Quote

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

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
Fact
Aim
Facts
Physics
Explain
Ultimate
Terms
Movement
Modern
Biology
Term
Chemistry

More quotes by Francis Crick

Image
If poly A is added to poly U, to form a double or triple helix, the combination is inactive.
Francis Crick
Image
Protein synthesis is a central problem for the whole of biology, and that it is in all probability closely related to gene action.
Francis Crick
Image
In the fullness of time, educated people will believe there is no soul independent of the body, and hence no life after death.
Francis Crick
Image
Christianity may be OK between consenting adults in private but should not be taught to young children.
Francis Crick
Image
Again the message to experimentalists is: Be sensible but don't be impressed too much by negative arguments. If at all possible, try it and see what turns up. Theorists almost always dislike this sort of approach.
Francis Crick
Image
The major credit I think Jim and I deserve is for selecting the right problem and sticking to it. It's true that by blundering about we stumbled on gold, but the fact remains that we were looking for gold.
Francis Crick
Image
This seems highly likely, especially as it has been shown that in several systems mutations affecting the same amino acid are extremely near together on the genetic map.
Francis Crick
Image
Anybody who believes that the earth is less than 10,000 years old needs psychiatric help.
Francis Crick
Image
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
Image
Moreover the incorporation requires the same components needed for protein synthesis, and is inhibited by the same inhibitors. Thus the system is most unlikely to be a complete artefact and is very probably closely related to genuine protein synthesis.
Francis Crick
Image
You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.
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
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
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
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 busy life is a wasted life.
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
I think she [Rosalind Franklin] was a good experimentalist but certainly not of the first rank. She was simply not in the same class as Eigen or Bragg or Pauling, nor was she as good as Dorothy Hodgkin. She did not even select DNA to study. It was given to her. Her theoretical crystallography was very average.
Francis Crick
Image
You can do reverse engineering, but you can’t do reverse hacking.
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