19 FEB 2015 by ideonexus

 Gardener Metaphor of Teaching

...like curriculum, the garden is primarily a social construct that reflects the intent of the maker and the prevailing cultural ideologies of the time. The lived experiences of the person within both curriculum and garden are a synthesis of orchestrated and phenomenological experiences. The garden and the curriculum employ a common interpretive stance by referencing the artistry of creation within an aesthetic of experience. Within this hermeneutic relationship lies the potential for moving ...
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10 AUG 2011 by ideonexus

 Watson's Afterward Concerning Rosalind Franklin

All of these people, should they desire, can indicate events and details they remember differently. But there is one unfortunate exception. In 1958, Rosalind Franklin died at the early age of thirty-seven. Since my initial impressions of her, both scientific and personal (as recorded in the early pages of this book), were often wrong, I want to say something here about her achievements. The X-ray work she did at King's is increasingly regarded as superb. The sorting out of the A and B forms, ...
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Is it wrong to consider him a sexist, when he corrects his perceptions of her earlier in the text, and in the afterword admits he didn't understand the struggles of women scientists.

10 AUG 2011 by ideonexus

 Watson Admits to Misunderstanding Rosalind Franklin

Rosy's instant acceptance of our model at first amazed me. I had feared that her sharp, stubborn mind, caught in her self-made antihelical trap, might dig up irrelevant results that would foster uncertainty about the correctness of the double helix. Nonetheless, like almost everyone else, she saw the appeal of the base pairs and accepted the fact that the structure was too pretty not to be true. Moreover, even before she learned of our proposal, the X-ray evidence had been forcing her more th...
Folksonomies: history science sexism
Folksonomies: history science sexism
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He mistook her skepticism for feminism and not scientific integrity.

10 AUG 2011 by ideonexus

 Watson Describes a Talk by Rosalind Franklin

BY mid-November, when Rosy's talk on DNA rolled about, I had learned enough crystallographic argument to follow much of her lecture.. Most important, I knew what to focus attention upon. Six weeks of listening to Francis had made me realize that the crux of the matter was whether Rosy's new X-ray pictures would lend any sup-port for a helical DNA structure. The really relevant experimental details were those which might provide clues in constructing molecular models. It took, however, only a ...
Folksonomies: history science sexism
Folksonomies: history science sexism
  1  notes

And, curiously, remarks on his momentary thoughts about how she could make herself more attractive.

10 AUG 2011 by ideonexus

 Watson Describes Rosalind Franklin

Even worse, Maurice continually frustrated Francis by never seeming enthusiastic enough about DNA. He appeared to enjoy slowly understating important arguments. It was not a question of intelligence or common sense Maurice clearly had both; witness his seizing DNA before almost everyone else. It was that Francis felt he could never get the message over to Maurice that you did not move cautiously when you were holding dynamite like DNA. Moreover, it was increasingly difficult to take Maurice's...
Folksonomies: history science sexism
Folksonomies: history science sexism
  1  notes

There some sexism here, but Watson is so candid describing everyone in his book.

10 AUG 2011 by ideonexus

 A Good Number of Scientists are Stupid

Of course there were scientists who thought the evidence favoring DNA was inconclusive and preferred to believe that genes were protein molecules. Francis, however, did not worry about these skeptics. Many were cantankerous fools who unfailingly backed the wrong horses. One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of. scientists are not only narrowminded and dull, but al...
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James Watson describing scientists who did not believe in the existence of DNA.