The Third Man of the Double Helix: The Autobiography of Maurice Wilkins [Hardcover]

Maurice Wilkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 27, 2003

Quick, who won the Nobel Prize for discovering the double helical structure of DNA? Most people would say Watson and Crick. But most people would make Maurice Wilkins very upset. The Rodney Dangerfield of biology, Wilkins shared the prize with Watson and Crick but missed out on the limelight, due largely to Watson's hit book, The Double Helix. Wilkins thought the book was so misleading he asked Harvard University Press not to publish it. Things have quieted down a bit now, and Wilkins is now telling the story his way. This book tells how he showed his colleagues the x-ray picture that gave them their crucial insight, and about his interactions with Rosalind Franklin, the researcher who actually created the picture, and who also received very little credit for her role in the discovery. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the DNA discovery. Finally Wilkins gets to have his say.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`No intelligent person who wishes to know how the universe works should fail to read this book. Not only is it completely understandable to the layman, it is also often very amusing' Arthur C. Clarke, Times Higher Education Supplement

About the Author

Maurice Wilkins is Emeritus Professor at King's College London, and shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Crick and Watson for the discovery of the double helical structure of DNA.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (November 27, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198606656
• ISBN-13: 978-0198606659
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,653,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Is this the True Story of the Discovery of the Double Helix?, April 21, 2004

By 

Stephen Pletko "Uncle Stevie" (London, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Third Man of the Double Helix: The Autobiography of Maurice Wilkins (Hardcover)

+++++

There is a joke by a famous comedian that asks who the three tenors are. Most people know two of them and the third man is known as "what's his name." The same situation occurs when you ask people who shared the 1962 Noble Prize (in physiology or medicine) for their discovery of the structure of DNA (and other nucleic acid achievements). Most people say, "(Dr.) Watson, (Dr.) Crick, and what's his name."

What's his name is Dr. Maurice Wilkins (1916 to 2004). Most people are unaware that Wilkins was a brilliant physicist (he worked on the Manhattan or Atomic Bomb Project during World War Two) and later on was a biophysicist whose contribution was essential for discovering DNA's structure. Wilkins states this more eloquently: "[My] team of researchers at King's [College, a division of the University of London in the UK] laid the foundations for the double helix structure that Watson and Crick [both of whom worked together in a different UK laboratory] demonstrated so peruasively with their model in 1953."

Wilkins ten chapter autobiography is divided into three parts: those days before, during, and after the discovery of DNA's structure. This book contains almost forty black-and-white photographs. Wilkins' aim in writing this book was to tell his life story (that begins before he was born) and, perhaps more importantly, clear up "the tensions, accusations, confusions, and controversies that have attended the telling and retelling of the DNA story."

I felt that Wilkins was totally honest (and at times naive) throughout this book. Some of the reasons I say he was honest are as follows:

(1) He was an octogenarian when this book was published and thus I feel he had nothing to hide at this advanced age.

(2) He reveals many aspects of his personal life that many people would be reticent to reveal, especially in print. For example, he tells us he "felt a bit suicidal at times."

(3) He says many times that in retrospect "he should of" or "he could of" done things differently. I got the impression that at times he was a bit hard on himself.

(4) Finally, he tells us that both he and Crick found Watson's book "The Double Helix" (1968) "distasteful." They both protested to Watson's publisher. (Wilkins said Watson's book was "badly written, juvenile, and in bad taste.") As a result the book was not published. (However, another publisher published it, and the rest is history.)

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Wilkins' book (at least for me) was the controversey surrounding Rosalind Franklin (1920 to 1958), an "x-ray [diffraction] specialist" who worked in the same lab as Wilkins. He gives us detailed information of what occurred. From other books (particularly the 1975 book by Ann Sayre), I learned that two major things occurred:

(1) There was tension between Frankin and Wilkins. I got the impression from these other books that this tension was due to personality and gender differences. Not true. Wilkins explains why this tension really arose and gives proof of his assertion.

(2) Wilkins gave a critical X-ray photograph (a reproduction of it is included in Wilkins' book) taken by Franklin to Watson without her permission. This photo gave Watson the concrete evidence for DNA's structure. Again, this is not entirely accurate according to Wilkins.

