Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code by Matt Ridley

Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code Reviews

• 
  Jason Mills

  This is a short biography, but also very concise. If one were to remove from it everything that was not directly relevant to giving a picture of Crick and his achievements, the thing would be no more than a paragraph shorter. It's a fact-packed, straight-to-the-point account, and is all the more interesting for that.
  
  We learn of Crick's war work on mines, his early forarys into protein structures, the fateful partnership with Watson, his 'ringmaster' role in the later unravelling of the genetic code, his dalliance with embryology and his final years delving into neuroscience. We get to know him as garrulous, hard-working, blunt, irritating, endlessly curious, diligently assimilating, bursting with ideas, easily drawn into conflict but readily reconciling later. We see how throughout his career he relied on bouncing ideas off an equally bright foil: Watson, Brenner, Koch...
  
  Whilst there is interest on every page, the middle section of the book, detailing the years spent bringing about the decoding of genetic triplets, is positively thrilling. No doubt there will be longer biographies of Crick, but this one reads like the distilled essence of a life. Great stuff.
• 
  Peter Tillman

  On the point of abandoning & sending this one back, more because I'm so swamped with better books on hand. I just never warmed to this one, but lots of other folks like it. I'm leaving it unrated, but caveat lector. The weird cover photo doesn't help.
• 
  Nehal Elekhtyar

  
  هذا هو الكتاب الثانى بعد كتاب
  (الجينوم) الذى اقرأه للرائع مات ريدلى .... الحقيقة هذا الرجل عنده قدرة فائقة ان يحكى عن العلم كأنه يحكى رواية .... تجذبك كلماتها حتى النهاية .... وفى هذا الكتاب يحكى عن حياة فرنسيس كريك منذ ان كان يحدث امه وهو طفل ويقول لها "خائف يا أمى ان يكتشف العلماء كل شيئ فى العلم ولا يتبقى لى ما اكتشفه عندما اكبر" وحتى اصبح اعظم مكتشفى التاريخ الحديث حيث اكتشافه للشفرة الوراثية
  
  كتاب رائع هو وكتاب الجينوم اعتبرهم من افضل الكتب التى تتحدث عن المادة الوراثية بإسلوب عرض قمة فى الابداع والجاذبية
  
• 
  Nisa

  The book was a light read, finished over a lazy weekend interspersed with binge eating and binge sleeping. However, it was sort of interesting, sort of funny, like reading about a hip, clever grandpa who was very smart and was a playboy at the same time. BTW, I had no idea that Crick got interested in Neuroscience at the end of his life. Nor that he also played a huge role in defining the central dogma, or even the RNA codon code breaking. He is such an inspiration as he is the kind of genius that is not math-whiz-like, but more like the hardworking type. This was a nice change of perspective from "The Double Helix" written by Watson. Isn't it nice to be able to read two different accounts of the same thing? The writing was lucid and easy to follow, but I don't know if it made that much impression on me, therefore prodding me to reread it.
  
  There were some quotes that hit close to home for me:
  
  "Rather than believe that Watson and Crick made the DNA structure, I would rather stress that the structure made Watson and Crick. After all, I was almost totally unknown at the time and Watson was regarded, in most circles, as too bright to be really sound. But what I think is overlooked in such arguments is the intrinsic beauty of the DNA double helix. It is the molecule which has style, quite as much as the scientists." p 76
  
  "Crick once told a newspaper reporter (in Hawaii): "Unlike the jet engine, which had to be invented, the DNA structure was always there." Scientific discoverers are dispensable in a way that artists are not. Gravity, America, and natural selection would all have been discovered by somebody else if Newton, Columbus, and Darwin had not gotten there first, whereas nobody would have written Hamlet, painted the Monalisa or composed the Ninth Symphony if Shakespeare, Leonardo, and Beethoven had not done so. Yet it is precisely because scientists have to be first that their achievement is even more remarkable. Shakespeare did not have to beat Marlowe to the first draft of Hamlet." p 76
  
  "To those of you who may be vitalists I would make this prophecy: what everyone believed yesterday and you believe today, only cranks will believe tomorrow" p 146
• 
  David P

  One fast way of judging biographies is by size. Not always, but all too often, big fat ones contain far more tiresome detail than the reader ever wants, while short pithy ones give just highlights of personalities and events, and leave the reader thirsting for more.
  
