Francis Crick
Francis Crick
Francis Harry Compton Crick OM FRSwas a British molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist, most noted for being a co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953 with James Watson. Together with Watson and Maurice Wilkins, he was jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material"...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth8 June 1916
Francis Crick quotes about
minorities may acid
The meaning of this observation is unclear, but it raises the unfortunate possibility of ambiguous triplets; that is, triplets which may code more than one amino acid. However one would certainly expect such triplets to be in a minority.
children may taught
Christianity may be OK between consenting adults in private but should not be taught to young children.
lying trying may
To produce a really good biological theory one must try to see through the clutter produced by evolution to the basic mechanisms lying beneath them, realizing that they are likely to be overlaid by other, secondary mechanisms. What seems to physicists to be a hopelessly complicated process may have been what nature found simplest, because nature could only build on what was already there.
may acid triplet
It now seems very likely that many of the 64 triplets, possibly most of them, may code one amino acid or another, and that in general several distinct triplets may code one amino acid.
act certain chain english-scientist messenger secondary seems since single virtually
It seems virtually certain that a single chain of RNA can act as messenger RNA, since poly U is a single chain without secondary structure.
assuming certain code deduce english-scientist information limited using
By using polymers of different composition and assuming a triplet code one can deduce limited information about the composition of certain triplets.
acid groups backbone
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.
simplicity tools use
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.
thinking arrogance ruthlessness
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.
thinking class simplicity
For simplicity one can think of the + class as having one extra base at some point or other in the genetic message and the - class as having one too few.
determination acid would-be
Unfortunately it makes the unambiguous determination of triplets by these methods much more difficult than would be the case if there were only one triplet for each amino acid.
double-standard combination form
If poly A is added to poly U, to form a double or triple helix, the combination is inactive.
trying too-much messages
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.
reading two messages
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.