24 ms·

James Watson has died

346 points by granzymes 11mo ago

https://archive.ph/KaTaT https://archive.ph/KaTaT

toomuchtodo 11mo ago
https://archive.today/KaTaT https://archive.today/KaTaT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson
hiddencost 11mo ago
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5
TheRealNGenius 11mo ago
[flagged]
dsr_ 11mo ago
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- AlgorithmicTime 11mo ago
  [dead]
- boxerab 11mo ago
  Yes, how she was treated by Crick and Watson was scandalous.
  - ricardo81 11mo ago
    That's what I read on the surface. Any useful links for the context?
    - dekhn 11mo ago
      The best I've read is "The Eighth Day Of Creation" (which is amazing book beyond the part that covers the elucidation of the structure of DNA). He references multiple internal data sources that establish the process by which Gosling's photo made it to Watson and Crick. Of all the accounts I've read, it seems to be the most factual. I think it's also worth reading Watson's account ("The Double Helix") and the book that originally brought the most attention to the treatment of Franklin ("Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA") I believe this article has some updated results: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/science/rosalind-franklin-dna.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/science/rosalind-franklin... and it appears there was an earlier book before Dark Lady, referenced here: https://www.nytimes.com/1975/09/21/archives/rosalind-franklin-and-dna.html https://www.nytimes.com/1975/09/21/archives/rosalind-frankli...
- echelon 11mo ago
  That's reframing things too much. There's the experimental data, and then there's the theoretical model. Watson and Crick were already working on a theoretical double helix model prior to discovering Franklin's x-ray crystallography data, but at the time their model was wrong. Franklin produced the x-ray crystallographic data that completed the picture and produced the correct working model. Franklin could have also figured out the double helix model herself using her own data and extensive crystallography background, but Watson and Crick were laser focused on only this one problem and beat her to it. Franklin was robbed of the recognition she deserved, and Watson and Crick should have co-credited her at minimum. But it's incorrect to say that Watson and Crick weren't about to figure it out themselves. Franklin tragically died of cancer a few years after the discovery and was ineligible to receive a posthumous Nobel Prize. She was only 37.
  - dekhn 11mo ago
    She was credited, see the original W&C paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/171737a0 https://www.nature.com/articles/171737a0 at the end is an acknowledgement. She also has a related article in the same issue of Nature. I wouldn't be so sure that Franklin would have figured out that DNA was an antiparallel double helix. She knew it was a helix from the fibre diffraction pattern, but I don't think just anybody would have had the insight W&C did about it being a double helix and antiparallel, which immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material. However, we can't know for sure. Edit, in re-reading https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5 I see that she did suspect the DNA structure contained multiple chains. So my statement about about the double helix aspect was incomplete/incorrect.
    - JamesAdir 11mo ago
      This is the first time I found out that she was credited. Thanks for that.
  - culi 11mo ago
    This is not an honest depiction. Watson and Crick didn't just use her stolen work to "confirm" what they were working on. It was the entire basis of the rest of their work Wilkins was her colleague but considered her an "assistant". That's why he felt entitled to take Franklin's Photograph 51 without telling her. It took Franklin another year or so complete the analysis of Photograph 51 and map the position of every atom. Watson and Crick used Photograph 51 (again, without Franklin's knowledge or consent) and did a quick analysis of the data that they used to build a few potential structures Yes, it's possible Watson and Crick would've eventually arrived at the right answer but we really have no idea how far off they were. Franklin's work didn't just "support" their work. It was the very basis of it after that point. Franklin's work on the structure of viruses also led directly to ANOTHER nobel prize of a colleague in 1982 (Aaron Klug). It's hard to understate how tremendous the impact of her work has been.
- _dain_ 11mo ago
  >Codiscoverer of Rosalind Franklin's notebooks. this is a preposterously reductive and dishonest account of what happened.
  - Alex2037 11mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae
- Jun8 11mo ago
  This is an ignorant take on what really happened. There are many sources online to better understand what happened, you might want to start with the Nature article: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5 If you want to attack Watson, his comments on race later in life is a better angle.
  - throwawaymaths 11mo ago
    FWIW watson was incredibly racist against scots-irish americans, repeatedly calling them dumb in his lectures. that doesn't necessarily excuse his casual racism, but i would assume he meant to imply that people can overcome their genetic ingroups' statistical predilections
    - thot_experiment 11mo ago
      lmao that's an extremely charitable take that doesn't comport with other racist bullshit he said
      - throwawaymaths 11mo ago
        have you actually been to a talk he's given or are you just aping what other people report?
      - catigula 11mo ago
        What specificially did he say and why did it upset you? I am genuinely curious, I could google it easily enough, but it's actually more interesting why people have a certain impression of things and how strongly they've interrogated the accuracy of that impression.
        cogman10 11mo ago
        > He says that he is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really", and I know that this "hot potato" is going to be difficult to address. His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true". He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because "there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don't promote them when they haven't succeeded at the lower level". He writes that "there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so". [1] Seems pretty clear that he thought black people had a genetic disadvantage compared to white people. And "all the testing" is simply wrong. What we've found is that Africa is the most genetically diverse area humanity has [2]. To generalize capabilities based on genetics is simply foolish as the pool is far more vast than what you'd find in England, for example. [1] https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/the-elementary-dna-of-dr-watson-gllb6w2vpdr https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/the-elementary-d... [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4067985/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4067985/
