Francis Crick Quotes

Rather than believe that Watson and Crick made the DNA structure, I would rather stress that the structure made Watson and Crick.

Only gradually did I realize that this lack of qualification could be an advantage. By the time most scientists have reached age thirty they are trapped by their own expertise. They have invested so much effort in one particular field that it is often extremely difficult, at that time in their careers, to make a radical change. I, on the other hand, knew nothing, except for a basic training in somewhat old-fashioned physics and mathematics and an ability to turn my hand to new things. I

And so to those of you who may be vitalists I would make this prophecy: what everyone believed yesterday, and you believe today, only cranks will believe tomorrow.

Life, as we know it on earth, appears as a synthesis of two macromolecular systems. The proteins, because of their versatility and chemical reactivity, do all the work but are unable to replicate themselves in any simple way. The nucleic acids seem tailor-made for replication but can achieve rather little else compared with the more elaborate and better equipped proteins. RNA and DNA are the dumb blondes of the biomolecular world, fit mainly for reproduction (with a little help from proteins) but of little use for much of the really demanding work. The problem of the origin of life would be a great deal easier to approach if there were only one family of macromolecules, capable of doing both jobs, replication and catalysis, but life as we know it employs two families. This may well be due to the fact that no macromolecule exists which could conveniently carry out both functions, because of the limitations of organic chemistry; because, that is, of the nature of things.

Christianity may be OK between consenting adults in private but should not be taught to young children.

I had discovered the gossip test — what you are really interested in is what you gossip about.

It is amateurs who have one big bright beautiful idea that they can never abandon. Professionals know that they have to produce theory after theory before they are likely to hit the jackpot.

Before I describe in more detail exactly what is involved in seeing, let me make three general remarks.

The ultimate aim of the modern movement in biology is in fact to explain all biology in terms of physics and chemistry.

How do I know what I think until I hear what I say?

Philosophers have been especially concerned with the problem of consciousness—for example, how to explain the redness of red or the painfulness of pain. This is a very thorny issue. The problem springs from the fact that the redness of red that I perceive so vividly cannot be precisely communicated to another human being, at least in the ordinary course of events. If you cannot describe the properties of a thing unambiguously, you are likely to have some difficulty trying to explain these properties in reductionist terms.

Both of us had decided, quite independently of each other, that the central problem in molecular biology was the chemical structure of the gene.

A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong.

Our brains have evolved mainly to deal with our body and its interactions with the world it senses to be around us. Is this world real? This is a venerable philosophical issue and I do not wish to be embroiled in the finely honed squabbles to which it has led. I merely state my own working hypothesis: that there is indeed an outside world, and that it is largely independent of our observing it. We can never fully know this outside world, but we can obtain approximate information about some aspects of its properties by using our senses and our brain.

I wasn't aware of Chargaff's rules when he said them, but the effect on me was quite electric because I realized immediately that if you had this sort of scheme that John Griffith was proposing, of adenine being paired with thymine, and guanine being paired with cytosine, then you should get Chargaff's rules. I was very excited, but I didn't actually tell Chargaff because it was something I was doing with John Griffith. ... This was very exciting, and we thought "ah ha!" and we realized - I mean what anyone who is familiar with the history of science ought to realize - that when you have one-to-one ratios, it means things go to together. And how on Earth no one pointed out this simple fact in those years, I don't know.