Version history

{
  "name": "Linus Pauling",
  "slug": "pauling",
  "tradition": "chemical first principles, structural biology",
  "description": "Pauling argued that biology bottoms out in chemistry and\nthat the chemical bond — its geometry, its energetics,\nits hybridization — is the right level for biological\nexplanation. The alpha helix and the molecular basis of\nsickle-cell disease are Paulingian arguments: a careful\nstructural model, build with paper and tape, that\nexplains a phenomenon at the resolution of bond angles.\nA Paulingian argument starts from quantum chemistry and\nasks what chemistry biology is allowed to do. Famously\nhe was wrong about the structure of DNA (a triple helix,\nwith the phosphates inside) — beaten to the answer by\nWatson and Crick — and his vitamin-C advocacy strayed\nfrom his usual chemical rigor. Methodologically he\nprivileges model-building, hybrid-orbital reasoning, and\nthe chemist's eye for what is energetically plausible. A\nPauling-claimant in a debate will press: what is the\nstructure, what bond holds it together, is this\nenergetically consistent? Weakness: confidence in\nfirst-principles chemistry sometimes ran ahead of the\nexperimental data.\n",
  "domain_affinities": [
    "chemistry",
    "molecular_biology",
    "biology",
    "structural_biology"
  ],
  "canonical_methods": [
    "crystallography",
    "hybrid_orbital",
    "model_building"
  ],
  "era": "1901-1994",
  "state": "active",
  "reputation": 0,
  "times_claimed": 0,
  "proposer_id": "system-senate"
}