- NedF 11mo ago
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mellosouls 11mo ago
Plenty of non-paywall links that would be better here eg https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8xdypnz32o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8xdypnz32o
nerf0 11mo ago
What's with the "is dead at"? I'm not a native speaker but it seems a bit disrespectful.
- echelon 11mo ago
  This is native English and quite colloquial. It's been used in widespread use in newspapers and in the media since forever. From just recently: > James Watson, Co-Discoverer of the Structure of DNA, Is Dead at 97 > ‘90s rapper dead at 51: ‘He went out in style’ > Anthony Jackson, Master of the Electric Bass, Is Dead at 73 > Chen Ning Yang, Nobel-Winning Physicist, Is Dead at 103 > Ace Frehley, a Founding Member of Kiss, Is Dead at 74 > Ruth A. Lawrence, Doctor Who Championed Breastfeeding, Is Dead at 101 > Soo Catwoman, ‘the Female Face of Punk,’ Is Dead at 70 More famous headlines: > Jimmy Carter, Peacemaking President Amid Crises, Is Dead at 100 [1] > Nancy Reagan, Former First Lady, Is Dead At Age 94 [2] > Dick Cheney Is Dead at 84 [3] > Ozzy Osbourne Is Dead At 76 Years Old, Just Weeks After The Final Black Sabbath Concert [4] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/29/us/politics/jimmy-carter-dead.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/29/us/politics/jimmy-carter-... [2] https://www.scrippsnews.com/obituaries/nancy-reagan-former-first-lady-is-dead-at-age-94 https://www.scrippsnews.com/obituaries/nancy-reagan-former-f... [3] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/dick-cheney-dies https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/dick-cheney-dies [4] https://uproxx.com/indie/ozzy-osbourne-dead-76/ https://uproxx.com/indie/ozzy-osbourne-dead-76/
- muskyFelon 11mo ago
  Its not always included. I think they added it to highlight how old he was.97 years is quite the accomplishment, so I don't interpret it as disrespectful.
- observationist 11mo ago
  It's a way of communicating his age; it's standard phrasing for American english. No disrespect is implied or intended. There are generally no holds barred when it comes to dunking on people that are truly disliked, and when newspapers want to disrespect someone, they will leave no room for doubt (there are some awfully hilarious examples of such obituaries throughout American history.) "Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States, dead at 56" It's meant for headline brevity, replacing things like "has died at age 97" and is standard practice.
timonoko 11mo ago
[flagged]
- agumonkey 11mo ago
  is grokipedia allowed ??
- metalliqaz 11mo ago
  What is this abomination? "Fact-checked by Grok" So... it's a rip-off of Wikipedia edited by an LLM that was specifically designed for misinformation by the world's richest troll? Do I have that right? Cancer.
  - Dig1t 11mo ago
    Care to point out anything on the page that’s factually incorrect? It sounds like you consider it to be cancer because someone with whom you don’t agree is involved with it, but that doesn’t really provide a good reason why the article should be dismissed without even reading it.
    - tgv 11mo ago
      I can't read the link, as the post has been deleted, but even when everything in a text is factually correct, it still can be misleading. Fact-checking by an LLM is however not acceptable to many. They have no responsibility, and Grok is known to have explicit biases.
      - DonHopkins 11mo ago
        > Grok is known to have explicit biases And of course a pro-white-supremacist biased LLM is going to falsely exonerate a racist like James Watson with the same pro-racist biases that Elon Musk programmed it with. And timonoko also regularly posts Grok generated AI slop bullshit, and even pretends to be a FORTH programmer by having Grog generate code that doesn't do anything like what he claims it does, which should be obvious if he even glanced at the code he was posting. I'd hate to see the kind of Grok-generated buggy crap he unwittingly checks into source code control. It's strange that timonoko is so compelled to virtue signal so often that he shares Musk's and Grok's racist views. But at least now we know what kind of person he is.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
runnr_az 11mo ago
97 years old... must've had good genes...
- ProllyInfamous 11mo ago
  Oh eu... Seriously though: RIP to an incredible contributor to both Science & future of humanity.
- TacticalCoder 11mo ago
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flkiwi 11mo ago
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- dekhn 11mo ago
  both of them were jerks.
- saghm 11mo ago
  I'm not sure what your definition of "nice" is, but mine doesn't include saying most of what's here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Comments_on_race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Comments_on_race
  - flkiwi 11mo ago
    There was irony involved.
  - gaogao 11mo ago
    > In 2007, the scientist, who once worked at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory, told the Times newspaper that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". > While his hope was that everybody was equal, he added, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true". Yeah, pretty racist
    - LarsDu88 11mo ago
      In 2013, I sat in on one of his talks at the Salk Institute. This guy was one of the most openly racist and sexist people I've ever seen. He spent 5 minutes shitting on the former NIH head for not funding him because she was a "Hot blooded Irish woman" This is the sort of turn-of-century Mr. Burns type racism that I don't think most Americans even remember.
    - lordnacho 11mo ago
      I always wonder with that kind of racist explanation, how the line of reasoning goes. Suppose for the sake of argument, there's a place where everyone has 10 IQ points less, on average, than the West. The Flynn effect is about 14 points over a few decades. How do you square those things? Did the West not have a society a few decades ago? Is there some reason you can't have civilization with slightly dumber people? There was a time when kids were malnourished in the west, and possibly dumber as a result. Also, not everyone in society makes decisions. It tends to be very few people, and nobody thinks politicians are intelligent either. I've never heard an explanation of intelligence that had any actual real-world impact on a scale that matters to society. The explanation would have to have quite a lot of depth to it, as you have to come up with some sort of theory connecting how people do on a test to whatever you think makes a good society.
