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What Rosalind Franklin contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure

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Re: What Rosalind Franklin contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure

#121

Post by mightyham »

robocat wrote: post #86
lolinder wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claiming that the skills tested by IQ tests are in part heritable—like height, strength, weight, eye color and every other physical characteristic—is not an extraordinary claim. Indeed, the opposite claim would be more extraordinary. Why should this be the exception to the rule? It would be far more beneficial to equity to push back on the purported implications of this fact than to try to fight a losing battle again…

A controversial 2005 paper https://web.mit.edu/fustflum/documents/papers/AshkenaziIQ.jb... claims: Ashkenazi Jews have the highest average IQ of any ethnic group for which there are reliable data. They score 0.75 to 1.0 standard deviations above the general European average, corresponding to an IQ 112-115. This has been seen in many studies (Backman, 1972; Levinson, 1959; Romanoff, 1976), although a recent review con…

The fact that none of the cited sources (Backman, 1972; Levinson, 1959; Romanoff, 1976) provide evidence of or back the that Ashkenazi IQ is close to a standard deviation above the European average might be why that paper is controversial.

Re: What Rosalind Franklin contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure

#122

Post by nyankosensei »

photochemsyn wrote: post #5

My favorite candidate for 'getting cheated for credit' on the DNA discovery is Erwin Chargaff, whose work pointed towards the specific base pairing involved. Of course, the arbitrary 3-person cutoff for Nobel Prizes is not at all reflective of how science is done in practice in terms of the numbers of people involved over time in any major discovery: > "Key conclusions from Erwin Chargaff's work are now known as Char…

Chargaff’s interesting autobiography is available from the publisher as a free ebook: https://books.rupress.org/catalog/book/heraclitean-fire

Re: What Rosalind Franklin contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure

#123

Post by andrewflnr »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #100

Franklin... died of ovarian cancer in 1958 at just 37 This is news to me. I've heard before that supposedly her work was "stolen" by men in the field. I have always thought it more likely that she thought she needed more evidence or something like that. Women seem to have trouble getting good mentors and, like Vinny in My Cousin Vinny , may be weak when it comes to procedure -- aka the culture of the appropriate way…

Dying young is not generally a problem for getting recognition. Certainly there are lots of famous discoverers who died young (Evariste Galois comes to mind, but is maybe too extreme an example to be representative).

I agree the impact of informal communication likely played an underrated role.

Re: What Rosalind Franklin contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure

#124

Post by DoreenMichele »

andrewflnr wrote: post #123
DoreenMichele wrote: post #100

Franklin... died of ovarian cancer in 1958 at just 37 This is news to me. I've heard before that supposedly her work was "stolen" by men in the field. I have always thought it more likely that she thought she needed more evidence or something like that. Women seem to have trouble getting good mentors and, like Vinny in My Cousin Vinny , may be weak when it comes to procedure -- aka the culture of the appropriate way…

Dying young is not generally a problem for getting recognition. Certainly there are lots of famous discoverers who died young (Evariste Galois comes to mind, but is maybe too extreme an example to be representative). I agree the impact of informal communication likely played an underrated role.

She didn't receive the Nobel Prize because it's only given to people still alive. She had already died.

Scientists et al tend to be recognized in old age or after their death, not while still relatively young. This is so true that we have special awards specifically designed to recognize people under a certain age, such as The Fields Medal for mathematicians under age 40.

There are 64 Fields Medalist. Only one is a woman.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_Medal#:~:text=In%2020....

Edit: I will add that the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields is a woman: Marie Curie.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie

Re: What Rosalind Franklin contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure

#125

Post by anonymouskimmer »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #117
msrenee wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about the 50s. There was almost no fear of repercussions from being inappropriate towards women in the workplace. You might run into an angry husband or brother, and that was about it. It was the height of the housewife era. Women were actively discouraged from working and there was a massive amount of clear and outright sexism towards those who chose to have a career. It seems much more likely to me th…

If you actually want to be faithful to your own wife, you might fear it being misinterpreted by the female colleague as you hitting on her. The height of the housewife era was funded in part by the high savings rates during WW2 when many married couples were de facto DINKs -- dual income, no kids -- because she was Rosie the Riveter, he was serving in the military overseas and, as Lucille Ball once said, you can't ex…

> The height of the housewife era was funded in part by the high savings rates during WW2 when many married couples were de facto DINKs

Sure, but it didn't help that women were encouraged (or forced) to leave their jobs so that the returning men could have them. It's not coincidental that "Kelly Girl Services" and the general temp agency (which has been so much bad for both women and men in terms of wages, job security, and promotion opportunities) took off in this era. Or Freidan's best-seller status in 1963.

> I'm much more interested in finding a path forward than in figuring out who to blame for the past.

Blame helps in figuring out what to address. At the very least a sense of past injustice motivates people in the present to address present wrongs.

It's important to cast blame for the actions and attitudes of people, because the basic motivations behind those actions and attitudes don't change, they're effectively eternal with the human race. The light needs to constantly be shined on them, or you get women like Eileen Bailey and Ann Coles[1], or men like Eddie Slovik[2]. The shining of the light is the path forward, or at least a part of it. Does it matter whether COVID came from a Chinese lab or a wet market, now? No. But the shining of the light on the bad practices at both places is the most likely way to see that both sets of practices are corrected. (I do think it was stupid to cast blame back in 2020 and 21, when really we needed to be better addressing the critical urgency of contagion.)

1 - https://daily.jstor.org/what-really-made-1950s-housewives-so...

