Quote

If, for example, all the codons are triplets, then in addition to the correct reading of the message, there are two incorrect readings which we shall obtain if we do not start the grouping into sets of three at the right place.

Francis Crick

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Francis Crick
Age: 88 †
Born: 1916
Born: June 8
Died: 2004
Died: July 28
Biochemist
Biologist
Geneticist
Molecular Biologist
Neuroscientist
Physicist
Scientist
University Teacher
Francis Harry Compton Crick
Francis H.C. Crick
Two
Message
Grouping
Right
Messages
Triplet
Example
Readings
Shall
Incorrect
Start
Addition
Reading
Obtain
Three
Sets
Place
Correct
Triplets

More quotes by Francis Crick

Image
Since I essentially knew nothing, I had an almost completely free choice.
Francis Crick
Image
Jim and I hit it off immediately, partly because our interests were astonishingly similar and partly, I suspect, because a certain youthful arrogance, a ruthlessness, an impatience with sloppy thinking can naturally to both of us.
Francis Crick
Image
It is not easy to convey, unless one has experienced it, the dramatic feeling of sudden enlightenment that floods the mind when the right idea finally clinches into place.
Francis Crick
Image
It would appear that the number of nonsense triplets is rather low, since we only occasionally come across them. However this conclusion is less secure than our other deductions about the general nature of the genetic code.
Francis Crick
Image
A knowledge of the true age of the Earth and of the fossil record makes it impossible for any balanced intellect to believe in the literal truth of every part of the Bible in the way that fundamentalists do.
Francis Crick
Image
You can do reverse engineering, but you can’t do reverse hacking.
Francis Crick
Image
Anybody who believes that the earth is less than 10,000 years old needs psychiatric help.
Francis Crick
Image
Do codons overlap? In other words, as we read along the genetic message do we find a base which is a member of two or more codons? It now seems fairly certain that codons do not overlap.
Francis Crick
Image
Attempts have been made from a study of the changes produced by mutation to obtain the relative order of the bases within various triplets, but my own view is that these are premature until there is more extensive and more reliable data on the composition of the triplets.
Francis Crick
Image
Evolution is cleverer than you are.
Francis Crick
Image
It is one of the more striking generalizations of biochemistry - which surprisingly is hardly ever mentioned in the biochemical textbooks - that the twenty amino acids and the four bases, are, with minor reservations, the same throughout Nature.
Francis Crick
Image
We have to take away from humans in the long run their reproductive autonomy as the only way to guarantee the advancement of mankind.
Francis Crick
Image
A final proof of our ideas can only be obtained by detailed studies on the alterations produced in the amino acid sequence of a protein by mutations of the type discussed here.
Francis Crick
Image
It has yet to be shown by direct biochemical methods, as opposed to the indirect genetic evidence mentioned earlier, that the code is indeed a triplet code.
Francis Crick
Image
How is the base sequence, divided into codons? There is nothing in the backbone of the nucleic acid, which is perfectly regular, to show us how to group the bases into codons.
Francis Crick
Image
A good scientist values criticism almost higher than friendship: no, in science criticism is the height and measure of friendship.
Francis Crick
Image
It is notoriously difficult to define the word living.
Francis Crick
Image
When you start in science, you are brainwashed into believing how careful you must be, and how difficult it is to discover things. There's something that might be called the 'graduate student syndrome' graduate students hardly believe they can make a discovery.
Francis Crick
Image
A man who is right every time is not likely to do very much.
Francis Crick
Image
While Occam's razor is a useful tool in the physical sciences, it can be a very dangerous implement in biology. It is thus very rash to use simplicity and elegance as a guide in biological research.
Francis Crick