sharadov 11mo ago
Wasn't his partner Crick high on LSD when he discovered the double-helix structure of DNA?
- shevy-java 11mo ago
  I am not sure. What I do know is that they used to go to pubs, so they probably used to drink pints.
  - robotresearcher 11mo ago
    Specifically The Eagle in Cambridge. Close to Kings College, and a cosy and storied pub it is. The back bar has photos and soot-signatures of air crews from all over the world, a tradition that started during WWII.
- jacksnipe 11mo ago
  You mean plagiarized it?
  - echelon 11mo ago
    Franklin and her grad student produced key experimental data that corrected and confirmed the model that Watson and Crick were already hard at work on. Franklin's experimental data wasn't the only key experimental data, but it was pivotal. Franklin could have elucidated the structure of DNA herself, but she was working on other problems. Watson and Crick were head's deep in the problem and were building stick figure models of all the atoms and bonds. They synthesized the collection of experimental measurements they had to correct and confirm their model.
    - culi 11mo ago
      This is not an honest depiction of the full picture. At the time, scientists already suspected a corkscrew structure but there was disagreement between what that looked like or whether it was double or triple helixed. Franklin's key experiments resulted in the Photograph 51 that almost single-handedly proved the structure. Before Franklin could publish her data, Wilkins—without the consent or knowledge of Franklin—took that photo and showed Watson. Watson later stated that his mouth dropped when he saw the photo. It proved to him the double helix structure and that guided the rest of their modeling/work. At that point they knew what they were proving. Two months later they'd advanced their model far enough and rushed to publication before Franklin could be credited with her own work Not only did they use Franklin's work without her consent, not only did they not credit her, but they even belittled her in their books and talks. They even referred to her as "Rosy", a name she never used herself.
dupdup 11mo ago
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LarsDu88 11mo ago
Years ago I had the pleasure of sitting in on one of his talks on longevity. Other than the casual racism and sexism (Watson is the only person in my entire life I've seen say racist things about Irish people), he made a big comment on Linus Pauling's obsession towards the end of his life regarding Vitamin C consumption. The main idea is that primates such as humans and chimps lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C eons ago, and as a result evolved excellent color vision for finding fruits and in some cases hunting other animals. Pauling supplemented his diet assiduously with Vitamin C and lived to be 93 years old. Watson has now beaten this record. Maybe it was the Vitamin C, but maybe it was the casual racism and objectivation of female coworkers and subordinates... Who knows?
- Aurornis 11mo ago
  Linus Pauling's obsession with Vitamin C is a famous case of an accomplished scientist getting sidetracked with baseless medical quackery. Even during his lifetime there were clinical trials including by the Mayo Clinic that failed to support his claims, but he rejected them all because he was convinced he was right and they were wrong. Linus Pauling was also famously in favor of eugenics directed at African Americans, proposing things like compulsory sickle cell anemia testing for African Americans and forehead tattoos for carriers of the sickle cell gene. So maybe not a surprise that James Watson would vibe with Linus Pauling's legacy.
  - moralestapia 11mo ago
    >an accomplished scientist getting sidetracked with baseless medical quackery I would still take that over being an unaccomplished nobody getting sidetracked with baseless medical quackery.
    - manquer 11mo ago
      Arguably it is worse. Society tends to transfer skills/talent/achievement/luck in one field and assume those attributes hold good in all fields because they were successful in one area, even if there is no justification, so their beliefs tend to carry lot more weight and influence than the average joe and hold the field back. Talented people when sidetracked may no longer be as effective contributors, for example Einstein's dogmatic beliefs in aspects of quantum mechanics or similar other topics likely partially contributed to his diminished contributions in later part of his life. Ideally the best case is balance between being courageous to hold any kind of belief strongly even if its not conventional wisdom, but also at the same be willing to change in the face of strong evidence.
jaaustin 11mo ago
I want to use this opportunity to shill possibly the best history of science ever written: The Eighth Day of Creation [1], which describes the history of structural biology, including Watson’s various contributions. He comes across as a precocious asshole, not without talent but with a stronger eye towards self-advancement. [1] https://www.cshlpress.com/default.tpl?cart=17625586661954464894&fromlink=T&linkaction=full&linksortby=oop_title&--eqSKUdatarq=294 https://www.cshlpress.com/default.tpl?cart=17625586661954464...
- the__alchemist 11mo ago
  This book slaps. Constructed from interviews the author had with the great biologists and chemists of the era.
- minnowguy 11mo ago
  Amazing book. Tied with _The Making of the Atomic Bomb_ as my favorite non-fiction book.
  - sho_hn 11mo ago
    Damn. I love Making, and I'm currently on a Nick Lane/biology bender. Eigth Day is new to me. On my way to the e-book store of my persuasion ...
- aoasadflkjafl 11mo ago
  I am adjacent to the field, have read old perspectives, and have worked closely with some of that milieu's students, so that I have gotten my share of gossip from octogenerians who still pick sides in all of this. To spread some of that gossip, one opinion worth mentioning is that the only "real genius" among that group (including Franklin and Wilkins) was actually Crick, and that Watson was precocious but that his real brilliance was clinging to him. It's probably worth mentioning that being a 30 something doing a PhD seems to be a big advantage, though, especially if it's after a decade of doing physics research. Edit: Watson is also personally responsible for convincing one of the most unethical and conniving scientists I know to go into science rather than medicine, so I have additional reasons to be suspicious, given assholes propagate assholes. If you're a Crick, for God's sake, stop taking pity, and don't tolerate Watsons even if you feel bad for them or they treat you in particular very well, have some standards and be a Stoner.
sega_sai 11mo ago
He clearly was an exceptional scientist, but also likely an a*hole. Also unfortunately when people get older, many people's negative qualities are amplified. That seem to have happened with Watson and has tarnished his legacy.