  By and large, brief ones provide a clearer impression, at least when as carefully composed as this one is. The physicist Wolfgang Pauli once wrote to a friend "please excuse me for sending a long letter, I didn't have the time to write a short one." Matt Ridley took the time, condensed Crick's life story while keeping clear both the science and the personality behind it--no mean task--and the result is inspiring and delightful.
  
  Crick shared with James Watson the 1962 Nobel prize for discovering the "double helix" structure of DNA, the long stringy molecule in which all genetic information is encoded, as a sequence of 4 different chemical units. Watson later published a controversial and brash account of the discovery, "The Double Helix," and became a something of a public celebrity, leaving Crick half-hidden in the shade. This book, much more recent (Crick died in 2004), not only restores the balance, but suggests that Crick's role in laying the foundation of modern genetics may have been more profound than Watson's.
  
  This is a biography, a life in science, and a reader may well wonder, what made Crick the great scientist he became. Talent? Sure, but talented people are not all that unusual. In Crick's case, three things seem to have made a difference: persistence, friendships and luck
  
  Persistence means a single-minded pursuit of ideas, often led by no more than dimly formed guesses. Guesses may turn out to be right on the mark, or else they may be false leads which peter out or are refuted, and then they must be abandoned, even if a lot of work had been invested. Persistence also means constant reading of new publications, keeping notes and seeking clues, seeking out ideas the way a jigsaw addict looks for the missing piece that fits.
  
  Friendship means seeking out people who share one's scientific vision, sharp enough to debate it meaningfully, partners whose critical interest in the same type of problems is often the essential goad that makes a researcher try his best. It is a mutual relationship, bonding together scientists at the forefront of almost any active scientific field, and also usually spills over into the social arena. James Watson, Maurice Wilkins, Sidney Brenner and others shared Crick's circle, but interestingly, Rosalind Franklin was there too, up to her untimely death. Watson did not always treat her fairly in his book, and later writers debated whether her contribution to the discovery of DNA was properly recognized or not--but the fact remains, Rosalind Franklin was Crick's friend to the end.
  
  And luck, of course. Luck in landing the right job, luck in meeting the right people, luck in asking the right questions (even when mixed with wrong ones!), and luck in finding the correct solutions. Crick needed all of these, not just the last one, but as Pasteur famously said, "chance favors the prepared mind." His own efforts often helped tilt the balance.
  
  He was a thinker and a dreamer, and if he did not uncover the innermost secrets of the brain, as he wished to do, maybe he was simply asking too much. We still have no answers even now.
  
  He and Watson unraveled the genetic role of DNA, and were rewarded with the Nobel prize. Actually, that role had already been uncovered by Oswald Avery a decade earlier, though for some reasons (the book get rather vague here--see p. 33-4) the biochemistry community remained unconvinced. Watson and Crick convinced it by showing how the code was actually stored and duplicated, by the unwinding of a double spiral of identical chain molecules.
  
  But if that chain held the code for creating proteins essential for life, how were these encoded? And how was the gap bridged, between the DNA code and the actual creation of proteins? That is where Crick was a major participant. Many other talented biochemists took part in that effort, but Francis Crick was often the catalyst who orchestrated their teamwork. First came the discovery of messenger RNA--a long molecule somewhat resembling DNA, which could copy the sequence of units on a section of DNA and then carry it to a special cell unit, which "read" it and produced protein molecules according to the code it was given. RNA was like a magnetic tape carrying instructions to a computer, or in an earlier day, a punched paper tape with a similar role.
  
  But what did the code mean? That was the hard part. Proteins are chains of amino acids, nitrogen-based molecules of which life uses 20 varieties. DNA and RNA had 4 types of units: two such units could encode only 16 varieties (4 times 4), too few. Three units, 64 varieties, too many. Still, three was the correct answer: often the same amino acid could be encoded in more than one way, and some encodings served as boundary markers, starting or ending the manufacture of a protein chain. The result, given in a deceptively simple table on page 143, actually represents an enormous effort, by a large determined community, and was finished in 1966
  
  You can learn a lot of science from this slim book. But you will also learn a lot about personality, about creativity and about what it takes to lead a purposeful life. By the end you will have understood a bit of the creative soul of a person you have never met, and maybe will wish you could have met him in life.
  
