The major credit I think Jim and I deserve ... is for selecting the right problem and sticking to it. It's true that by blundering about we stumbled on gold, but the fact remains that we were looking for gold. Both of us had decided, quite independently of each other, that the central problem in molecular biology was the chemical structure of the gene. ... We could not see what the answer was, but we considered it so important that we were determined to think about it long and hard, from any relevant point of view.
Francis CrickBiologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.
Francis CrickFor 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 CrickIn 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