- kulahan 11mo ago
  Who cares? Lots of assholes have done lots of great things. Some of the most important people in history have been assholes.
  - edmundsauto 11mo ago
    I care. His legacy is tarnished by being a bad human being, when it is pretty easy to be a decent person. It’s worth recognizing the accomplishment without lauding the person. Especially when the accomplishment is built on basically stolen/unacknowledged work. I’d rather have more Rosalynd Franklin in the world than more James Watson.
    - jojobas 11mo ago
      The work was given to him by Wilkins who was in his right to do it.
    - peterfirefly 11mo ago
      It was Gosling's photo. Ask yourself why we talk so much about Franklin and so little about Gosling. Perhaps the world is, in fact, NOT as discriminatory against women as you think. (There is also plenty of evidence that Franklin could be quite unpleasant. If that tarnishes Watson, then it certainly also tarnishes her. What is good for the gander is good for the goose.)
      - soulofmischief 11mo ago
        How unpleasant, exactly? Watson was an outspoken racist whose remarks led to him losing most of his connections and opportunities, to the point where he had to auction off his Nobel prize in order to survive.
khazhoux 11mo ago
Just found this app: https://www.roma1.infn.it/~dileorob/content/apps/photo51.php https://www.roma1.infn.it/~dileorob/content/apps/photo51.php I've always wanted to see how the structure maps to x-ray diffraction pattern in Photograph 51. Pretty neat!
handelaar 11mo ago
[flagged]
sidcool 11mo ago
RIP you legend.
BrandoElFollito 11mo ago
It is sad, however, that he stole the research of Franklin and by today standards should be stripped from his honors. And by today's standards, I mean those applied to everyday scientists, not the "important" ones that should not be disturbed. A terrible person indeed.
- jadamson 11mo ago
  He didn't steal anything. Franklin's PhD student took the famous Photo 51, Franklin was credited in the paper [1], and there's much more besides [2]: "We are much indebted to Dr. Jerry Donohue for constant advice and criticism, especially on interatomic distances. We have also been stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished experimental results and ideas of Dr. M. H. F. Wilkins, Dr. R. E. Franklin and their co-workers at King’s College, London." [1] https://dosequis.colorado.edu/Courses/MethodsLogic/papers/WatsonCrick1953.pdf https://dosequis.colorado.edu/Courses/MethodsLogic/papers/Wa... [2] https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rosalind-franklin-dna-structure-watson-crick https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rosalind-franklin-dna-st...
  - BrandoElFollito 11mo ago
    Ah yes, he just took Rosy's pictures (she doe snot deserve her full nale) and then went on discussing what she wears. I am a man who did his PhD in the 2000's. If my supervisor took my data and went on publishing them under his name, not only would I have kicked him in the ass publicly, but I would make my personal vendetta to crap his academic life. She was a woman (with a not-so-nice character), in the 50s, so this would not have flown, obviously. Let's not pretend he was not a crappy person in the name of a virgin academic world.
    - jadamson 11mo ago
      > If my supervisor took my data and went on publishing them under his name, not only would I have kicked him in the ass publicly Setting your bizarre ranting aside, you appear to have misread - Franklin was the supervisor. It was her PhD student Raymond Gosling who took Photo 51: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_51 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_51
morgengold 11mo ago
Is someone able to tell me what about the genetics, race and IQ stuff is backed by evidence and what part is pure prejudice?
- nikanj 11mo ago
  Probably not, because the evidence itself is not created in a vacuum. There is no objective way to measure IQ "stuff", so depending on the methods picked you get wildly different results
  - focusgroup0 11mo ago
    >There is no objective way to measure IQ "stuff" SAT + GPA are proxies for "IQ stuff" and are highly predictive of future academic success: https://international.collegeboard.org/toolkit/sat-policy/understanding-sat/predictive-validity https://international.collegeboard.org/toolkit/sat-policy/un...
    - y0eswddl 11mo ago
      so is zip code...
    - cwmma 11mo ago
      So first off, no shit the college board things the SAT measures good stuff, it's their test. Second nobody said the SATs don't measure something, but that something is ability to take an SAT test which is highly predictive of how well you can take other tests. Which as our society puts lots of stock into tests isn't nothing but it's not measuring anything inate.
- graemep 11mo ago
  Given he said it in 2007, pretty much no evidence to back it up. Genetic differences between races are small compared to those within races, so much so that the concept of races does not really stand up scientifically. He seemed to have been basing the comments on IQ tests, which are not really a good way of comparing groups of people with different cultures or education. They score an individual within a group of comparable individuals. It is worth noting that if he had made the same statement in the first half of the 20th century it would have been mainstream science, but even then it was not so much supported by evidence but supported by a lack of evidence showing otherwise.
focusgroup0 11mo ago
[flagged]
- soVeryTired 11mo ago
  There's no place for you here you lunatic
  - focusgroup0 11mo ago
    Any facts you can cite to disprove his findings?
- halperter 11mo ago
  This feels like one of those engagement-farming bots you see on xitter. What a shame.
  - focusgroup0 11mo ago
    I am very much real, you can check my comment history. Do you have any substantive critiques of Mr. Watson and his scientific research?
more_corn 11mo ago
Didn’t he steal the discovery from the woman who actually took the photo?
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- peterfirefly 11mo ago
  No, but feminists and white knights maintain that the photo that was actually taken by a man (Gosling) was taken by a woman (Franklin) and that she (Franklin) hadn't given permission for them to steal the photo. They didn't steal it, they saw it briefly and immediately knew what it meant (because they had been preparing hard and already knew most aspects of the structure of DNA) and they were allowed to see it (Wilkins who showed it to them had the right to do so). Neither Franklin nor Gosling understood what the photo meant. Edit: wrote "Wilkinson" by msitake.
isodev 11mo ago
James Watson, who helped discover Rosalind Franklin’s notes and notebooks, is dead at 97
mywrathacademia 11mo ago
He will be remembered as a racist. He’ll be joining other racists.

