Surprising new biography of Francis Crick unravels the story of DNA

Shout: Mind in Motion – From DNA to Brain
Matthew Cobb Profile booksUnited Kingdom; Basic booksUS

Francis Crick missed the crucial seminar in 1951, probably because he was dating his lover. James Watson went, failed to take notes, and misremembered key details. As a result, their first DNA model turned out to be embarrassingly bad.

This is one of the many interesting details in Shout: Mind in motion – from DNA to brain. biography of zoologist and writer Matthew Cobb. If you are interested in how the structure of DNA was discovered and what happened next, this book is worth reading.

The son of shopkeepers, Crick didn't do well enough at school to get into Oxbridge, got a second-class degree and wrote a very dull doctorate on the viscosity of water until he was sent to work on sea mines during the Second World War. By 1947, he was a civil servant with an unhappy marriage and his son was living with his grandparents. But reading Crick left him fascinated by the molecular basis of life and consciousness. He returned to research, initially working in an independent laboratory in Cambridge, UK.

In 1949, he began studying the structure of biological molecules by studying how they refract X-rays. His notebooks record his mistakes: leaks, improperly loaded films, improperly placed samples, and more. The scream twice filled the corridor outside his boss's office and annoyed his colleagues with his endless conversations with Watson. The couple was sent to a remote room.

By 1952, Crick had a new family, but he was broke and in danger of being fired by his boss, Lawrence Bragg. Then Bragg's rival, the biochemist Linus Pauling, claimed that he had worked out the structure of DNA. He was wrong, but Bragg didn't want Pauling to get there first, so he gave Crick and Watson the go-ahead to work on the DNA. By March 1953 they had solved this problem.

Yes, chemist Rosalind Franklin's data was vital. but Crick and Watson didn't steal it, Cobb writes. He also found documents that mentioned Crick, Watson, Franklin and her colleague Maurice Wilkins. everyone was more cooperative than anyone knew.

Many people forget that Crick and Watson quoted Franklin and Wilkins in their famous Nature newspaper, and articles by Franklin and Wilkins appeared next to it. Franklin also became friends with Crick and Odile, his second wife, often staying with them while he recovered from surgery for the cancer that killed her. It was because of this early death that she did not share the 1962 Nobel Prize.

Crick was instrumental in discovering how DNA codes for proteins and gained many important insights into the process. Up to this point the biography is a fascinating read, but here it fades a bit, reflecting Crick's life rather than Cobb's work. After the genetic code was cracked in the 1960s, Crick published a series of bad papers, and in 1971 he experienced what was probably depression.

He moved to California in 1977, shifting his focus to consciousness. Cobb argues that his contributions were as important as his work in molecular biology, as he introduced or popularized approaches that are now mainstream, such as elucidating brain “connectome”.

This book is also about Crick, the man, and he was an interesting mixture. The anti-religious and anti-monarchy book details how he entered into a second open marriage, supported the legalization of marijuana, dropped acid and threw wild parties that sometimes showed pornography. He also notes that he made unwanted sexual advances towards several women.

Moreover, he corresponded with racists about IQ and genetics, and then came to the conclusion that the issue was more complex than he had first realized, Cobb writes. Crick never mentioned it after the 1970s. unlike WatsonWHO died last week at the age of 97 years.

Clear Crick succeeded in part because he was ready fail by proposing and publishing many ideas that turn out to be wrong. However, he was also great. For example, one Saturday morning he read an article that described the results of an X-ray study of a protein. By noon, he had figured out its structure with the help of a visiting friend.

As I read, it struck me that Crick probably doesn't have the qualifications to be a scientist right now. Today's researchers will be amazed to discover that he did not teach formally and wrote only one grant proposal. There may never be a cry again because we have created a system that does not nurture his genius.