Editing James Watson (section)

===Identifying the double helix===
[[File:DNA Model Crick-Watson.jpg|upright|thumb|DNA model built by Crick and Watson in 1953, in the [[Science Museum (London)|Science Museum, London]]]]

In mid-March 1953, Watson and Crick deduced the [[double helix]] structure of DNA.<ref name="The Nobel Foundation" /> Crucial to their discovery were the experimental data collected at [[King's College London]]—mainly by [[Rosalind Franklin]] for whom they did not provide proper attribution.<ref name="Profile">{{cite web |title=James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and Rosalind Franklin |url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/james-watson-francis-crick-maurice-wilkins-and-rosalind-franklin |work=Science History Institute |access-date=March 20, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180321132408/https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/james-watson-francis-crick-maurice-wilkins-and-rosalind-franklin |archive-date=March 21, 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="WrongedHeroine">{{cite journal |last1=Maddox |first1=Brenda |date=January 2003 |title=The double helix and the 'wronged heroine' |journal=Nature |volume=421 |issue=6921 |pages=407–408 |bibcode=2003Natur.421..407M |doi=10.1038/nature01399 |pmid=12540909 |doi-access=free}}</ref> [[Lawrence Bragg|Sir Lawrence Bragg]],<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Phillips | first1 = D. | author-link = David Chilton Phillips| doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1979.0003 | title = William Lawrence Bragg. 31 March 1890 – 1 July 1971 | journal = [[Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society]] | volume = 25 | pages = 74–143| year = 1979 | jstor = 769842| s2cid = 119994416 | doi-access = }}</ref> the director of the [[Cavendish Laboratory]] (where Watson and Crick worked), made the original announcement of the discovery at a [[Solvay conference]] on [[protein]]s in Belgium on April 8, 1953; it went unreported by the press. Watson and Crick submitted a paper entitled "[[Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid]]" to the scientific journal ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'', which was published on April 25, 1953.<ref name="nobel">{{cite journal | last1 = Watson | first1 = J. D. | last2 = Crick | first2 = F. H. | year = 1953 | title = A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acids | url = http://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/watsoncrick.pdf | journal = Nature | volume = 171 | issue = 4356| pages = 737–738 | doi = 10.1038/171737a0 | pmid=13054692 | bibcode=1953Natur.171..737W| s2cid = 4253007}}</ref> Bragg gave a talk at the [[Guy's Hospital]] Medical School in London on Thursday, May 14, 1953, which resulted in a May 15, 1953, article by [[Peter Ritchie Calder|Ritchie Calder]] in the London newspaper ''[[News Chronicle]]'', entitled "Why You Are You. Nearer Secret of Life".

[[Sydney Brenner]], [[Jack D. Dunitz|Jack Dunitz]], [[Dorothy Hodgkin]], [[Leslie Orgel]], and Beryl M. Oughton were some of the first people in April 1953 to see the model of the structure of [[DNA]], constructed by Crick and Watson; at the time, they were working at [[University of Oxford|Oxford University]]'s chemistry department. All were impressed by the new DNA model, especially Brenner, who subsequently worked with Crick at [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]] in the Cavendish Laboratory and the new [[Laboratory of Molecular Biology]]. According to the late Beryl Oughton, later Rimmer, they all travelled together in two cars once Dorothy Hodgkin announced to them that they were off to Cambridge to see the model of the structure of DNA.<ref>{{cite book |last=Olby |first=Robert |title=Francis Crick: hunter of life's secrets |year=2009 |publisher=Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press |location=Cold Spring Harbor, New York |isbn=978-0-87969-798-3 |chapter=10 |page=181}}</ref>