2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Slovik#Execution

Re: What Rosalind Franklin contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure

#126

Post by anonymouskimmer »

peterfirefly wrote: post #103
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there any reason to believe that they would have been more generous in giving credit had the work been from a man? The what-ifs of one specific notable instance doesn't really matter. This is merely being used for illustrative purposes. It is also the case that it is not just women who are denied credit, but until relatively recently it was common practice to not even think to give equal credit to women. > And a…

> No. Franklin generated the key bit of information No. Her student did.

Sure. Under direction from her. This is another problem entirely in the Sciences, and society in general (particularly looking at politics).

Re: What Rosalind Franklin contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure

#127

Post by DoreenMichele »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #125
DoreenMichele wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you actually want to be faithful to your own wife, you might fear it being misinterpreted by the female colleague as you hitting on her. The height of the housewife era was funded in part by the high savings rates during WW2 when many married couples were de facto DINKs -- dual income, no kids -- because she was Rosie the Riveter, he was serving in the military overseas and, as Lucille Ball once said, you can't ex…

> The height of the housewife era was funded in part by the high savings rates during WW2 when many married couples were de facto DINKs Sure, but it didn't help that women were encouraged (or forced) to leave their jobs so that the returning men could have them. It's not coincidental that "Kelly Girl Services" and the general temp agency (which has been so much bad for both women and men in terms of wages, job securi…

I don't agree with you at all. I don't even know what ugly thing you are trying to say about the three people you named.

If you look for someone to blame, you will find someone to blame. But that someone may be a scapegoat.

The US legal system is based on an assumption of innocence. I find it personally useful to try to assess history from an assumption of innocence.

Many phenomenon are emergent phenomenon that cannot be blamed on any one thing.

If I think someone is actually guilty of something in specific, I have no problem saying that. I just don't find an assumption of guilt useful in the general case for parsing how to do this better.

Re: What Rosalind Franklin contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure

#128

Post by 908B64B197 »

failingslowly wrote: post #118

My take away from the article is that Watson and Crick were the ones who finally cracked the puzzle, but that Franklin and Wilkins' (and others') findings were a key part. It's telling that the controversy only surrounds Franklin's contributions, not Wilkins', presumably because of her gender and the need to promote women's historical contribution to science. I understand the desire to do that, as the theory goes tha…

> To add a personal anecdote, I'll note that my son was straight-up taught (by his female science teacher) that Watson and Crick did not discover the structure of DNA but stole it from Franklin. I'm still not sure I've completely disabused him of this idea.

Can you imagine what else they are teaching him (with your tax dollars)?

Anti-Racist math perhaps? [0]

[0] https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11...

Re: What Rosalind Franklin contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure

#129

Post by anonymouskimmer »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #127
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The height of the housewife era was funded in part by the high savings rates during WW2 when many married couples were de facto DINKs Sure, but it didn't help that women were encouraged (or forced) to leave their jobs so that the returning men could have them. It's not coincidental that "Kelly Girl Services" and the general temp agency (which has been so much bad for both women and men in terms of wages, job securi…

I don't agree with you at all. I don't even know what ugly thing you are trying to say about the three people you named. If you look for someone to blame , you will find someone to blame . But that someone may be a scapegoat. The US legal system is based on an assumption of innocence. I find it personally useful to try to assess history from an assumption of innocence. Many phenomenon are emergent phenomenon that can…

> I don't even know what ugly thing you are trying to say about the three people you named.

> If you look for someone to blame, you will find someone to blame. But that someone may be a scapegoat.

For Eileen Bailey I first blame her husband cheating, and then I blame his friends at the tennis club for not letting her know about it.

For Ann Coles I blame her husband for his personality disorder, and a society that told women to deal with it.

For Eddie Slovik I blame conscription, which may not have even been necessary in WWII following Pearl Harbor[1]. And an attitude against youthful petty criminals from the lower classes (this continued for decades as petty criminals were encouraged to join the military to get their lives in order and avoid their sentences, at least according to pop culture).

None of these attitudes (save, temporarily, conscription) have materially changed. People still cheat on their spouses. Spouses are still (though much less so today) told to accept it. Friends of the cheater still don't always feel they can, or should, let the other spouse know. People are still told to address societal issues by changing, or medicating, themselves. Youthful offenders are still permanently tarred in the mind of society.

We have improved in considering divorce more acceptable. And this is partly because of a collective blaming of the cheating spouse (with the other part mainly being the increased frequency of divorce).

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Training_and_Service...

Re: What Rosalind Franklin contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure

#130

Post by DoreenMichele »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #129
DoreenMichele wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with you at all. I don't even know what ugly thing you are trying to say about the three people you named. If you look for someone to blame , you will find someone to blame . But that someone may be a scapegoat. The US legal system is based on an assumption of innocence. I find it personally useful to try to assess history from an assumption of innocence. Many phenomenon are emergent phenomenon that can…

> I don't even know what ugly thing you are trying to say about the three people you named. > If you look for someone to blame, you will find someone to blame. But that someone may be a scapegoat. For Eileen Bailey I first blame her husband cheating, and then I blame his friends at the tennis club for not letting her know about it. For Ann Coles I blame her husband for his personality disorder, and a society that tol…

For various reasons, I've read a lot of research on human sexuality.

It's nice when two people can make their marriage work and be happily monogamous. It's unfortunate that we collectively haven't yet sorted out how to establish happy monogamy more reliably.

For your second example, blaming someone for their personality disorder isn't reasonable. People don't wake up one morning and go "I think I would like to acquire a personality disorder for funsies." It's unfortunate that humanity has yet to establish a solid track record for fixing mental health issues.

Last, according to the link you submitted in your previous comment:

Although over 21,000 American soldiers were given varying sentences for desertion during World War II, including 49 death sentences, Slovik's death sentence was the only one that was carried out.

I still have no idea at all what or who you are trying to blame with your third example or what you are trying to say you wish were different.

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