Milestones

By James D. Watson Sunday, Aug. 01, 2004
    • The death of FRANCIS CRICK deprives the world of a remarkable scientist and conversationalist whose forceful voice and overpowering laugh made him the focal point of any room that he chose to occupy. From the morning of Feb. 28, 1953, when he and I discovered the double-helical structure of DNA — and showed that the secret of life was a large molecule — he held court over the new field of research that this discovery unleashed. Exuding an Edwardian elegance of logic as well as dress, he instantly brought to mind the good-natured arrogance of Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. From early adolescence, Crick had no truck with truths arrived at by religious revelation as opposed to observation and experimentation. Upon learning that Cambridge University's science-dominated new college was planning to build a Christian chapel, he resigned from the rank of its Fellows. "Perpetuating mistakes from the past" was not Crick's way to move forward.