346 points by granzymes 11mo ago

https://archive.ph/KaTaT https://archive.ph/KaTaT

https://archive.today/KaTaT https://archive.today/KaTaT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson

hiddencost 11mo ago

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5

TheRealNGenius 11mo ago

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dsr_ 11mo ago

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AlgorithmicTime 11mo ago
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boxerab 11mo ago
Yes, how she was treated by Crick and Watson was scandalous.
- ricardo81 11mo ago
  That's what I read on the surface. Any useful links for the context?
  - dekhn 11mo ago
    The best I've read is "The Eighth Day Of Creation" (which is amazing book beyond the part that covers the elucidation of the structure of DNA). He references multiple internal data sources that establish the process by which Gosling's photo made it to Watson and Crick. Of all the accounts I've read, it seems to be the most factual. I think it's also worth reading Watson's account ("The Double Helix") and the book that originally brought the most attention to the treatment of Franklin ("Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA") I believe this article has some updated results: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/science/rosalind-franklin-dna.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/science/rosalind-franklin... and it appears there was an earlier book before Dark Lady, referenced here: https://www.nytimes.com/1975/09/21/archives/rosalind-franklin-and-dna.html https://www.nytimes.com/1975/09/21/archives/rosalind-frankli...
echelon 11mo ago
That's reframing things too much. There's the experimental data, and then there's the theoretical model. Watson and Crick were already working on a theoretical double helix model prior to discovering Franklin's x-ray crystallography data, but at the time their model was wrong. Franklin produced the x-ray crystallographic data that completed the picture and produced the correct working model. Franklin could have also figured out the double helix model herself using her own data and extensive crystallography background, but Watson and Crick were laser focused on only this one problem and beat her to it. Franklin was robbed of the recognition she deserved, and Watson and Crick should have co-credited her at minimum. But it's incorrect to say that Watson and Crick weren't about to figure it out themselves. Franklin tragically died of cancer a few years after the discovery and was ineligible to receive a posthumous Nobel Prize. She was only 37.
- dekhn 11mo ago
  She was credited, see the original W&C paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/171737a0 https://www.nature.com/articles/171737a0 at the end is an acknowledgement. She also has a related article in the same issue of Nature. I wouldn't be so sure that Franklin would have figured out that DNA was an antiparallel double helix. She knew it was a helix from the fibre diffraction pattern, but I don't think just anybody would have had the insight W&C did about it being a double helix and antiparallel, which immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material. However, we can't know for sure. Edit, in re-reading https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5 I see that she did suspect the DNA structure contained multiple chains. So my statement about about the double helix aspect was incomplete/incorrect.
  - JamesAdir 11mo ago
    This is the first time I found out that she was credited. Thanks for that.
- culi 11mo ago
  This is not an honest depiction. Watson and Crick didn't just use her stolen work to "confirm" what they were working on. It was the entire basis of the rest of their work Wilkins was her colleague but considered her an "assistant". That's why he felt entitled to take Franklin's Photograph 51 without telling her. It took Franklin another year or so complete the analysis of Photograph 51 and map the position of every atom. Watson and Crick used Photograph 51 (again, without Franklin's knowledge or consent) and did a quick analysis of the data that they used to build a few potential structures Yes, it's possible Watson and Crick would've eventually arrived at the right answer but we really have no idea how far off they were. Franklin's work didn't just "support" their work. It was the very basis of it after that point. Franklin's work on the structure of viruses also led directly to ANOTHER nobel prize of a colleague in 1982 (Aaron Klug). It's hard to understate how tremendous the impact of her work has been.
_dain_ 11mo ago
>Codiscoverer of Rosalind Franklin's notebooks. this is a preposterously reductive and dishonest account of what happened.
- Alex2037 11mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae
Jun8 11mo ago
This is an ignorant take on what really happened. There are many sources online to better understand what happened, you might want to start with the Nature article: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5 If you want to attack Watson, his comments on race later in life is a better angle.
- throwawaymaths 11mo ago
  FWIW watson was incredibly racist against scots-irish americans, repeatedly calling them dumb in his lectures. that doesn't necessarily excuse his casual racism, but i would assume he meant to imply that people can overcome their genetic ingroups' statistical predilections
  - thot_experiment 11mo ago
    lmao that's an extremely charitable take that doesn't comport with other racist bullshit he said
    - throwawaymaths 11mo ago
      have you actually been to a talk he's given or are you just aping what other people report?
    - catigula 11mo ago
      What specificially did he say and why did it upset you? I am genuinely curious, I could google it easily enough, but it's actually more interesting why people have a certain impression of things and how strongly they've interrogated the accuracy of that impression.
      - cogman10 11mo ago
        > He says that he is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really", and I know that this "hot potato" is going to be difficult to address. His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true". He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because "there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don't promote them when they haven't succeeded at the lower level". He writes that "there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so". [1] Seems pretty clear that he thought black people had a genetic disadvantage compared to white people. And "all the testing" is simply wrong. What we've found is that Africa is the most genetically diverse area humanity has [2]. To generalize capabilities based on genetics is simply foolish as the pool is far more vast than what you'd find in England, for example. [1] https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/the-elementary-dna-of-dr-watson-gllb6w2vpdr https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/the-elementary-d... [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4067985/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4067985/
NedF 11mo ago
[dead]

mellosouls 11mo ago

Plenty of non-paywall links that would be better here eg https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8xdypnz32o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8xdypnz32o

nerf0 11mo ago

What's with the "is dead at"? I'm not a native speaker but it seems a bit disrespectful.

