"The Truth of Rosalind Franklin and Photograph 51": an incredible truth-exposing account of pioneering research on the helical structure of DNA, and a devastating dissection of the myth of male preference in STEM.

Imnotmrabut · 2015-10-24T18:14:32+00:00

I love all the mythology that Rosalind the Dark Lady of DNA inspires.

Cobb quotes her friend Norma Sutherland as recalling, “her manner was brusque and at times confrontational – she aroused quite a lot of hostility among the people she talked to, and she seemed quite insensitive to this.” Arguably, Franklin found it necessary to be forceful as a woman in science in those days. But it is more likely that she was simply fiercely protective of her independence and had no great desire to collaborate with Wilkins.

The father of one of my Univeristy Chums was one of Rosey's assistants and he (such an easy going and mild mannered chap) was know to refer to her as a total Bitch who treated everyone as slaves and was pissed off by lack of romantic interest from those she fixated upon! Other than that she was a Shit Hot x-ray crystallographer.

2015-10-24T23:00:58+00:00

My god I'm glad I read the whole thing. The science history was excellently laid out and explained (if still impenetrable in parts to lay readers), but the piece really takes off when the author brings up statistics on modern education and eviscerates the women-in-STEM agenda. Just savage.

TracyMorganFreeman · 2015-10-25T05:08:18+00:00

When people bring this up as proof of rampant bias against women in science I just point out that Marie Curie had received a Nobel in 1903, a full 60 years before Watson and Crick, and that Rosalind Franklin had died by the time the latter were awarded, and it was policy to not give posthumous awards to anyone.

They tend to shrink down and not have anything to say, but sometimes they double down as if their accusation is beyond reproach.

2015-10-25T04:29:05+00:00

I remember my introductory biology course, our first class on DNA. Started with a couple minutes on the history of its discovery. Of course it presented the feminist revisionist history. To think, all those men (including myself) and women who were told that Watson and Crick were scumbags for stealing a woman's work, not to mention the implication that women had always had it hard in the sciences.

That note by Franklin mocking the idea of helical DNA is the real nail in the coffin I think. It shows she found some of the data for it, but she didn't discover the structure, not by a long shot.

Phototoxin · 2015-10-25T12:34:12+00:00

Im becoming a science teachr next year. With a bacground in genetics this is an issue close to my heart

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