Scientific Credit
A couple of readers wrote to correct my crediting of James Dewey Watson with determining the structure of DNA. John explains:
Watson and Crick got the Nobel. But a critical piece of knowledge, without which (and they admitted this publicly long afterward) they could not have made the final discovery was obtained in an underhanded fashion. That work had been performed by the never-recognized Rosalind Franklin.
You can read about all the key DNA dudes and dudettes in the NPR’s Key Players in the Discovery of DNA’s Structure. I knew there was something dodgy about giving credit to Watson, but it made for a better joke visa vi the bobblehead. Mea culpa.
While we’re talking about scientific controversies, I recently read that Alexander Graham Bell has been getting more credit than he deserves for inventing the telephone. Apparently German research scientist Philipp Reis beat him by fifteen years.
December 6th, 2003 at 3:46 pm
One more correction: the correct expression is “vis a vis” meaning face to face, or when put next to or in combination with. Not visa vi. Check here for the dictionary.com definition:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=vis-a-vis
December 7th, 2003 at 5:51 am
And you being a Canadian too (who should be fluent in French, right?).
December 7th, 2003 at 11:20 am
Indeed…it is from the French, as in ‘visage’. I always thought it was latin. That will hel me remember how to spell it