> What he should have said is "I just stole an x-ray diffraction pattern from Rosalind Franklin and her work shows us the gross structure of DNA."  If he did today what he did back then he would end his career as a scientist.  Straight out theft is no longer tolerated very well like it was back then as long as the theft was from a women.

The above is a common misconception - first, the diffraction at issue was not Rosalind Franklin's.  The famous Photo 51 had was taken by Raymond Gosling, a PhD student working for Franklin.  His PhD thesis was about his very unique skillset - the title of the thesis was "X-Ray Diffraction Studies of Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid".  So who "stole" what from who?  Where was Gosling mentioned in all the fame and awards?  Talk about "inside baseball" level trivia!

The tale is told in sufficient detail here: "https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/23/sexism-in-science-did-watson-and-crick-really-steal-rosalind-franklins-data"

A key paragraph:

"Ironically, the data provided by Franklin to the MRC were virtually identical to those she presented at a small seminar in King’s in autumn 1951, when Jim Watson was in the audience. Had Watson bothered to take notes during her talk, instead of idly musing about her dress sense and her looks, he would have provided Crick with the vital numerical evidence 15 months before the breakthrough finally came."

So the information that was used by Watson and Crick from Franklin's lab was made public *by Franklin herself* more than a year before it was put together with the Watson/Crick theoretical work as verification of the "theory".   

I realize that there are many very well-written books about intrigue and dirty dealing written for a well-educated lay audience, but I can state from personal experience that "giving credit where it is due" is rarely overlooked in the overwhelming majority of cases.  I continue to get correspondence, inquiries, requests for old arcane details, and even some nice checks for minor tinkering on work I did back in the 1980s and 1990s.  But more enjoyable, I get Christmas cards, picture postcards from telescopes in the Andes, and long emails about the bleeding edge of the leading edge of science as it is told by the fellows who pack their own soldering irons, just in case.

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