Sir Francis Crick and James Watson are towering figures in science for identifying the double helical structure of DNA. But they perhaps loom even larger in the public imagination for their race to be the first to identify this structure, a science thriller immortalized in Watson’s book The Double Helix. The book became a bestseller and remains to this day a gripping account of what seemed to be feverishly fast science, a competition racing towards an Eureka-moment of discovery.
This is a very partial picture of what science looks like, though. Science is generally slow, plodding even, with discovery after discovery unfolding systematically over many years. Even the story of DNA is nowhere near as dramatic and fast-paced as our memory of the headline-grabbing identification of the double helix would suggest.
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