Tagomago on Nostr: The #DoublHelix article by Watson and Crick, besides its implications for #biology ...
The #DoublHelix article by Watson and Crick, besides its implications for #biology and #life as we know it, is an INCREDIBLE piece of WRITING (in general and scientific writing in particular). I call it writing with the 4Cs: #creativity, #cohesion, #concision, and #coherence. I also LOVE their boldness! Check these excerpts.
“We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A,). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.” Start saying what you can expect to see by the end of the article
“A structure for nucleic acid has already
proposed by Pauling and Corey'. They kindly made their manuscript available to us in advance of publication. […] In our opinion, this structure is unsatisfactory” Criticize Linus Pauling!!!
“We wish to put forward a radically different structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid.” Not afraid to be bold!
“The previously published X-ray data on deoxyribose nucleic acid are insufficient for a rigorous test of our structure. So far as we can tell, it is roughly compatible with the experimental data, but it must be regarded as unproved until it has been checked against more exact results.” Not afraid to acknowledge their limitation, but confident on their rational.
“It has not escaped our notice that the specific paring we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.” This is the most impressive sentence, if not of the article, of all scientific literature. I imagine how long it took to write it! What do you say when you have no time to run all the experiments, but cannot let someone else make the obvious conclusion for you? This is what you say!
“Full details of the structure, including the conditions assumed in building it, together with a set of co-ordinates for the atoms, will be published elsewhere.” Why bother with details when you just made history?!
I’m advising my group to use this article as a template to validate YOUR own next article.
https://www.nature.com/articles/171737a0
“We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A,). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.” Start saying what you can expect to see by the end of the article
“A structure for nucleic acid has already
proposed by Pauling and Corey'. They kindly made their manuscript available to us in advance of publication. […] In our opinion, this structure is unsatisfactory” Criticize Linus Pauling!!!
“We wish to put forward a radically different structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid.” Not afraid to be bold!
“The previously published X-ray data on deoxyribose nucleic acid are insufficient for a rigorous test of our structure. So far as we can tell, it is roughly compatible with the experimental data, but it must be regarded as unproved until it has been checked against more exact results.” Not afraid to acknowledge their limitation, but confident on their rational.
“It has not escaped our notice that the specific paring we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.” This is the most impressive sentence, if not of the article, of all scientific literature. I imagine how long it took to write it! What do you say when you have no time to run all the experiments, but cannot let someone else make the obvious conclusion for you? This is what you say!
“Full details of the structure, including the conditions assumed in building it, together with a set of co-ordinates for the atoms, will be published elsewhere.” Why bother with details when you just made history?!
I’m advising my group to use this article as a template to validate YOUR own next article.
https://www.nature.com/articles/171737a0