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It is notoriously difficult to define the word living.

Francis Crick

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.
FRANCIS CRICK

Country Earth Myself Opinion People Scare World
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

Correction Group Place Reading Right Start
The ultimate aim of the modern movement in biology is in fact to explain all biology in terms of physics and chemistry.
FRANCIS CRICK

Biology Chemistry Explanation Fact Modern Movement
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

Argument Experiment Impression Negative Possible
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.
FRANCIS CRICK

Honesty Knowledge Life Man Miracle Satisfaction State
Exact knowledge is the enemy of vitalism.
FRANCIS CRICK

Enemy Knowledge One Liner
Trying to determine the structure of a protein by UV spectroscopy was like trying to determine the structure of a piano by listening to the sound it made while being dropped down a flight of stairs.
FRANCIS CRICK

Determination Listen Sound Structure Try
It is notoriously difficult to define the word living.
FRANCIS CRICK

Difficult Live World
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.
FRANCIS CRICK

Biology Born Possible Reproduction Science
A busy life is a wasted life.
FRANCIS CRICK

Busy Life One Liner Wasted Time
It seems likely that most if not all the genetic information in any organism is carried by nucleic acid – usually by DNA, although certain small viruses use RNA as their genetic material.
FRANCIS CRICK

Biology Information Material Myself Science
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

Generation Hard Nature Strike
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

Human Kind Man Reproduction Run
Since I essentially knew nothing, I had an almost completely free choice.
FRANCIS CRICK

Freedom Myself
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

Brain Man Ourselves Science Study Universe
A final proof of our ideas can only be obtained by detailed studies on the alterations produced in the amino acid sequence of a protein by mutations of the type discussed here.
FRANCIS CRICK

Detail Evidence Ideas Ourselves Science Type

It is notoriously difficult to define the word living.

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It is notoriously difficult to define the word living.

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