[[File:AMNHWatson.jpg|thumb|right|Watson's name on New York City's [[Nobel Monument]]; it lists American laureates only, not Crick and Wilkins who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.]]
The Cambridge University student newspaper ''[[Varsity (Cambridge)|Varsity]]'' ran its own short article on the discovery on Saturday, May 30, 1953. Watson subsequently presented a paper on the double-helical structure of DNA at the 18th Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on Viruses in early June 1953, six weeks after the publication of the Watson and Crick paper in ''Nature''. Many at the meeting had not yet heard of the discovery. The 1953 Cold Spring Harbor Symposium was the first opportunity for many to see the model of the DNA double helix. Watson, Crick, and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for their research on the structure of nucleic acids.<ref name="The Nobel Foundation" /><ref name="nytimesnobel">{{cite news| title = No Nobel Prize for Whining | last = Judson |first=H. F. | date = October 20, 2003 | url = https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C02E4DE123EF933A15753C1A9659C8B63 | newspaper = The New York Times | access-date = August 3, 2007}}</ref><ref name=NobelLecture>{{cite web|last=Watson|first=James|title=Nobel Lecture December 11, 1962 The Involvement of RNA in the Synthesis of Proteins|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1962/watson-lecture.html|work=11 December 1962|publisher=Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media|access-date=December 5, 2013}}</ref> Rosalind Franklin had died in 1958 and was therefore ineligible for nomination.<ref name="Profile"/> The publication of the double helix structure of DNA has been described as a turning point in science; understanding of life was fundamentally changed and the modern era of biology began.<ref name="60years">{{cite news|last=Rutherford|first=Adam|title=DNA double helix: discovery that led to 60 years of biological revolution|url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/apr/25/dna-double-helix-60-years-biological-revolution|access-date=December 6, 2013|newspaper=The Guardian|date=April 24, 2013}}</ref>

====Interactions with Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling====
Watson and Crick's use of [[Photo 51|DNA X-ray diffraction data]] collected by [[Rosalind Franklin]] and her student [[Raymond Gosling]] has attracted scrutiny. It has been argued that Watson and his colleagues did not properly acknowledge colleague [[Rosalind Franklin]] for her contributions to the discovery of the double helix structure.<ref name="WrongedHeroine" /><ref name="nih_embo_report">{{cite journal |last=Stasiak |first=Andrzej |date=March 15, 2001 |title=Rosalind Franklin |journal=EMBO Reports |publisher=[[National Institutes of Health]] |volume=2 |issue=3 |page=181 |doi=10.1093/embo-reports/kve037 |pmc=1083834}}</ref> [[Robert P. Crease]] notes that "Such stingy behaviour may not be unknown, or even uncommon, among scientists".<ref name="Crease-2003">{{Cite journal |last=Crease |first=Robert P. |date=2003 |title=The Rosalind Franklin question |url=https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2058-7058/16/3/23 |journal=Physics World |volume=16 |issue=3 |pages=17 |doi=10.1088/2058-7058/16/3/23 |issn=0953-8585}}</ref> Franklin's high-quality X-ray diffraction patterns of DNA were unpublished results, which Watson and Crick used without her knowledge or consent in their construction of the double helix model of DNA.<ref name="nih_embo_report"/><ref name="Profile"/><ref name="Judson">Judson, H. F. (1996). ''The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology''. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, chapter 3. {{ISBN|0-87969-478-5}}.</ref> Franklin's results provided estimates of the water content of DNA crystals and these results were consistent with the two sugar-phosphate backbones being on the outside of the molecule. Franklin told Crick and Watson that the backbones had to be on the outside; before then, Linus Pauling and Watson and Crick had erroneous models with the chains inside and the bases pointing outwards.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Her identification of the [[space group]] for DNA crystals revealed to Crick that the two DNA strands were [[Antiparallel (biochemistry)|antiparallel]].

The X-ray diffraction images collected by Gosling and Franklin provided the best evidence for the helical nature of DNA. Watson and Crick had three sources for Franklin's unpublished data: 
#Her 1951 seminar, attended by Watson;<ref>{{Cite book|last=Cullen |first=Katherine E. |title=Biology: the people behind the science |year=2006 |publisher=[[Infobase Publishing|Chelsea House]] |location=New York |isbn=0-8160-5461-4 |page=136}}</ref>
#Discussions with Wilkins,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Cullen |first=Katherine E. |title=Biology: the people behind the science |year=2006 |publisher=[[Infobase Publishing|Chelsea House]] |location=New York |isbn=0-8160-5461-4 |page=140}}</ref> who worked in the same laboratory with Franklin;
#A research progress report that was intended to promote coordination of [[Medical Research Council (UK)|Medical Research Council]]-supported laboratories.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Stocklmayer |first1=Susan M. |author-link1=Susan Stocklmayer|last2=Gore |first2=Michael M. |last3=Bryant |first3=Chris |title=Science Communication in Theory and Practice |year=2001 |publisher=[[Wolters Kluwer|Kluwer Academic Publishers]] |isbn=1-4020-0131-2 |page=79}}</ref> Watson, Crick, Wilkins and Franklin all worked in MRC laboratories.