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  NOTE: Note: Francis Crick's last and unfinished quest was to understand the human brain. A lucid review of the status of such research at the end of 2006 is presented in "A Survey of the Brain," a series of 6 articles, in "The Economist," 23 December 2006.
• 
  Guy

  Matt Ridley, being a good scientist himself, tells a scientific story of the first magnitude. Chances are that had it not been for Crick's and friends' discoveries, the Covid vaccines rolling out presently would not have been made possible. While science, by definition, will always be incomplete, this book effectively shows how it develops, by fits and starts, experiments and interpretations, coming closer and closer to factual and provable conclusions.
  
  A profound lesson to the rest of us mortals: learn good science, propped up by sound math and logic, with a good smattering of credible history!
• 
  Dave Franklin

  "I have never seen Francis in a modest mood," observed James Watson, Crick's main collaborator in discovery of DNA's helical structure. Matt Ridley's "Francis Crick" succinctly conveys the life and work of one of the giants of twentieth century science.
  
  After a career devoted to the study of molecular biology-banishing vitalism-Crick emigrated to California from Cambridge, and began a quest to unravel the mysteries of consciousness. While his reductionist methodology did not yield answers to many of the questions that he posed, his spirit will endure.
  
  A well written and informative book.
• 
  Mahmoud Galal

  نقطة هامة استرعت انتباهي في هذا الكتاب الرائع هو الرقم أربعة ( 4) الذي تتكون منه القواعد الأربع النيتروجينية للحامض النووي " أدنين (A)، جوانين (G)، ثايمين (T)، وسيتوسين (C) " ، فالرقم (4 ) هو نفس عدد العناصر الطبيعية التي هي اساس الكون ووالانسان " الماء والهواء والتراب والنار " والتي يقول الحكماء ان الله تعالى اراد في البدء ان تكون الأمور الطبيعية كلها مربعات ، مثل:
  الطبائع الأربع والتي هي : الحرارة والبرودة والرطوبة واليبوسة
  والاركان الاربعة التي هي : النار والهواء والماء والارض
  والأخلاط الأربعة التي هي : الدم والبلغم والمرة الصفراء والمرة السوداء
  والأزمان الأربعة التي هي : الربيع والصيف والخريف والشتاء
  والجهات الأربع التي هي : الشرق والغرب والجنوب والشمال
  والمكونات الأربع التي هي : المعادن والنبات والحيوان والإنس.
  والأوتاد الأربع التي هي المنازل الأربع الرئيسة بين الاثنتي عشرة منزلة من منطقة البروج ، وقولهم هنا الأوتاد الأربع لأنها بمعنى المنازل وهي : الطالع والغارب ووتد السماء ووتد الارض ، وعلى هذا المثال وجد أكثر الأمور الطبيعية مربعات ، ويضيفون والكلام لإخوان الصفا وخلان الوفا : وأعلم بأن هذه الأمور الطبيعية إنما صارت أكثرها مربعات بعناية الباري ( جل ثناؤه ) واقتضاء حكمته ، لتكون مراتب الأمور الطبيعية مطابقة للأمور الروحانية التي هي فوق الأمور الطبيعية ! ( راجع رسالة العدد ) ، و" أمبادوقليس " الفيلسوف اليوناني الذي عاش قبل سقراط هو مؤسس نظرية العناصر الأربعة الشهيرة ، قال : يتكون العالم كله من أربعة عناصر ممزوجة معاً، بنسب مختلفة، هي النار، الهواء، الماء، والتراب ، وقد أطلق على هؤلاء "الجذور"، وفي رأيه لا شيء جديد يأتي للطبيعة -لا يوجد صيرورة- وأي تغيير يطرأ انما هو التغيير في تمازج أو تناسب عنصر مع آخر، وقد أصبحت هذه النظرية عقيدة علمية راسخة خلال الألفي عام التاليين وحتى اليوم .
• 
  Bill Swan

  Francis Crick "invented life" -- the double helix the explains DNA and how all life is linked. The story told here is quite detailed, although a bit dry. What emerges is the portrait of a man with enthusiasm for living, for conversation, for ideas. Crick emerges as a man who depended on others to respond to and challenge his ideas, with the rare ability to at the right point synthesize those ideas is clearly written papers.
  
