James Watson diffraction data collected by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling. The controversy arose from Watson and Crick using some of Franklin's unpublished data—without her consent—in their construction of the double helix model of DNA. Franklin's experimental results provided estimates of the water content of DNA crystals and these results were consistent with the two sugar-phosphate backbones being on the outside of the molecule. Franklin personally told Crick and Watson that the backbones had to be on the outside, which was a crucial piece of information; before then, Linus Pauling and Watson and Crick had generated erroneous models with the chains inside
Francis Crick of the importance of her experimental results in Watson and Crick's model building and theoretical analysis, Franklin should have had her name on the original Watson and Crick paper in "Nature". Franklin and Gosling submitted their own joint 'second' paper to "Nature" at the same time as Wilkins, Stokes, and Wilson submitted theirs (i.e. the 'third' paper on DNA). Watson's portrayal of Franklin in "The Double Helix" (written after Franklin's death when libel laws did not apply anymore) was negative and gave the appearance that she was Wilkins' assistant and was unable to interpret her own DNA data. The X-ray