Did Watson and Crick do any wet experiments at all?

[Busy_Scissors]

For those familiar with the DNA story, is it known how much data Watson and Crick acquired themselves through their own experiments?

Making a model is a type of experiment, and they made arguably the most famous one of all time, but I’m interested in whether their modelling was informed by any lab work / recorded observations / collected data they did themselves.

IOW which statement is closest to the truth:

1. They never got their hands dirty at all. Didn’t know what the inside of a lab looks like, and developed the double helix model 100% from the observations of others.

2. They carried out a limited number of biochemistry experiments, either by themselves or under their direct supervision, but the important, breakthrough observations were made by others.

3. They were active experimentalists who collected a substantial amount of data on the DNA molecule, albeit the key structural data came from other labs.

[Andy_L]

If I recall correctly from the book, 1) is the closest to the truth. Their paper Annotated version of Watson and Crick paper doesn’t meant any experiments that they did.

[septimus]

@Andy_L

If I recall correctly from the book, 1) is the closest to the truth. Their paper Annotated version of Watson and Crick paper doesn’t meant any experiments that they did.

Thanks for the interesting link, Andy L! (And please tell us whether the meant/mention substitution was done by some autocomplete; cf. my thread in MPSIMS.)

I was especially intrigued by an annotation that someone added to the paper:

The competitive juices were flowing well before the DNA sprint was in full gear. In 1951, [Linus] Pauling narrowly beat scientists at the Cavendish Lab, a top center for probing protein structure, to the discovery that certain proteins are helical. The defeat stung. When Pauling sent a paper to be published in early 1953 that proposed a three-stranded DNA structure, the head of the Cavendish gave Watson and Crick permission to work full-time on DNA’s structure. Cavendish was not about to lose twice to Pauling.

Pauling’s proposed structure of DNA was a three-stranded helix with the bases facing out. While the model was wrong, Watson and Crick were sure Pauling would soon learn his error, and they estimated that he was six weeks away from the right answer. Electrified by the urgency — and by the prospect of beating a science superstar — Watson and Crick discovered the double helix after a four-week frenzy of model building.

Pauling was foiled in his attempts to see X-ray photos of DNA from King’s College – crucial evidence that inspired Watson’s vision of the double helix — and had to settle for inferior older photographs. In 1952, Wilkins and the head of the King’s laboratory had denied Pauling’s request to view their photos. Pauling was planning to attend a science meeting in London, where he most likely would have renewed his request in person, but the United States House Un-American Activities Committee halted Pauling’s trip, citing his antiwar activism…

[Andy_L]

@septimus

Thanks for the interesting link, Andy L! (And please tell us whether the meant/mention substitution was done by some autocomplete; cf. my thread in MPSIMS.)

I think that was just a mental lapse.

[glowacks]

I was recently thinking about this the other day, how my memory is that people generally say that Rosalind Franklin “did all the work” for the DNA structure, but her male superiors took all the credit. This is absolutely not to belittle the skill that Franklin had in obtaining useful X-ray images of the target molecules, but if she was just following the orders of other people to get images they wanted, and other people did the interpreting, then she shouldn’t really be given much credit other than being good at making X-ray crystallographic images. If it was Watson and Crick who looked at those images and determined what they mean, then certainly they deserve far more of the credit for determining the DNA structure. As to whether Franklin deserved a Nobel Prize, she was dead by the time Watson and Crick received theirs.

[Wendell_Wagner]

I think the question of who deserved to win any particular Nobel Prize is generally hopeless to determine. Nearly all important scientific discoveries are the result of long chains of research. Deciding where to cut that chain and call only the last people to work on a body of research the true discoverers is actually a pretty arbitrary thing.

[Chronos]

But whether she deserved it or not, she couldn’t have won the prize that was awarded to Watson and Crick, because the Nobel Prize can’t be awarded posthumously.

[installLSC]

@septimus

Thanks for the interesting link, Andy L! (And please tell us whether the meant/mention substitution was done by some autocomplete; cf. my thread in MPSIMS.)

I was especially intrigued by an annotation that someone added to the paper:

Wow. So if there hadn’t been political complications, Pauling could have been a three time Nobel Prize winner–Chemistry, Medicine, and Peace.

[Andy_L]

@glowacks

I was recently thinking about this the other day, how my memory is that people generally say that Rosalind Franklin “did all the work” for the DNA structure, but her male superiors took all the credit. This is absolutely not to belittle the skill that Franklin had in obtaining useful X-ray images of the target molecules, but if she was just following the orders of other people to get images they wanted, and other people did the interpreting, then she shouldn’t really be given much credit other than being good at making X-ray crystallographic images. If it was Watson and Crick who looked at those images and determined what they mean, then certainly they deserve far more of the credit for determining the DNA structure. As to whether Franklin deserved a Nobel Prize, she was dead by the time Watson and Crick received theirs.

I think it’s not accurate to say that Rosalind Franklin was working at anyone’s direction (any more than Watson and Crick were). Her supervisors approved of the work she was doing, but she was a researcher, not a lab assistant.

[Busy_Scissors]

@glowacks

I was recently thinking about this the other day, how my memory is that people generally say that Rosalind Franklin “did all the work” for the DNA structure, but her male superiors took all the credit. This is absolutely not to belittle the skill that Franklin had in obtaining useful X-ray images of the target molecules, but if she was just following the orders of other people to get images they wanted, and other people did the interpreting, then she shouldn’t really be given much credit other than being good at making X-ray crystallographic images. If it was Watson and Crick who looked at those images and determined what they mean, then certainly they deserve far more of the credit for determining the DNA structure. As to whether Franklin deserved a Nobel Prize, she was dead by the time Watson and Crick received theirs.

It’s a matter of record that she interpreted her (and Gosling’s) X-ray diffraction image - she was an expert crystallographer and her Nature paper in 1953, one of the famous triad of papers disclosing the double helix, does exactly this.

Anyhow, RF’s role in the DNA story has been debated 1000 times, I was more interested in Watson and Crick’s visionary way of working. Whether their model was built up on a foundation of day to day research in the lab, or whether they really were 100% dry and pieced it all together that way.

[Busy_Scissors]

@glowacks

I was recently thinking about this the other day, how my memory is that people generally say that Rosalind Franklin “did all the work” for the DNA structure, but her male superiors took all the credit. This is absolutely not to belittle the skill that Franklin had in obtaining useful X-ray images of the target molecules, but if she was just following the orders of other people to get images they wanted, and other people did the interpreting, then she shouldn’t really be given much credit other than being good at making X-ray crystallographic images. If it was Watson and Crick who looked at those images and determined what they mean, then certainly they deserve far more of the credit for determining the DNA structure. As to whether Franklin deserved a Nobel Prize, she was dead by the time Watson and Crick received theirs.

It’s a matter of record that she interpreted her (and Gosling’s) X-ray diffraction image - she was an expert crystallographer and her Nature paper in 1953, one of the famous triad of papers disclosing the double helix, does exactly this.

Anyhow, RF’s role in the DNA story has been debated 1000 times, I was more interested in Watson and Crick’s visionary way of working. Whether their model was built up on a foundation of day to day research in the lab, or whether they really were 100% dry and pieced it all together that way.

[JWT_Kottekoe]

It is also interesting to note that Watson and Crick learned of Pauling’s triple helix from his son, Peter Pauling, who was an office mate of theirs at the Cavendish.