Change your life today: look into Business

Rick Politician
Christian Stuart
English 131
May 11, 2005

SA 2.4
In a 1953 production of the scientific journal, Nature, two scientists present a ground-breaking theory in an article describing the structure of DNA.  DNA is an acronym for deoxyribose nucleic acid.  The article is entitled “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids,” and the two scientists are named Watson and CRick.  In this scientific article, Watson and CRick describe how they synthesized a logical structure for DNA based on the research of a number of scientific peers.  First, Watson and CRick refute two already existing theories that DNA consists of three strands with their own theory of “two helical chains each coiled round the same axis” (737).  This “two helical chain” structure is the same one the public is familiar with today.   One of three strand theories is refuted based on the scientific knowledge about the force of bonding in between individual atoms and molecules.  The second three strand theory is refuted based on the structure being “rather ill-defined” and for that reason Watson and CRick decided to “no comment on it” in their scientific article (737).
Watson and CRick defend their two strand theory using “the usual chemical assumptions” (737).  These are chemical assumptions based on previous scientific theory that are also used by other scientists attempting to describe the structure of DNA.  Specifically, Watson and CRick state that structure of the two strands “loosely resembles Furberg’s model No. 1” (737).  Furberg is a scientist who published his own theory on the structure of DNA in the previous year, 1952.
What Watson and CRick offer to the scientific world is a new idea describing how the two strands of DNA are held together.  They propose that two specific types of molecules extrude perpendicularly all along each of the strands.   Each perpendicular molecule from one strand bonds strongly to a complimentary molecule that lies perpendicular on the other strand through specific pairing.  This specific pairing creates a structure that would visually resemble and long step ladder that has been twisted to the right.  Watson and CRick state that this theory is partially based off of two experiments conducted by fellow scientists the previous year who found that these bonding molecules are found in 1:1 ratios in DNA.   Other evidence used by Watson and CRick comes from X-rays taken of DNA by two more scientists.  Watson and CRick admit that their proposed structure is “roughly compatible with the experimental data” recorded by their peer scientists, but that their proposed structure “must be regarded as unproved until it has been checked against more exact results” (737).
            àI will Insert description of Gross and my heuristic for analyzing scientific writing for MP2 here…
            Let us apply this heuristic to Watson and CRick’s “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids” article in order to illuminate rhetorical strategies that may have been utilized.  To begin, the stasis theory can be used to illuminate what questions Watson and CRick are aiming to answer in their article.  The scientists seem to be answering the quid sit and quale sit, or what is the character of DNA, by describing its structure, and what laws determine the structure of DNA.  Watson and CRick also use the rhetorical strategy of logos through epideictic commentary to discredit the previous three strand theories.  They underscore where they believe the other scientists went wrong.
            The two stranded DNA with specific pairing theory proposed by Watson and CRick is an innovation admitted by them to be based on the authority of scientific knowledge as well as ideas and data taken from scientific peers of the day.  Watson and CRick attempt to present their theory to their peers as an objective prediction, synthesized from observations of the current scientific knowledge.  The scientific article makes logical sense in order to convince the rest of the scientific community of the truth Watson and CRick believe they have found.
If Gross were to read Watson and CRick what would he say?  Most likely, he would point out that Watson and CRick were two scientists not widely known by the scientific world.  Without doing any original scientific research of their own, by only using what information had already been presented by other scientists, they synthesized a theory on how DNA is structured.  By acting more like theorists than traditional scientists, Gross may argue that Watson and CRick needed to use the rhetoric in their “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids” to convince a skeptical scientific audience that their theory was correct.
Agreement to Gross’ argument may be offered up by Watson and CRick.  They are likely aware of the hostility one can receive from the scientific world by proposing a new theory without conducting any research personally.  Watson and CRick would probably say their article presents a novel structure of DNA in a way that builds off of the authority of scientific peers and commonly accepted biochemical laws to create a more open mind in their scientific community towards their theory.
Watson and CRick utilized specific rhetorical strategies in order to reach the scientific community.  Although contrary to Gross beliefs, their DNA structure may not be an innovation in of itself, but a discovery found through innovation.  The two stranded DNA structure exists and this knowledge has been used to develop gene replication over the past 50 years.