Rosalind Franklin didn't miss the DNA helix. New analysis says Watson's claim is wrong.
A fresh look at Photo 51 rewrites who deserves credit for DNA's double helix - a case study in how history erases the people behind the breakthrough.
Rosalind Franklin, the crystallographer whose Photo 51 captured DNA's structure, is the subject of a new analysis refuting James Watson's claim that he was first to recognize the helix. For decision-makers, the finding is a reminder that credit and attribution are contested terrain, and that the record often favors the loudest voice over the original evidence.
Rosalind Franklin did not miss the double helix in the iconic X-ray image known as Photo 51 - and a new analysis says James Watson's decades-old claim that he spotted it first is wrong. The finding, reported by Science, refutes the account Watson has long promoted: that he recognized the significance of Franklin's image the moment he saw it, while she failed to grasp what her own data showed.
Photo 51, the diffraction image Franklin produced in 1952 at King's College London, is one of the most famous scientific images of the 20th century.
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