3 ms·
The title of the linked article is "Before Watson and Crick in 1953 Came Friedrich Miescher in 1869". This is technically correct, though misleading - Miescher
by radford-neal 6y ago
The title of the linked article is "Before Watson and Crick in 1953 Came Friedrich Miescher in 1869". This is technically correct, though misleading - Miescher did in fact chronologically precede Watson and Crick.
The title of this HN post is "Friedrich Miescher discovered DNA in 1869, a century before Watson and Crick". The difference turns this title into one that is definitely false, since it clearly implies that Miescher did what Watson and Crick did, long before they did it. That's not true.
Watson and Crick did not discover the existence of DNA. They discovered the structure of DNA. The existence of DNA was already well known, and other groups were also trying to discover its structure.
- dekhn 6y agoThe issue is mainly that in many people's minds, W&C "discovered DNA". I studied DNA extensively in my PhD program and didn't even know about Miescher until I read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Growth_of_Biological_Thought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Growth_of_Biological_Thoug... and even then it's just sort of a little chapter at the end of the book.
- godelski 6y agoThe problem here is that the HN title is clickbaity and inaccurate where the NIH title is correct. On HN we try to avoid this kind of thing and I'm betting Dang will come in and change the title.