credit where it's overdue

摘要

FOR A BUNCH OF SMARTIES, THE SCIENTIFIC WORLD isn't always quick to recognize genius. Take Louis Pasteur, mocked for concluding that microbes-like the ones he had already discovered could sour wine and beer-were the source rather than symptoms of disease. We now appreciate that Pasteur proved germ theory. Rosalind Franklin led the lab that first visualized DNA's structure-only to have colleagues James Watson and Francis Crick crib her notes and take credit for confirming the double helix. She died young, while the two men went on to share a Nobel Prize. She didn't even get a mention in their acceptance speeches. Now that the scientific community (mostly) recognizes Franklin's integral efforts, she's become something of a patron saint for victims of research misconduct. But not every maligned genius got such a clear redemptive arc.