This critical X-ray photo brings up the question of the recognition Franklin should have received. For example, would she have been a contender for the Nobel Prize? I would say yes if this prize was only for determining the structure of DNA. But, as Wilkins explains, he, Crick, and Watson DID NOT receive the prize for this! I checked this out at the offical Nobel Prize internet site. (Note that the inside front and back flaps of Wilkins' book incorrectly says they were awarded the prize for discovering DNA's structure.)

Even so, was Franklin recognized for her achievements and contributions at this time? Watson and Crick did not recognize her for her achievements in their Nobel Prize lectures. However, Wilkins did recognize her (as well as others who made major contributions) in his lecture. (Their actual lectures can also be found at the official Nobel Prize internet site.)

Finally, I still have a few minor questions regarding Wilkins' story. However, my major question is as follows: "Why did he wait half a century after the discovery of DNA's structure to tell his side of the story?"

In conclusion, this autobiography shows that Wilkins was a decent, honest, and brilliant scientist. He also clears up any misconceptions regarding the discovery of the structure of DNA. Be sure to read this book so as to learn the true story of Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins and the true story of the discovery of the structure of DNA!!

+++++

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wilkins and the DNA structure, December 9, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Third Man of the Double Helix: The Autobiography of Maurice Wilkins (Hardcover)

Maurice Wilkins was a first-rate scientist who was deeply involved in the most important scientific discovery of the 20th century- the discovery of the structure of DNA.

His story needs to be told, since he has been written about often by authors such as Watson, Crick, Anne Sayre, Brenda Maddox and others.

He was a central figure in the continuing saga of Rosalind

Franklin and her "Photograph 51", recently the subject of a televison documentary of the same title, and a previous BBC

special produced by Peter Goodchild some ten years ago.

He was clearly not the equal of Rosalind Franklin in
experimental ability, nor of Watson and Crick in their aggressive utilization of the work of others.

Perhaps the key story of this book was Wilkins' graciously declining co-authorship of the basic DNA Publication in Nature, which also, much to the relief of Watson and Crick, avoided having to acknowledge how they obtained Photograph 51.

As Sir John Maddox said recently, "If all these publications had arrived at Nature when I was Editor, I would have smelled a rat"

In any case, Wilkins comes off as a thoroughly decent person, although one wonders why he permitted the consistent publication
of articles representing Rosalind Franklin as one of his subordinates- which she never was.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Man, March 10, 2004

By 

Donald B. Siano (Westfield, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Third Man of the Double Helix: The Autobiography of Maurice Wilkins (Hardcover)

The Third Man--The Autobiography of Maurice Wilkins
by Maurice Wilkins
Reviewed by Donald Siano

Wilkins was involved in one of the watershed scientific events of the twentieth century--the discovery of the double helical structure of DNA. He was the guy who really got the study of the x-ray diffraction studies going, and showed that the features seen were universal to a variety of different organisms, and therefore that it was an important scientific problem. He showed that the structure was probably helical, got Rosilind Franklin started on the problem, and was the link from her to Watson and Crick, who finally made the famous model that shook the world.

This book, published fifty years after, fills in some of the details of the event, correcting and contesting some claims made by others who have written on it. Some of his corrections are quite convincing. For example, a claim was made in one of the books on this affair that his research group contained only one other female, implying that he was something of a misogynist, while a picture of his laboratory coworkers in the book is about half female.

The tension between him and Franklin is made much of in historical accounts, and Wilkins unflinchingly covers this, and is pretty hard on himself too. The incident graphically shows how people from very different cultures (Franklin was a rich, pushy Jew) who are ostensibly working on a common goal can fail. Diversity in a laboratory group is not always the asset that the universal dogma asserts. His regrets and "could'a shoulda's" are revealing and even moving at times.

Another revelation in the book was his involvement in the Communist party, and his flirtation with Freudian psychology. A scientific education unfortunately appears not to immunize one completely from quackery.

The thing I took away from the book is how the simple stories generated and perpetuated in the mass media and in historical accounts are almost always wrong in important ways. Scientific discoveries and important inventions are almost always complicated events, only part of which is even known and understood by any single writer or even the actors involved. But more than that, practically every writer has his prejudices and angles to massage. Autobiographers are no exception to this, but Wilkins has added to our understanding, and should only be applauded for it.