'In Franklin’s day, sexism ran rampant in science. Her own father, judging science no career for a woman, actively discouraged her aspirations. Her doctoral supervisor at Cambridge, eventual Nobel Laureate Ronald G.W. Norrish, called her “stubborn and difficult to supervise” and offered little support. James Watson, whose Nobel Prize hinged in large part on her work, referred to her in his memoir as “Rosy” (against her preference), and stated that, because of her “belligerent moods,” colleagues knew she “either had to go or be put in her place.”
@cyrilpedia Great article. Thanks for sharing. I can’t remember where I read it, but someone pointed out that there is always the same mistake in all articles about Franklin. The statement that Franklin could not win the Nobel prize because they are not given posthumously is incorrect. The Nobel committee didn’t institute that statute/rule until 1974. They had given the prize to others after death. They just snubbed her.
@Rahimilab I wasn't aware of that detail - in the context of DNA, the posthumous issue is also pulled out to justify why Avery did not receive the prize.
@Rahimilab Avery actually got passed over twice, with two different discoveries, for the same reason (a putative protein contaminant).- Here's a good article about it https://www.jbc.org/article/S0021-9258(19)60918-X/fulltext
I tracked down the source on the Nobel posthumous rule. Jason Sheltzer pointed it out on twitter.
https://twitter.com/JSheltzer/status/1287403278062497793?s=20&t=qeqzrSHdXj5HpoColDFJYA
@cyrilpedia I am embarrassed to admit that I did not realize the Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment didn’t receive a Nobel. I suppose it is a good thing that names like Avery and Franklin are as famous as any Nobel laureate.