echelon 11mo ago
This is native English and quite colloquial. It's been used in widespread use in newspapers and in the media since forever. From just recently: > James Watson, Co-Discoverer of the Structure of DNA, Is Dead at 97 > ‘90s rapper dead at 51: ‘He went out in style’ > Anthony Jackson, Master of the Electric Bass, Is Dead at 73 > Chen Ning Yang, Nobel-Winning Physicist, Is Dead at 103 > Ace Frehley, a Founding Member of Kiss, Is Dead at 74 > Ruth A. Lawrence, Doctor Who Championed Breastfeeding, Is Dead at 101 > Soo Catwoman, ‘the Female Face of Punk,’ Is Dead at 70 More famous headlines: > Jimmy Carter, Peacemaking President Amid Crises, Is Dead at 100 [1] > Nancy Reagan, Former First Lady, Is Dead At Age 94 [2] > Dick Cheney Is Dead at 84 [3] > Ozzy Osbourne Is Dead At 76 Years Old, Just Weeks After The Final Black Sabbath Concert [4] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/29/us/politics/jimmy-carter-dead.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/29/us/politics/jimmy-carter-... [2] https://www.scrippsnews.com/obituaries/nancy-reagan-former-first-lady-is-dead-at-age-94 https://www.scrippsnews.com/obituaries/nancy-reagan-former-f... [3] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/dick-cheney-dies https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/dick-cheney-dies [4] https://uproxx.com/indie/ozzy-osbourne-dead-76/ https://uproxx.com/indie/ozzy-osbourne-dead-76/
muskyFelon 11mo ago
Its not always included. I think they added it to highlight how old he was.97 years is quite the accomplishment, so I don't interpret it as disrespectful.
observationist 11mo ago
It's a way of communicating his age; it's standard phrasing for American english. No disrespect is implied or intended. There are generally no holds barred when it comes to dunking on people that are truly disliked, and when newspapers want to disrespect someone, they will leave no room for doubt (there are some awfully hilarious examples of such obituaries throughout American history.) "Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States, dead at 56" It's meant for headline brevity, replacing things like "has died at age 97" and is standard practice.

timonoko 11mo ago

[flagged]

agumonkey 11mo ago
is grokipedia allowed ??
metalliqaz 11mo ago
What is this abomination? "Fact-checked by Grok" So... it's a rip-off of Wikipedia edited by an LLM that was specifically designed for misinformation by the world's richest troll? Do I have that right? Cancer.
- Dig1t 11mo ago
  Care to point out anything on the page that’s factually incorrect? It sounds like you consider it to be cancer because someone with whom you don’t agree is involved with it, but that doesn’t really provide a good reason why the article should be dismissed without even reading it.
  - tgv 11mo ago
    I can't read the link, as the post has been deleted, but even when everything in a text is factually correct, it still can be misleading. Fact-checking by an LLM is however not acceptable to many. They have no responsibility, and Grok is known to have explicit biases.
    - DonHopkins 11mo ago
      > Grok is known to have explicit biases And of course a pro-white-supremacist biased LLM is going to falsely exonerate a racist like James Watson with the same pro-racist biases that Elon Musk programmed it with. And timonoko also regularly posts Grok generated AI slop bullshit, and even pretends to be a FORTH programmer by having Grog generate code that doesn't do anything like what he claims it does, which should be obvious if he even glanced at the code he was posting. I'd hate to see the kind of Grok-generated buggy crap he unwittingly checks into source code control. It's strange that timonoko is so compelled to virtue signal so often that he shares Musk's and Grok's racist views. But at least now we know what kind of person he is.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

runnr_az 11mo ago

97 years old... must've had good genes...

ProllyInfamous 11mo ago
Oh eu... Seriously though: RIP to an incredible contributor to both Science & future of humanity.
TacticalCoder 11mo ago
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flkiwi 11mo ago

[flagged]

dekhn 11mo ago
both of them were jerks.
saghm 11mo ago
I'm not sure what your definition of "nice" is, but mine doesn't include saying most of what's here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Comments_on_race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Comments_on_race
- flkiwi 11mo ago
  There was irony involved.
- gaogao 11mo ago
  > In 2007, the scientist, who once worked at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory, told the Times newspaper that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". > While his hope was that everybody was equal, he added, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true". Yeah, pretty racist
  - LarsDu88 11mo ago
    In 2013, I sat in on one of his talks at the Salk Institute. This guy was one of the most openly racist and sexist people I've ever seen. He spent 5 minutes shitting on the former NIH head for not funding him because she was a "Hot blooded Irish woman" This is the sort of turn-of-century Mr. Burns type racism that I don't think most Americans even remember.
  - lordnacho 11mo ago
    I always wonder with that kind of racist explanation, how the line of reasoning goes. Suppose for the sake of argument, there's a place where everyone has 10 IQ points less, on average, than the West. The Flynn effect is about 14 points over a few decades. How do you square those things? Did the West not have a society a few decades ago? Is there some reason you can't have civilization with slightly dumber people? There was a time when kids were malnourished in the west, and possibly dumber as a result. Also, not everyone in society makes decisions. It tends to be very few people, and nobody thinks politicians are intelligent either. I've never heard an explanation of intelligence that had any actual real-world impact on a scale that matters to society. The explanation would have to have quite a lot of depth to it, as you have to come up with some sort of theory connecting how people do on a test to whatever you think makes a good society.

sharadov 11mo ago

Wasn't his partner Crick high on LSD when he discovered the double-helix structure of DNA?

