Rosalind Franklin Was Gone Too Soon for the Nobel

Regarding “Rosalind Franklin’s Nobel” (Letters, May 5): While James Watson et al. were awarded a 1962 Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA, key team member Franklin was omitted. While this is commonly cited as evidence of sexism, Occam’s razor suggests a far more prosaic reason. Franklin had died in 1958, and Nobel Prizes aren’t awarded posthumously—by rule since 1974, and by custom from the start, with very few exceptions.

Gerard Weatherby