Quote

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

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
Useful
Implement
Simplicity
Sciences
Thus
Elegance
Tools
Biological
Research
Biology
Occam
Physical
Guide
Rash
Dangerous
Tool
Razor
Use
Guides
Razors

More quotes by 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
If poly A is added to poly U, to form a double or triple helix, the combination is inactive.
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
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
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
What could be more foolish than to base one's entire view of life on ideas that, however plausible at the time, now appear to be quite erroneous? And what would be more important than to find our true place in the universe by removing one by one these unfortunate vestiges of earlier beliefs?
Francis Crick
Image
There is no scientific study more vital to man than the study of his own brain. Our entire view of the universe depends on it.
Francis Crick
Image
Evolution is cleverer than you are.
Francis Crick
Image
A man who is right every time is not likely to do very much.
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
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 essential to understand our brains in some detail if we are to assess correctly our place in this vast and complicated universe we see all around us.
Francis Crick
Image
The balance of evidence both from the cell-free system and from the study of mutation, suggests that this does not occur at random, and that triplets coding the same amino acid may well be rather similar.
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
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
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
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
Anybody who believes that the earth is less than 10,000 years old needs psychiatric help.
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
Since I essentially knew nothing, I had an almost completely free choice.
Francis Crick