  As someone with no background in biology, or the genetic code or even why frogs legs when stimulated by a AAA battery, I would have liked more explanation of the principles. The dry parts of the book are the technical, which seems to expect the only reader will be those now at least emerged in advanced studies.
• 
  Laura

  DNA. The Double Helix. A gripping account of their discovery and personal relationships at scientific level that made them possible. Sometimes it s a hunch, but most times it is assiduously hard work and study, whether in Cambridge, UCL, Birkbeck or California that are the stuff of breakthroughs. Above all, Crick teaches us that science is about visions. I admire Crick's unbound curiosity and intellectual thirst. Although from a human perspective I don't always agree with his viewpoints, his work ethic and network creation should be a model for today's academic and scientific circles. Ridley does a splendid job of connecting all the dots and bringing together all the various strands of documentation relative to the men and women involved. I shall definitely be reading more.
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  Mark Ferguson

  This is the third Eminent Lives book I've read, following Christopher Hitchen's book on Jefferson and Paul Johnson's on George Washington. Once again, I was not disappointed. The book is fascinating, engaging, readable, and unromantic. Most of all, I was not expecting to be inspired, but I was. Crick didn't start making major discoveries until his thirties after a pretty mediocre young adulthood. If you have any interest at all in the discovery of DNA, or in the history of modern biology, this is highly recommended. Even if you don't, the book is short and details the life of someone amazing.
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  Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides

  A good scientific biography, and a good companion to
  The Double Helix. The quality declines a little at the end. For a while it takes on a sort of "and then he did this, and then he did this, and then he did this" sort of approach. (The kind of thing one sees in the worst student writing: a total lack of transitions.) And it would have been nice if Ridley went into more detail concerning Crick's research on consciousness. Finally, there is no index, which is a bit of a drawback for me.
• 
  Terence

  A short interesting biography. I had previously read James Watson's The Double Helix, and so it was fascinating to read the life story of the other man who discovered the shape of the DNA. Ridley makes clear that Crick was the more important of the two, particularly in his contribution to science after the Nobel-winning work. The other fascinating thing about the book was finding out that it took approximately seven years until the importance of that 1953 paper was recognized. Even after its publication, many scientists continued to do science as if they had not read or digested its contents. Probably they hadn't!
• 
  Elaine

  I really enjoyed this. I always knew he was an amazing guy, but was not so sure anymore after seeing some of what Watson wrote about him and hearing about him stealing from Rosalind Franklin. This book restored him in my eyes. He really was an amazing scientist, and they didn't "steal" anything. I also learned some things about him that were pretty surprising. Things I would have attributed to Watson, not him. All in all, this book made me really grateful for the few times I have been able to meet him and the one time I got felt up by him (no joke!).
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  Craig

  This was an intriguing read of the working life of an amazing scientist that unlocked the nature of life. The writing style was appealing, as it read like a series of essays about different aspects of Crick's work and life. The 200+ page read was sufficiently accessible for somebody without a background in science while getting into the story of Crick's work. Using this book as a basis for judgment, the Eminent Lives series shows promise as one to engage in for other subjects.
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  Lenka

  Krásně napsaný životopis jednoho z nejvýznamějších vědců novodobé historie. Normálně životopisy nemusím, ale tenhle se opravdu nádherně četl a ukázal v Crickovi excentrického génia, který měl rád svou rodinu a přátele a byl neustále hnán touhou po poznání. Pracoval až do úplného konce. Byl to velký člověk.
• 
  Trey Nowell

  Author did a very good job collecting info on the life of Francis Crick. Can't say it improved my views of what type of person Crick was, but it brought up many points I had not heard of behind the scenes of all the discoveries. End of the book picked up a bit and was a little more entertaining.
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  Clara

  Good look at the molecular biology revolution, potentially lacking with regard to internal personal analysis of Crick. Noteworthy examination of Crick's transition from MoBio to Neuroscience.
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  frank

  brilliantly written, enjoyed this book a great deal
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  Venky

  A breathtaking Biography of the Pioneer of the Double Helix. Francis Crick will occupy an exalted place in the pantheon of greats for his earth-shattering discovery relating to DNA.
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  Joseph Anderson

  Amazingly written. But can a book be bad, when the great Francis Crick is written about?
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  Nathan Mansor

  good read. some typos and repeated phrases...