Letters
By Science News
To their credit
In Tom Siegfried’s article, “The Top 10 science news stories since time began” (SN: 1/2/10, p. 2), No. 5 is “Watson and Crick elucidate DNA’s double helix structure, 1953.” I am annoyed that, as usual in articles about the early understanding of DNA, Rosalind Franklin’s name has been left off. Even Watson and Crick admitted that without her work they could not have been successful.
Ted Coskey, Seattle, Wash.
Tom Siegfried’s list of the Top 10 “science news favorites from the dawn of civilization” includes the comment that “analyses of new science should be undertaken with some caution, and a sense of history.” Certainly, as Siegfried notes, one can argue with the items he chose for his list or the order in which he placed them, but if this list is to be presented with a proper sense of history, it should not repeat the mistakes of the past in providing proper credit.
With regard to No. 10, nuclear fission: History tells us that Lise Meitner (with her nephew Otto Frisch) elucidated nuclear fission (by explaining what Hahn and Strassmann had observed, but signally failed to explain). We know this now (with the benefit of some history) despite the Nobel committee’s overlooking both Meitner (unconscionable) and Frisch (probably unfair).
Science News Letter’s publication of Hahn and Strassmann’s “discovery” at the time of the confirmation of Meitner’s theory by Frisch is simply the error of the contemporaries in not recognizing Meitner’s pivotal role in establishing the theoretical underpinnings of fission. Moreover, it was Meitner who recognized the potential for a fission chain reaction. Meitner’s name belongs there with Hahn and Strassmann (and Frisch’s arguably does too).
As to No. 5, DNA’s structure: Though Watson and Crick never gave her any credit (and, indeed, showed a lack of class and intellectual honesty by disparaging her abilities and work), it is abundantly clear that Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction images were critical in guiding them to their proposed structure for the DNA helix. Her insightful criticism of Watson and Crick’s first proposed structure for DNA (which had the base pairs on the outside rather than the inside of the helix) is also a historical fact. The Nobel committee gets off on this one on the technicality that Franklin was dead by the time the award was made — and the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously — but there’s no evidence that the committee would have included her if she had been living. But, without question, Franklin should be listed along with Watson and Crick by anyone who claims to be listing the discoverers of DNA’s structure with a proper “sense of history.”
John M. Craig, Orem, Utah