“A comparison between the triplets tentatively deduced by these methods with the changes in amino acid sequence produced by mutation shows a fair measure of agreement.”

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.

My own prejudices are exactly the opposite of the functionalists’: “If you want to understand function, study structure”.

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.

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.

It is notoriously difficult to define the word living.

You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.

One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

I also suspect that many workers in this field [molecular biology] and related fields have been strongly motivated by the desire, rarely actually expressed, to refute vitalism.

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

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

There is no form of prose more difficult to understand and more tedious to read than the average scientific paper.

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.

A busy life is a wasted life.

Exploratory research is really like working in a fog. You don’t know where you’re going. You’re just groping. Then people learn about it afterwards and think how straightforward it was.

Exact knowledge is the enemy of vitalism.

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.

The earliest English attempts at rhyming probably included words whose agreement is so slight that it deserves the name of mere ‘assonance’ rather than that of actual rhyme.

But there’s certainly only one thing I could never agree with George Galloway on. He’s a teetotaller and wants to close all the bars in the House of Commons. That is just not on.

Basically, Herman van Rompuy wants the European Union to become a debt union, which may be acceptable to some of the southern countries who are effectively bust. To the northern countries, it is not.

No deals with the Tories; it’s war.

Before, Europe was about treaties, laws and our sovereign right to govern ourselves. Now, it’s about everyday lives.

What we are now doing with the victory, and I agree with you if you condemn that and I condemn whole-heartedly the trivial bullshit it is to go after a man who makes a scientific breakthrough and all that we as women — organized women — do is to fret about his shirt?

What I find daunting always is to stand on a stage and talk to people, whether they agree with me or not.

How we navigate between false agreement and polarization is the kind of mastery that collective wisdom represents.