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A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong.

Francis Crick

Avoid the temptation to work so hard that there is no time left for serious thinking.
FRANCIS CRICK

Avoid Serious Temptation Thinking Time
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.
FRANCIS CRICK

Division Group Science
Free will is located in or near the anterior cingulate sulcus.
FRANCIS CRICK

Freedom Location
It is notoriously difficult to define the word living.
FRANCIS CRICK

Difficult Live 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
We are sometimes asked what the result would be if we put four +’s in one gene. To answer this my colleagues have recently put together not merely four but six +’s.
FRANCIS CRICK

Experiment Myself Result Science Team Work
A good scientist values criticism almost higher than friendship: no, in science criticism is the height and measure of friendship.
FRANCIS CRICK

Criticism Friendship Goodness Measurement Science Value
In my experience most mathematicians are intellectually lazy.
FRANCIS CRICK

Experience Intellectual Mathematics
A busy life is a wasted life.
FRANCIS CRICK

Busy Life One Liner Wasted Time
It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.
FRANCIS CRICK

Escape Eyes Notice Ourselves Possible Science
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.
FRANCIS CRICK

Expression Motivational Myself Strong Work
Rather than believe that Watson and Crick made the DNA structure, I would rather stress that the structure made Watson and Crick.
FRANCIS CRICK

Believe Myself Structure
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

Evidence Freedom Science System
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

Drama Easy Enlightenment Experience Feeling Place
In my experience most mathematicians are intellectually lazy and especially dislike reading experimental papers. He seemed to have very strong biological intuitions but unfortunately of negative sign.
FRANCIS CRICK

Biology Experience Experiment Intellectual Mathematics Negative Reading Strong
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

A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong.

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A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong.

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