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ajross • yesterday at 10:15 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

Is genuine curiosity about scientific history inherently "retconning"? Would you have said that if the dispute was between Watson and some other dude?

I mean, yes, there are people who push this attribution because of identity reasons. Rejecting it for the same reasons is at least as bad, no?


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kraken_cult • yesterday at 10:20 PM

Sure, and I'm sure there are countless people through history, lab techs, post docs, the scribe of Machiavelli, the person who washed da Vinci's shirts who made contributions - maybe major. Hell, stuff I bring up at work now will somehow make it in to our staff meeting as coming from the CEO when it was a conversation him and I had.

The questions is, why, there's clearly an obsession around it. And I honestly doubt if Rosalind Franklin we wouldn't be having the conversation, can you see any indicator to the contrary?

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