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Discoverer of double helix structure of DNA was on LSD during the epiphany

i'm a scientist :)

franklin's xray data pretty much was the data that allowed watson and crick to come up with the double helix

the conflicting paper you may be talking about xorkoth, suggested that the sugars were on the inside of the helix with the bases exposed (someone may have said this in the thread already)
this is incorrect, because the phosphates off the sugar ring are negatively charged. they would repel each other if placed on the inside. they are better suited to be on the outside and interact with water molecules.
the bases are nonpolar or 'greasy' and don't like to interact with water. so it makes sense that they are on the inside of the helix.

franklins data gave the distances
watson and crick fit model together. maybe he did think about it on LSD. but they did "steal" data from that rosalynd? chick.
and the other paper was wrong.
 
Thanks for the article, id heard thisbefore but never really read anything about it.

I think its fascinating how LOW doses of LSD can "enhance" the critical thinking thinking ability of human beings. I quote enhance because i think it is more of slight alteration in the way the mind can wrap itself around an idea/concept. While high dose LSD is amazing and equally important in its own right, the low dose is very useful for focusing on abstraction and visualization of math and chemistry. IMO.

Also, all science is a building and piecing together other peoples theories and science. It seems kinda silly to care about who came up with it really. In a thousand years nobody will care too much about who created the idea, but the knowlege will still be as real as ever (unless it turns out to be totally debunked in the future or something ;))
 
PsyGhost said:
Its definitely a bullshit story. Mostly because Rosalind Franklin did the work and produced the photograph of DNA. Watson and Crick used her data without her permission and then "discovered" the structure.

I always find this myth funny because it shows people's ignorance to the history of science.

There is a good book on her called Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA
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Have to quote this. Huge amounts of truth contained in there.

In second year one of my teachers spent a whole week teaching us this story as part of a scientific history lesson and how discoveries can be stolen.

It's really sad that the general scientific community doesn't know about Rosalind Franklin. :(

She discovered the structure of DNA.

Fuck Watson and Crick.
 
Miss Franklin had the crystallography, but couldn't seem to put together a good working model for the data she gathered. She had all sorts of ideas for her model, but never could create one that didn't have structural 'conflicts' Watson and Crick basically lucked out when they found her paper, and put the pieces together correctly.
 
Yeah I understand that they analyzed the data that she obtained and decoded the puzzle but the fact of the matter is she was given NO credit and without her Watson and Crick would still be nobodies. She should have been included in that Nobel prize.

It should be a trio of Franklin, Watson, and Crick (or whatever order is found to be appropriate).

The fact of the matter still remains; they stole her data without her consent and took all the credit. :(
 
check out this Ted talk by James Watson.

// he kind of seems like a blithering idiot and makes no mention of LSD once and says that they (he and Crick) failed multiple times in conceptualizing the structure of DNA.
 
uniter said:
Yeah I understand that they analyzed the data that she obtained and decoded the puzzle but the fact of the matter is she was given NO credit and without her Watson and Crick would still be nobodies. She should have been included in that Nobel prize.

It should be a trio of Franklin, Watson, and Crick (or whatever order is found to be appropriate).

The fact of the matter still remains; they stole her data without her consent and took all the credit. :(
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But she died cause she got t3h cancer from her x-ray machine doing her crystalography research. poignant really.
 
uniter said:
Yeah I understand that they analyzed the data that she obtained and decoded the puzzle but the fact of the matter is she was given NO credit and without her Watson and Crick would still be nobodies. She should have been included in that Nobel prize.

It should be a trio of Franklin, Watson, and Crick (or whatever order is found to be appropriate).

The fact of the matter still remains; they stole her data without her consent and took all the credit. :(
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If what vecktor says is correct, in an earlier post, they were unable to award the nobel prize post-posthumously. She died before it was awarded to anyone, unfortunately.
 
Is there not some rule anyway that says only two people
can be named for any particular Nobel prize?
 
this article is a whole mess of hearsay. if you didn't make it all the way to the end, let me finish this story just like Crick finished it:

Shortly afterwards I visited Crick at his home, Golden Helix, in Cambridge.

He listened with rapt, amused attention to what I told him about the role of LSD in his Nobel Prize-winning discovery. He gave no intimation of surprise. When I had finished, he said: 'Print a word of it and I'll sue.'
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Is this because he didn't want his name trudged thru the mud or because the story he was told about his own discovery was utter bullshit? Of course posting it here is preaching to the choir...
 
I am NOT a scientst, but last year spent time around some award-winning ones as part of my work (journalism). How do I put it respectfully - they are very regular folk when it comes to credit and recognition. I dealt with two guys sharing a very big prize and the one whose name was at the end of the list of authors some years before alerted me to a continuing debate within the community about which one of them really made the difference (this guy) and how the other guy was getting the credit, in public anyway.
 
