The DNA Helix Changed How We Thought About Ourselves NYT | Top Stories By: Carl Zimmer 8 November 2025 at 11:36 “The laws of inheritance are quite unknown,” Charles Darwin acknowledged in 1859. The discovery of DNA’s shape altered how we conceived of life itself. © Science SourceThe x-ray crystallography by Rosalind Franklin in 1952 that assisted James Watson and Francis Crick in their discovery of the structure of DNA.