, and a brief skim of this page (I must confess I have not waded through the interminable commentary above) suggests that this is reflective of a pattern. Many of his/her comments could easily be construed as actionable personal attacks. I believe there is a saying along the lines of 'put up, or shut up'. If one has a worthwhile contribution to make, then the proper place for it is usually in the article proper. It is highly objectionable to condescendingly order other editors about - that does NOT reflect the spirit of co-operation that is the hallmark of Wiki. I have not read all of the discussion on this page, and this comment does not constitute an affiliation with either side in whatever content dispute is currently ongoing- just thought I'd chuck in my tuppence. Badgerpatrol 04:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

"(4) Peggy Dyche, letter on Rosalind Franklin to Anne Sayre (31st May 1977)

There is no doubt that she could be a difficult character - impatient, bossy, intransigent. She always went straight to the point and was seldom diplomatic. However, this was all because she had such high standards and expected everyone else to be able to reach her ideal requirements."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SCfranklinR.htm

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nitramrekcap (talk • contribs)

How is the above relevant to any discussion on the talk page? Please log in and sign your posts properly. See Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages

Signing your posts (on all Wikipedia talk pages—but not on articles) is an important aspect of Wikipedia's developed etiquette, and an essential aspect of the community communication that helps articles to be formed and developed. Discussion helps other users who are reading talk pages to understand the progress and evolution of a dialogue, and to better offer their help, and to easier judge users who are accountable to their comments. Because of this, developers created a very easy way to create signatures. To automatically sign your posts with a date-stamp, add four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your message; or add three tildes (~~~) to add just your name. (In general, using the full date-stamp is preferred). Alun 16:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Words fail me (for once) but on a lighter note:

http://comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=14197

Nitramrekcap 18:23, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

On a far more serious note: something which discredits "Wikipedia" (please note the expletive):

http://www.cinematical.com/2006/04/21/bogdanovich-cracks-code/

& also: http://www.timeout.com/film/news/1088.html

62.25.109.194 12:47, 25 April 2006 (UTC) MP 62.25.109.194 12:47, 25 April 2006 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nitramrekcap (talk • contribs)

Please log in and sign your posts properly. Alun 13:19, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

The author of the 'Rosalind Franklin' article should have received photocopies of the above in Finland by now; can we please have a considered reaction to them as they are very important? We owe it to the families of Perutz, Wilkins and Crick to have a balanced view of the issue, while I am sure James Watson has much better things to do at CHSL than looking at "Wikipedia"...RSVP Alun.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.194 (talk • contribs)

I don't owe them anything. The letters are very interesting and can certainly be used here. They do shed some light on the controversy. The most interesting thing seems to be that Watson probably started the controversy in the first place by claiming that the report was confidential and that he had used Rfs work without her knowledge. You cannot claim the controversy doesn't exist when you have just provided me with it's origin. I think we need to state the controversy, then discuss how Watson's book is related to the controversy and then bring in the refutations by Perutz and Wilkins. That way all bases are covered. I'll try to work on it on the weekend. Alun 18:39, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

National DNA Dday 25 April 2006

see: http://www.genome.gov/18516768 for the Moderated Chat Transcript Archive (most interesting):

Q: cheray: How did you find out that the DNA molecule was the form of a double helix? A: Belen Hurle, Ph.D.: The race to discover the DNA structure makes a very interesting reading. The people responsible for the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA were Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, Linus Pauling, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins. It is somehow unfair that only Watson and Crick get world-wide recognition for this landmark discovery. Watson and Crick published the paper entitled ?A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid? in ?Nature? on the 25th April, 1953. In 1962 Watson, Crick and Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. They proposed that the DNA molecule takes the shape of a double helix, an elegantly simple structure that resembles a twisted ladder. The rails of the ladder are made of alternating units of phosphate and the sugar deoxyribose; the rungs are each composed of a pair of nitrogen-containing nucleotides. In their Nobel lectures they cite 98 references, none are Franklin?s. Only Wilkins included her in his acknowledgements. Franklin died in 1958. The Nobel Prize is only awarded to living persons.

Q: Hugh Georgie, from OB City: What year was DNA discovered? A: Carla Easter, Ph.D.: Many people and experiments led to the discovery of DNA. In the 1800's, Gregor Mendel working with pea plants discovered the principles of inheritance. The discovery that DNA was the genetic material of an organism was discovered in the 1940s. Oswald Avery and his co-workers discovered that DNA was the "transforming principle" or the molecule that caused a bacteria to acquire new traits. These experiments led ot the discover that the genetic material of a cell was found in the DNA. The physical structure of DNA was discovered in 1953 by James Watson, Francis Crick, and Rosalind Franklin.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.194 (talk • contribs) , possibly Nitramrekcap

The above does not appear to be related to information for inclusion in the article. Please read the talk page guidelines and talk page help. Please log in and sign your posts properly. Observe the proper wikipedia etiquette (sometimes called wikiquette). If you want to be taken seriously as a contributor then you should always do this. Not doing so leads to confusion as it is difficult to identify individual users. It only takes a few seconds to log on, and it is simple to sign your posts. People will also leave messages for you on your user page that you can only read if you are logged on. Alun 05:37, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

THREE 1969 LETTERS TO "SCIENCE" MAGAZINE FROM PERUTZ, WILKINS, AND WATSON.

