F H C Crick (1916-2004)

摘要

Francis Crick, who died recently at the age of 88 in San Diego, occupies a very special place in science. In 1953 Watson and Crick described the double-helical structure of DNA. This discovery has been variously described as the most revolutionary of all contributions to biology; the greatest since Darwin's theory of evolution and Mendel's principles of heredity; together with relativity, the most important discovery of the 20th century. None of this is an exaggeration. The history of biology does not provide many instances of grand, unifying generalizations. The theory of evolution, Mendel's laws and the genetic code stand out as shining examples. One might like to add bio-electricity (Galvani and Volta) and the neuron theory (Ramon y Cajal) but it is hard to think of more such cases. The Watson-Crick hypothesis first appeared as a short statement at the end of an otherwise parsimonious paper on the molecular structure of nucleic acids in the Nature issue of 25th April 1953 "... it has not escaped our attention that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material". The anecdote goes that two months earlier Crick had walked into the Cambridge pub, The Eagle, and proclaimed publicly that he and Watson had discovered the secret of life.