What a coincedence! The discoverer of acid used DNA during that epiphany as well!
 
Indeed sir! I don't think it's an exaggeration either to say that the entire world is addicted to it.
 
Right on. This guy knows what the score is. Just reading about him. Definitely wasn't tripping when he thought up PCR. Polymerase chain reaction. Kary Mullis.
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Yeah but he directly cites his LSD experiences as giving him the inspiration to go on to develop PCR (he's seen saying so in the BBC Horizon documentary 'Psychedelic Chemistry'). Truth be told, I'd say a hell of a lot more scientists have gained inspirtion from the use of psychedelics (& cannabis- Carl Sagan, head of NASA's SETI - search for extraterrestrial intelligence - project was a notorius dope smoker), but don't publically say so as in some places it's still an effective death blow to a career. I know the way you can visualize things in 3D more easily (well I can!) made things like visualizing drug/receptor interaction & the sort of conformational change that happens when enzymes do their stuff clearer. Huxley said many years ago that psychedelics would be a great advantage to engineers, scientiists etc who would benefit from having their rigid ways of thinking expanded (not a lot of scienists known for thier off the wall creativity! :D)

Seeing how LSD wasn't illegal until 1967 in the UK, there's not really a stigma as such linked to it's use in the 50s. In fact it was the new psychiatric tool that was the 'hip' thing to be interested in - look at how many papers on it were produced in the 1950s

If what vecktor says is correct, in an earlier post, they were unable to award the nobel prize post-posthumously. She died before it was awarded to anyone, unfortunately.
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Is there not some rule anyway that says only two people
can be named for any particular Nobel prize?
Click to expand...

It's three actually - in this case Watson, Crick & the bloke in charge of the project (can't remember his name). She was probably left out, in favour of the one in charge, because Britain in the 50s was still a pretty sexist place...
 
I think it was in a book by Daniel Pinchbeck or some documentary that a biochemist tried ayahuasca and made a journey on DNA-level. The subject was specifically his own research which still was confronted by some difficult questions. That journey made him understand and witness deeply what mechanisms were acting and I think it showed very helpful in actually with regard to this research.

These kinds of experiences have always glowed with special significance for me since they seem to prove truths revealed by psychedelics that hold up in consensus reality. Unfortunately this particular story is still a piece of anecdotal evidence and not watertight proof. But it is still pretty believable to me.
 
Hewhomustnotbenamed said:
I've heard about this. I seem to recall reading that Crick vehemently denied the influence of LSD on his work when asked about it in later life. This suggests that either it's not true, or that he wanted to take full credit for the discovery, without giving any of it to brother Cid.

I actually did a presentation in high school about famous artists and scientists who used psychedelic drugs. I tried to address the the question of whether the fact that they were high in any way made their discoveries less legitimately 'theirs'. I'd be interested to here peoples opinions on this.

Also, If I recall correctly, Kerry Mullis came up with the idea for the Polymerase chain reaction while on LSD. He eventually won the Nobel prize in chemistry for this.
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Don't know if this was mentioned but D to the R to the period what what? K. Mullis was on the way to a cabin with his mistress and figured it out. The biography or information I've read regarding Mullis all mentioned him saying that he ate acid at age 15 and that inspired him to think more in the way a scientist would. I'm not aware of anyone whom has admitted being on acid at the time of an important discovery. Other than Hofmann, of course, discovering acid's action in humans.

F&B... you need to check out gonzoscience.com. I found the website because found this guy's CD in a bizarre music store on vacation. The music was all made by the lead singer of Cloud Cult and it's all this rather tongue in cheek spoken word over techno about scientific fallacies and alternate theories. Motherfucking Aquatic Ape is my favorite song. It's really not very good, but it's weird. I say that as a good thing.

Regards,
PL
 
Solipsis said:
I think it was in a book by Daniel Pinchbeck or some documentary that a biochemist tried ayahuasca and made a journey on DNA-level. The subject was specifically his own research which still was confronted by some difficult questions. That journey made him understand and witness deeply what mechanisms were acting and I think it showed very helpful in actually with regard to this research.

These kinds of experiences have always glowed with special significance for me since they seem to prove truths revealed by psychedelics that hold up in consensus reality. Unfortunately this particular story is still a piece of anecdotal evidence and not watertight proof. But it is still pretty believable to me.
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I have friends who are biochemists who have read about what supposed scientists experienced while on Ayahuasca. They said how what the person high on the drug experiences is impossible as there's no equipment that allows you to do that, and that conversing with plant or human DNA would be extremely boring.
 
PriestTheyCalledHim said:
I have friends who are biochemists who have read about what supposed scientists experienced while on Ayahuasca. They said how what the person high on the drug experiences is impossible as there's no equipment that allows you to do that, and that conversing with plant or human DNA would be extremely boring.
Click to expand...

Well what if we are the equipment?
 
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