shevy-java 11mo ago
I am not sure. What I do know is that they used to go to pubs, so they probably used to drink pints.
- robotresearcher 11mo ago
  Specifically The Eagle in Cambridge. Close to Kings College, and a cosy and storied pub it is. The back bar has photos and soot-signatures of air crews from all over the world, a tradition that started during WWII.
jacksnipe 11mo ago
You mean plagiarized it?
- echelon 11mo ago
  Franklin and her grad student produced key experimental data that corrected and confirmed the model that Watson and Crick were already hard at work on. Franklin's experimental data wasn't the only key experimental data, but it was pivotal. Franklin could have elucidated the structure of DNA herself, but she was working on other problems. Watson and Crick were head's deep in the problem and were building stick figure models of all the atoms and bonds. They synthesized the collection of experimental measurements they had to correct and confirm their model.
  - culi 11mo ago
    This is not an honest depiction of the full picture. At the time, scientists already suspected a corkscrew structure but there was disagreement between what that looked like or whether it was double or triple helixed. Franklin's key experiments resulted in the Photograph 51 that almost single-handedly proved the structure. Before Franklin could publish her data, Wilkins—without the consent or knowledge of Franklin—took that photo and showed Watson. Watson later stated that his mouth dropped when he saw the photo. It proved to him the double helix structure and that guided the rest of their modeling/work. At that point they knew what they were proving. Two months later they'd advanced their model far enough and rushed to publication before Franklin could be credited with her own work Not only did they use Franklin's work without her consent, not only did they not credit her, but they even belittled her in their books and talks. They even referred to her as "Rosy", a name she never used herself.

dupdup 11mo ago

[flagged]

LarsDu88 11mo ago

Years ago I had the pleasure of sitting in on one of his talks on longevity. Other than the casual racism and sexism (Watson is the only person in my entire life I've seen say racist things about Irish people), he made a big comment on Linus Pauling's obsession towards the end of his life regarding Vitamin C consumption. The main idea is that primates such as humans and chimps lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C eons ago, and as a result evolved excellent color vision for finding fruits and in some cases hunting other animals. Pauling supplemented his diet assiduously with Vitamin C and lived to be 93 years old. Watson has now beaten this record. Maybe it was the Vitamin C, but maybe it was the casual racism and objectivation of female coworkers and subordinates... Who knows?

Aurornis 11mo ago
Linus Pauling's obsession with Vitamin C is a famous case of an accomplished scientist getting sidetracked with baseless medical quackery. Even during his lifetime there were clinical trials including by the Mayo Clinic that failed to support his claims, but he rejected them all because he was convinced he was right and they were wrong. Linus Pauling was also famously in favor of eugenics directed at African Americans, proposing things like compulsory sickle cell anemia testing for African Americans and forehead tattoos for carriers of the sickle cell gene. So maybe not a surprise that James Watson would vibe with Linus Pauling's legacy.
- moralestapia 11mo ago
  >an accomplished scientist getting sidetracked with baseless medical quackery I would still take that over being an unaccomplished nobody getting sidetracked with baseless medical quackery.
  - manquer 11mo ago
    Arguably it is worse. Society tends to transfer skills/talent/achievement/luck in one field and assume those attributes hold good in all fields because they were successful in one area, even if there is no justification, so their beliefs tend to carry lot more weight and influence than the average joe and hold the field back. Talented people when sidetracked may no longer be as effective contributors, for example Einstein's dogmatic beliefs in aspects of quantum mechanics or similar other topics likely partially contributed to his diminished contributions in later part of his life. Ideally the best case is balance between being courageous to hold any kind of belief strongly even if its not conventional wisdom, but also at the same be willing to change in the face of strong evidence.

jaaustin 11mo ago

I want to use this opportunity to shill possibly the best history of science ever written: The Eighth Day of Creation [1], which describes the history of structural biology, including Watson’s various contributions. He comes across as a precocious asshole, not without talent but with a stronger eye towards self-advancement. [1] https://www.cshlpress.com/default.tpl?cart=17625586661954464894&fromlink=T&linkaction=full&linksortby=oop_title&--eqSKUdatarq=294 https://www.cshlpress.com/default.tpl?cart=17625586661954464...

the__alchemist 11mo ago
This book slaps. Constructed from interviews the author had with the great biologists and chemists of the era.
minnowguy 11mo ago
Amazing book. Tied with _The Making of the Atomic Bomb_ as my favorite non-fiction book.
- sho_hn 11mo ago
  Damn. I love Making, and I'm currently on a Nick Lane/biology bender. Eigth Day is new to me. On my way to the e-book store of my persuasion ...
aoasadflkjafl 11mo ago
I am adjacent to the field, have read old perspectives, and have worked closely with some of that milieu's students, so that I have gotten my share of gossip from octogenerians who still pick sides in all of this. To spread some of that gossip, one opinion worth mentioning is that the only "real genius" among that group (including Franklin and Wilkins) was actually Crick, and that Watson was precocious but that his real brilliance was clinging to him. It's probably worth mentioning that being a 30 something doing a PhD seems to be a big advantage, though, especially if it's after a decade of doing physics research. Edit: Watson is also personally responsible for convincing one of the most unethical and conniving scientists I know to go into science rather than medicine, so I have additional reasons to be suspicious, given assholes propagate assholes. If you're a Crick, for God's sake, stop taking pity, and don't tolerate Watsons even if you feel bad for them or they treat you in particular very well, have some standards and be a Stoner.

sega_sai 11mo ago

He clearly was an exceptional scientist, but also likely an a*hole. Also unfortunately when people get older, many people's negative qualities are amplified. That seem to have happened with Watson and has tarnished his legacy.

