The Double Helix:
A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA.
" .
. . [S]cience seldom proceeds
in the straightforward logical manner imagined by outsiders. . .
But even more important, I believe,
there
remains general ignorance about how science is "done.""1a
CRICK
"
. . .
[W]e knew what to do:
imitate
Linus Pauling and beat him at his own game."1b
"All we had to do was to
construct a set of molecular models and begin to play
-- with luck, the structure would be a helix."1c
"
. . .
[O]ur reasoning was partially based upon
simplicity."1d
"
. . . he [Francis
Crick] popped out with the idea that the perfect
biological principle was the self-replication of the gene
-- that is, the ability of the gene to be exactly copied when the
chromosome number doubles during cell division."1e
DAWKINS
"The idea of the
genes' being immortal smelled right . . ."1f
"Even though he [Francis]
was a physicist, he knew that
important biological objects come
in pairs."1g
ARISTOTLE
"If this was DNA,
I should create a bombshell by announcing its discovery. The
existence of two intertwined chains with identical
base sequences could not be a chance matter. Instead
it would strongly suggest that one chain in each molecule had
at some earlier stage served as the template for the
synthesis of the other chain. Under this scheme, gene
replication starts with the separation of its two identical
chains. . . Thus, the essential trick of gene
replication could come from the requirement that
each
base in the newly synthesized chain always hydrogen-bonds to an
identical base."1i
DAWKINS
"
. . .
[W]e had found the
secret of life."1h
|