"The author of the 'Rosalind Franklin' article should have received photocopies of the above in Finland by now; can we please have a considered reaction to them as they are very important? We owe it to the families of Perutz, Wilkins and Crick to have a balanced view of the issue, while I am sure James Watson has much better things to do at CHSL than looking at "Wikipedia"...RSVP Alun." Nitramrekcap mp Nitramrekcap

See above response. We owe it to the families of Perutz, Wilkins and Crick to have a balanced view of the issue... eh? what gibberish are you spouting now Nitram? Wikipedia has three major policies, I don't think any of them concern the families mentioned above. The article is currently extremely neutral and ballanced, anyone who thinks otherwise is either mad, daft or just plain biased, which are you? I notice you do not seem to care a jot for the memory of RF or her family, this ommision says more than any words you could write Nitram. Alun 09:28, 1 May 2006

(UTC)

..."ballanced, anyone who thinks otherwise is either mad, daft or just plain biased, which are you? I notice you do not seem to care a jot for the memory of RF or her family, this ommision..."

'Spelling Wobble?

NitramrekcapMPNitramrekcap

Keep it relevant Nitram. Alun 06:20, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

SYDNEY BRENNER/THE LABORATORY OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY, CAMBRIDGE

Just in case anyone is still interested in the discovery, rather than the petty politics of the period - I had the pleasure of meeting Sydney Brenner on Monday evening, heard his lecture, got his autograph etc. and here is his pertinent quotation from 1953:

"Seeing DNA ...of course the most important thing that happened then is that Jack Dunitz told me about all the developments with DNA in Cambridge because he was following it all. He told me that Francis Crick and Jim Watson had solved the structure of DNA, so we decided to go across to Cambridge to see it. This was in April of 1953.Jack and I and Leslie [Orgel] and another crystallographer went to Cambridge by car. It was a small car. It was very cold I remember, and the car wasn't heated. No one had heaters in cars then. We must have arrived in Cambridge in the late morning, at about 11am or thereabouts. We went into the Austin wing of the Cavendish Laboratory. I went in with Jack and Leslie, into this room that was lined with brick, and there on the side I can remember very clearly was this small model with plates for the bases - the original model with everything screwed together. And I could see the double helix! Francis was sitting there. This was the first time I met him and of course he couldn't stop talking. He just went on and on and on, and it was very inspiring, you see. Of course at this stage neither of the two famous Nature papers had yet appeared. The first paper was expected in a few weeks. They talked mainly about what eventually was in the second paper. Jim was at his desk in that room which I came to occupy later when I came to the Cavendish, and he was interspersing comments with Francis. So that's when I saw the DNA model for the first time, in the Cavendish, and that's when I saw that this was it. And in a flash you just knew that this was very fundamental. The curtain had been lifted and everything was now clear [as to] what to do. I got tremendously excited by this."

There is not much doubt from other literature (the transcript of the 50th anniversary meeting at Cambridge in 1953 - with a lengthy article by Sir Aaron Klug) that R.E. Franklin is well remembered, e.g. the Duke of Edinburgh presented her sister with a special DNA coin, the same one as was presnted to James Watson; I do sometimes wonder what all of the fuss on these pages is really in aid of? See: http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/16/3/2 for the last paragraph:

"The Rosalind Franklin question - and the applause it receives - is, I think, motivated less by the feeling that her contributions should be more widely recognized. Instead, it is more to do with the scientific community recalling and reasserting norms of fairness when they find these violated. Some day it may no longer be necessary to ask the Rosalind Franklin question. When this happens, it would also be worth applauding."

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.194 (talk • contribs) , possibly Nitramrekcap

How is this relevant to the article? The talk page is for discussiong what to include in the article, it is not a repository for any or all vaguely DNA related material you see fit to dump here, I have warned you about this before, why do you think that the rules of wikipedia do not apply to you? You are wasting space on wikipedia hard drives and unecessarily using up runtime on the servers. Please keep it relevant Alun 05:34, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Alun, see: http://www.bluesci.org/content/view/436/265/ for a report on his talk on 1st of May 2006!

62.25.109.194MP62.25.109.194

The other pivotal scientific moment in 1958?

According to James Watson at the conference DNA: "50 years of the Double Helix" held in Cambridge (England) in 2003 : (quote) "Now perhaps it's a pretty well kept secret that one of the most uninspiring acts of Cambridge University over this past century was to turn down Francis Crick when he applied to be the Professor of Genetics, in 1958. Now there may have been a series of arguments, which lead them to reject Francis. But it really was stupid. It was really saying, don't push us to the frontier. That's what it was saying."

19 years later Francis Crick left Cambridge for La Jolla, California.

Nitramrekcapmp Nitramrekcap

How is this relevant to the article? Alun 05:26, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

CRYPTIC ANSWER: WATCH THIS SPACE!

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.194 (talk • contribs)

Hi Martin, you can point wikipedia to a sub section of an article (ie link it)) like this [[University of Cambridge#Selected_notable_members]]
. You can then pipe a link in order to display different text in the article (because articles may have names that interupt the flow of a sentence) like this [[University of Cambridge#Selected_notable_members|members of the University of Cambridge]]. What is displayed is members of the University of Cambridge. You don't need to use the whole URL. Hope this is of some help. This is what I have done above. Alun 12:25, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Alun, see: http://www.bluesci.org/content/view/436/265/ for a report on Brenner's talk on 1st of May 2006! I am still seeking clarification of Jim Watson's remarks about Crick/Genetics in 1958!! Please note I added Franklin, Watson and Wilkins to the list of Cambridge notables!!!

62.25.109.194MP62.25.109.194