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Francis Crick Professor Francis Harry Compton Crick, OM FRS (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was a British physicist, molecular biologist and neuroscientist, most noted for being one of the co-discoverers of the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule in 1953. He, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material." His later work at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology until 1977 has not received as much formal recognition. His remaining career was spent at the Salk Institute in California, where he became a theorist for neurobiology and the study of the brain. In 1966 a series of his popular lectures was published in the book, Of Molecules and Men, in which he began with a critique of vitalism, the notion that an intangible life force beyond the grasp of biology distinguishes living organisms from inanimate things. He then explored the borderline between the organic and inorganic, presenting an elegantly clear description of DNA's basic structure and function in relation to RNA and myriad enzymes, then concluded by anticipating events and trends that have in fact come to pass in the past four decades, including the increasing use of computer technology and robotics in mind-brain research, explorations into right-side versus left-side uses of the brain, and controversies surrounding the existence of the soul. The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul is Crick's 1993 book about consciousness, in which he suggests that a person's mental activities are entirely due to the behavior of nerve cells, glial cells, and the atoms, ions, and molecules that make them up and influence them. He argued that traditional conceptualizations of the soul as a non-material being must be replaced by a materialistic understanding of how the brain produces mind; that religions can be wrong about scientific matters, and that part of what science does is to confront the errors that exist within religious traditions.
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Crick Papers
Francis Crick Quotes We've discovered the secret of life. 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. When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?" Free will is located in or near the anterior cingulate sulcus. Evolution is cleverer than you are.
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