Comment by skew-aberration
13 hours ago
Clickbait headline which misframes the controversy, to nobody's benefit.
Helical DNA was the strongest candidate by 51, in part because earlier and cruder X-ray diffraction images had existed for some time (10+ years) and were suggestive of this structure. All of the scientists in question, and many others, collaborated on that possibility at that time, and long before 'Photo 51'. It was not a surprise, but rather the focus of their work.
Franklin was making the famous improved images with the explicit intent of revealing or disproving the helical structure. She and her lab produced the most definitive evidence for helical B-DNA (Photo 51) in early 52, but during 52 the conclusion was still a matter of debate (and humor) amongst them - in particular Franklin was not convinced that A-DNA was helical. From Wiki:
> In July 1952, as a practical joke on Wilkins (who frequently expressed his view that both forms of DNA were helical), Franklin and Gosling produced a funeral notice regretting the 'death' of helical A-DNA
This left the molecular structure and number of strands as open questions. Triple helix models had been attempted by Pauling, Watson and Crick at that time. Watson and Crick though were first to develop the successful double helix model with antiparallel base pairs in early 1953. It is likely that Franklin had also come to the conclusion that DNA was a double helix by this time (based on her draft notes + circumstantial evidence) but she did not do so in total isolation, nor did she complete the final molecular part of the puzzle (though she had worked on it).
TL;DR DNA structure was not a eureka moment spurred by a single breakthrough thought or piece of evidence; many scientists collaborated on eliminating various likely possibilities for years until the correct model was found.
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" -- Isaac Newton
If I have seen further, it is by scooping some naive cubscout by DDOSing his router and posting to arxiv first.
Indeed. Brenda Maddox's wonderful biography of Franklin already goes into this in depth, including discussing her notebooks, so I'm not sure what is actually new here.
Franklin was tackling the problem scientifically, with a view that you can only prove or disprove with empirical evidence, and publishing an unsupported model was unscientific. Watson was the tech bro, stealing data and coming up with an untested, unverified model. (Crick was mostly a nice guy hanging with the wrong crowd.)
The massive irony is that Franklin published her crystallographic photos and data in support of the Watson-Crick model, which had of course been derived from her images in the first place, without her knowledge.
I think that still simplifies a bit too much. Wilkins studied DNA structure with several methods from 1948-50 but when his best results were from a modern x-ray diffraction image, Franklin (an expert in the field) was hired to essentially take over the project (which he resented).
The first images that Watson saw were actually taken before Franklin joined the team. Better images (and her analysis of them) were some of the most valuable pieces of evidence for narrowing down the possible structures (e.g. they disproved models by Pauling/Watson/Crick) - but by late 1952 Wilkins felt they had enough data and ought to focus on modelling. Franklin (who certainly had an ego of her own) insisted on continuing with her approach - she was an expert in these techniques after all and was making real progress.
Wilkins (who had been had been open with his own inconclusive results), eventually went over her head and showed the famous images to Watson and Crick. He felt they were sufficient to guide the model building and he was frustrated that Franklin had been withholding them while pursuing the wrong research directions. Franklin mocked him for his views at time, but Wilkins was somewhat vindicated.
I don't think this should be considered ironic, or that the image held all the answers, or that the discovery was stolen. Ultimately her work played exactly the role it was intended to, eliminating candidate models. The subsequent diminishment of that role is the real controversy, and most involved later walked back some of their statements.