In a 1954 article, Watson and Crick acknowledged that, without Franklin's data, "the formulation of our structure would have been most unlikely, if not impossible".<ref name="Cobb-2023">{{Cite journal |last1=Cobb |first1=Matthew |last2=Comfort |first2=Nathaniel |date=2023 |title=What Rosalind Franklin truly contributed to the discovery of DNA's structure |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=616 |issue=7958 |pages=657–660 |doi=10.1038/d41586-023-01313-5|pmid=37100935 |bibcode=2023Natur.616..657C |doi-access=free}}</ref> In ''[[The Double Helix]]'', Watson later admitted that "Rosy, of course, did not directly give us her data. For that matter, no one at King's realized they were in our hands". In recent years, Watson has garnered controversy in the popular and scientific press for his "misogynist treatment" of Franklin and his failure to properly attribute her work on DNA.<ref name="WrongedHeroine" /> According to one critic, Watson's portrayal of Franklin in ''[[The Double Helix]]'' was negative, giving the impression that she was Wilkins' assistant and was unable to interpret her own DNA data.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Elkin | first1 = L. O. | year = 2003 | title = Franklin and the Double Helix | journal = Physics Today | volume = 56 | issue = 3 | page = 42 | doi = 10.1063/1.1570771 | bibcode = 2003PhT....56c..42E | doi-access = free}}</ref> Watson's accusation was indefensible since Franklin told Crick and Watson that the helix backbones had to be on the outside.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> From a 2003 piece by [[Brenda Maddox]] in ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'':<ref name="WrongedHeroine" />

{{blockquote|Other comments dismissive of "Rosy" in Watson's book caught the attention of the emerging women's movement in the late 1960s. "Clearly Rosy had to go or be put in her place ... Unfortunately Maurice could not see any decent way to give Rosy the boot". And, "Certainly a bad way to go out into the foulness of a ... November night was to be told by a woman to refrain from venturing an opinion about a subject for which you were not trained."}}

[[Robert P. Crease]] remarks that "[Franklin] was close to figuring out the structure of DNA, but did not do it. The title of 'discoverer' goes to those who first fit the pieces together".<ref name="Crease-2003" /> [[Jeremy Bernstein]] rejects that Franklin was a "victim" and states that "[Watson and Crick] made the double-helix scheme work. It is as simple as that".<ref name="Crease-2003" /> [[Matthew Cobb]] and [[Nathaniel C. Comfort]] write that "Franklin was no victim in how the DNA double helix was solved" but that she was "an equal contributor to the solution of the structure".<ref name="Cobb-2023" />

A review of the correspondence from Franklin to Watson, in the archives at CSHL, revealed that the two scientists later exchanged constructive scientific correspondence. Franklin consulted with Watson on her tobacco mosaic virus RNA research. Franklin's letters were framed with the normal and unremarkable forms of address, beginning with "Dear Jim", and concluding with "Best Wishes, Yours, Rosalind". Each of the scientists published their own unique contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA in separate articles, and all of the contributors published their findings in the same volume of ''Nature''. These classic molecular biology papers are identified as: Watson J. D. and Crick F. H. C. "A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid". ''Nature'' 171, 737–738 (1953);<ref name="nobel" /> Wilkins M. H. F., Stokes A. R. & Wilson H. R. "Molecular Structure of Deoxypentose Nucleic Acids". ''Nature'' 171, 738–740 (1953);<ref name="pentose">{{cite journal | last1 = Wilkins | first1 = M. H. F. | last2 = Stokes | first2 = A. R. | last3 = Wilson | first3 = H. R. | year = 1953| title = Molecular Structure of Deoxypentose Nucleic Acids | url = http://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/wilkins.pdf | journal = Nature | volume = 171 | issue = 4356| pages = 738–740 | doi = 10.1038/171738a0 | pmid=13054693 | bibcode=1953Natur.171..738W| s2cid = 4280080}}</ref> Franklin R. and Gosling R. G. "Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate". ''Nature'' 171, 740–741 (1953).<ref name="franklin">{{cite journal | last1 = Franklin | first1 = R. | last2 = Gosling | first2 = R. G. | year = 1953 | title = Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate | url = http://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/franklingosling.pdf | journal = Nature | volume = 171 | issue = 4356| pages = 740–741 | doi = 10.1038/171740a0 | pmid=13054694 | bibcode=1953Natur.171..740F| s2cid = 4268222}}</ref>