Evolution is cleverer than you are.
FRANCIS CRICKEvolution is cleverer than you are.
FRANCIS CRICKThe dangerous man is the one who has only one idea, because then he’ll fight and die for it.
FRANCIS CRICKIt 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 CRICKFree will is located in or near the anterior cingulate sulcus.
FRANCIS CRICKChance is the only source of true novelty.
FRANCIS CRICKIt 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 CRICKExact knowledge is the enemy of vitalism.
FRANCIS CRICKOne 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.
FRANCIS CRICKWhen 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 CRICKAvoid the temptation to work so hard that there is no time left for serious thinking.
FRANCIS CRICKIt 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 CRICKIf revealed religions have revealed anything it is that they are usually wrong.
FRANCIS CRICKIt 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.
FRANCIS CRICKThe ultimate aim of the modern movement in biology is in fact to explain all biology in terms of physics and chemistry.
FRANCIS CRICKA good scientist values criticism almost higher than friendship: no, in science criticism is the height and measure of friendship.
FRANCIS CRICKIt 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