black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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.
FRANCIS CRICK

Age Balance Earth Fundamental Impossible Intellectual Knowledge Record True
You can do reverse engineering, but you can’t do reverse hacking.
FRANCIS CRICK

Professional Technology Yourself
Anybody who believes that the earth is less than 10,000 years old needs psychiatric help.
FRANCIS CRICK

Believe Earth Help Need. Mental Old
A man who is right every time is not likely to do very much.
FRANCIS CRICK

Accomplishment Man Right Time
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.
FRANCIS CRICK

Agreement Comparison Measurement Production
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
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
Chance is the only source of true novelty.
FRANCIS CRICK

Chance Novel True
In my experience most mathematicians are intellectually lazy.
FRANCIS CRICK

Experience Intellectual Mathematics
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
Since I essentially knew nothing, I had an almost completely free choice.
FRANCIS CRICK

Freedom Myself
The dangerous man is the one who has only one idea, because then he’ll fight and die for it.
FRANCIS CRICK

Dangerous Death Fight Himself Ideas Thinking
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
A busy life is a wasted life.
FRANCIS CRICK

Busy Life One Liner Wasted Time
If the code does indeed have some logical foundation then it is legitimate to consider all the evidence, both good and bad, in any attempt to deduce it.
FRANCIS CRICK

Bad Evidence Foundation Goodness Legal Logic
Free will is located in or near the anterior cingulate sulcus.
FRANCIS CRICK

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

Avoid Serious Temptation Thinking Time
Exact knowledge is the enemy of vitalism.
FRANCIS CRICK

Enemy Knowledge One Liner
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
You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.
FRANCIS CRICK

Existence Science Yourself
In the fullness of time, educated people will believe there is no soul independent of the body, and hence no life after death.
FRANCIS CRICK

Body Death Education People Soul Time
Christianity may be OK between consenting adults in private but should not be taught to young children.
FRANCIS CRICK

Children Privacy Religion Teaching Young
God is a hacker, not an engineer.
FRANCIS CRICK

God One Liner Science
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
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
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.
FRANCIS CRICK

Oneself Simplicity Thinking
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.
FRANCIS CRICK

Biology Code Direction Evidence Science

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Francis Crick Quotes