kulahan 11mo ago
Who cares? Lots of assholes have done lots of great things. Some of the most important people in history have been assholes.
- edmundsauto 11mo ago
  I care. His legacy is tarnished by being a bad human being, when it is pretty easy to be a decent person. It’s worth recognizing the accomplishment without lauding the person. Especially when the accomplishment is built on basically stolen/unacknowledged work. I’d rather have more Rosalynd Franklin in the world than more James Watson.
  - jojobas 11mo ago
    The work was given to him by Wilkins who was in his right to do it.
  - peterfirefly 11mo ago
    It was Gosling's photo. Ask yourself why we talk so much about Franklin and so little about Gosling. Perhaps the world is, in fact, NOT as discriminatory against women as you think. (There is also plenty of evidence that Franklin could be quite unpleasant. If that tarnishes Watson, then it certainly also tarnishes her. What is good for the gander is good for the goose.)
    - soulofmischief 11mo ago
      How unpleasant, exactly? Watson was an outspoken racist whose remarks led to him losing most of his connections and opportunities, to the point where he had to auction off his Nobel prize in order to survive.

khazhoux 11mo ago

Just found this app: https://www.roma1.infn.it/~dileorob/content/apps/photo51.php https://www.roma1.infn.it/~dileorob/content/apps/photo51.php I've always wanted to see how the structure maps to x-ray diffraction pattern in Photograph 51. Pretty neat!

handelaar 11mo ago

[flagged]

sidcool 11mo ago

RIP you legend.

BrandoElFollito 11mo ago

It is sad, however, that he stole the research of Franklin and by today standards should be stripped from his honors. And by today's standards, I mean those applied to everyday scientists, not the "important" ones that should not be disturbed. A terrible person indeed.

jadamson 11mo ago
He didn't steal anything. Franklin's PhD student took the famous Photo 51, Franklin was credited in the paper [1], and there's much more besides [2]: "We are much indebted to Dr. Jerry Donohue for constant advice and criticism, especially on interatomic distances. We have also been stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished experimental results and ideas of Dr. M. H. F. Wilkins, Dr. R. E. Franklin and their co-workers at King’s College, London." [1] https://dosequis.colorado.edu/Courses/MethodsLogic/papers/WatsonCrick1953.pdf https://dosequis.colorado.edu/Courses/MethodsLogic/papers/Wa... [2] https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rosalind-franklin-dna-structure-watson-crick https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rosalind-franklin-dna-st...
- BrandoElFollito 11mo ago
  Ah yes, he just took Rosy's pictures (she doe snot deserve her full nale) and then went on discussing what she wears. I am a man who did his PhD in the 2000's. If my supervisor took my data and went on publishing them under his name, not only would I have kicked him in the ass publicly, but I would make my personal vendetta to crap his academic life. She was a woman (with a not-so-nice character), in the 50s, so this would not have flown, obviously. Let's not pretend he was not a crappy person in the name of a virgin academic world.
  - jadamson 11mo ago
    > If my supervisor took my data and went on publishing them under his name, not only would I have kicked him in the ass publicly Setting your bizarre ranting aside, you appear to have misread - Franklin was the supervisor. It was her PhD student Raymond Gosling who took Photo 51: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_51 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_51

morgengold 11mo ago

Is someone able to tell me what about the genetics, race and IQ stuff is backed by evidence and what part is pure prejudice?

nikanj 11mo ago
Probably not, because the evidence itself is not created in a vacuum. There is no objective way to measure IQ "stuff", so depending on the methods picked you get wildly different results
- focusgroup0 11mo ago
  >There is no objective way to measure IQ "stuff" SAT + GPA are proxies for "IQ stuff" and are highly predictive of future academic success: https://international.collegeboard.org/toolkit/sat-policy/understanding-sat/predictive-validity https://international.collegeboard.org/toolkit/sat-policy/un...
  - y0eswddl 11mo ago
    so is zip code...
  - cwmma 11mo ago
    So first off, no shit the college board things the SAT measures good stuff, it's their test. Second nobody said the SATs don't measure something, but that something is ability to take an SAT test which is highly predictive of how well you can take other tests. Which as our society puts lots of stock into tests isn't nothing but it's not measuring anything inate.
graemep 11mo ago
Given he said it in 2007, pretty much no evidence to back it up. Genetic differences between races are small compared to those within races, so much so that the concept of races does not really stand up scientifically. He seemed to have been basing the comments on IQ tests, which are not really a good way of comparing groups of people with different cultures or education. They score an individual within a group of comparable individuals. It is worth noting that if he had made the same statement in the first half of the 20th century it would have been mainstream science, but even then it was not so much supported by evidence but supported by a lack of evidence showing otherwise.

focusgroup0 11mo ago

[flagged]

soVeryTired 11mo ago
There's no place for you here you lunatic
- focusgroup0 11mo ago
  Any facts you can cite to disprove his findings?
halperter 11mo ago
This feels like one of those engagement-farming bots you see on xitter. What a shame.
- focusgroup0 11mo ago
  I am very much real, you can check my comment history. Do you have any substantive critiques of Mr. Watson and his scientific research?

more_corn 11mo ago

Didn’t he steal the discovery from the woman who actually took the photo?

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
peterfirefly 11mo ago
No, but feminists and white knights maintain that the photo that was actually taken by a man (Gosling) was taken by a woman (Franklin) and that she (Franklin) hadn't given permission for them to steal the photo. They didn't steal it, they saw it briefly and immediately knew what it meant (because they had been preparing hard and already knew most aspects of the structure of DNA) and they were allowed to see it (Wilkins who showed it to them had the right to do so). Neither Franklin nor Gosling understood what the photo meant. Edit: wrote "Wilkinson" by msitake.

isodev 11mo ago

James Watson, who helped discover Rosalind Franklin’s notes and notebooks, is dead at 97

mywrathacademia 11mo ago

He will be remembered as a racist. He’ll be joining other racists.