Many science awards snub a key scientist who was involved in discovery. Feng Zhang famously lost out on two nobel prizes. He has only millions in patent and other award money as consolation.
Yet no one gets more publicity for being snubbed than Rosalind Franklin. Science is back again with a new piece saying she knew she had found a helix. Do you hear that? She knew it!
I can imagine a pompous James Watson saying, well “If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you would have invented Facebook”
“If you had elucidated the structure of DNA, you would have elucidated the structure of DNA.”
I've been hearing about how Rosalind has been wronged for my entire career in medicine 05- present. Now that she's dead, Crick is dead, Watson is dead, Pauling is dead, Wilkins is dead, the Nature editor is dead, the 1962 Nobel committee is dead, I honestly don't see how it matters… but sure, I'm happy to say she deserved more credit.
But what I find odd is there is no love for the living Rosalind Franklin… Dr Pan. Who independently discovered optogenetics slightly earlier or contemporaneously with this week's Nobel prize winner.
Because Pan was at a (a) low ranked university, because he is (a) not a politician (b) self promoter, (c ) networker, he walks away with no recognition. Just a paywalled stat article.
Just like James Watson trash talked Rosalyn, Stanford trash talks Pan
“A far cry”. That seems technically incorrect and particularly bizarre that it's being made by a university spokesman. It seems oddly similar to the way James Watson talked about Rosalyn Franklin.
As much as I appreciate Science trying to correct a historical Injustice, I wonder why Science is not interested in current injustice.
Yes I too would like to solve the unsolved murder from 1953, but a dude was killed on Monday maybe we should look for his killer too.
You can read the full Dr. Pan article here.
https://archive.ph/FAqsp