Ofc all four played huge parts. But I think the implication of your comment is an unfair one. If I were just naming the Nobel winners, I'd have listed Wilkins as well. But he was also omitted.
The entire piece was about the 20-year story leading up to that now very well-known contribution. I simply use "Watson and Crick" as shorthand for the very last step, which took place in their lab over at the Cavendish. In my view, the entirety of the piece makes pretty clear that I'm obsessed with all the work done to get the field to that stage.
The goal of the piece is not to sit down and hash out who I think deserves X amount of credit for what. It is, rather, to tell a very practical story about all the work done to get the field to the point it found itself in in the late 1940s/early 1950s.
On Gerald Holton's line continuation vs branching model. It reminds me of something I just came across yesterday, it was a piece by Nature on how if a scientist further moves away from the topic of his previous work, the fewer citations he will get.
If Holton's model can be downsized to an individual. then we seem to be promoting line continuations rather than branching even at the micro level.
On the topic of next big thing. For biology, it's definitely Bioelectricity. I mean it's at a more advanced stage than what Weaver saw with molecular biology in 1933. It's most prominent scientist (Dr.Michael Levin) is a well-established/semi-established figure by now. Though the field as a whole as whole is largely unexplored. (If the promises of its implications turn out to be true. Which I do believe in)
One a whole, largely speculative, but biology might benefit from a change of lenses i.e. replacing to some degree the reductionist- bottoms up framework that birthed up molecular biology and recentering the physiological-kind of top down framework.
As Denis Noble says, reductionist biology while giving us a lot of progress and wonderful discoveries in biology might have also turned us blind to lots of implications in biology that would be better viewed with different type of lenses.
Watson, Crick, Franklin and Wilkins. 4 persons, not just the Nobil winners.
Ofc all four played huge parts. But I think the implication of your comment is an unfair one. If I were just naming the Nobel winners, I'd have listed Wilkins as well. But he was also omitted.
The entire piece was about the 20-year story leading up to that now very well-known contribution. I simply use "Watson and Crick" as shorthand for the very last step, which took place in their lab over at the Cavendish. In my view, the entirety of the piece makes pretty clear that I'm obsessed with all the work done to get the field to that stage.
The goal of the piece is not to sit down and hash out who I think deserves X amount of credit for what. It is, rather, to tell a very practical story about all the work done to get the field to the point it found itself in in the late 1940s/early 1950s.
While the goal and the intent etc. is something else, the result is that an old lie gets repeated. Sore spot.
On Gerald Holton's line continuation vs branching model. It reminds me of something I just came across yesterday, it was a piece by Nature on how if a scientist further moves away from the topic of his previous work, the fewer citations he will get.
If Holton's model can be downsized to an individual. then we seem to be promoting line continuations rather than branching even at the micro level.
On the topic of next big thing. For biology, it's definitely Bioelectricity. I mean it's at a more advanced stage than what Weaver saw with molecular biology in 1933. It's most prominent scientist (Dr.Michael Levin) is a well-established/semi-established figure by now. Though the field as a whole as whole is largely unexplored. (If the promises of its implications turn out to be true. Which I do believe in)
One a whole, largely speculative, but biology might benefit from a change of lenses i.e. replacing to some degree the reductionist- bottoms up framework that birthed up molecular biology and recentering the physiological-kind of top down framework.
As Denis Noble says, reductionist biology while giving us a lot of progress and wonderful discoveries in biology might have also turned us blind to lots of implications in biology that would be better viewed with different type of lenses.
I am very curious to know what a "loose recommendation from Enrico Fermi" was like 😀