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Rating: 
Summary: Insights from a great scientist
Review: At first, I was reluctant about reading this book. What on earth could Francis Crick add to the story of the discovery of the double helix, that had not yet been told by his colleague, James Watson, in his famous book "The Double Helix"? A lot, as it turns out. In fact, the two books rarely overlap. Whereas Watson's book mainly relates his experiences as they worked their way towards discovery, Crick does what he does best: making comments. Also, Crick's book doesn't stop at the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, as Watson's book does, but continues with the cracking of the genetic code.Crick's book was written twenty years after Watson's book, and it shows. Watson's book contains a fresh story, the raw material out of which history is shaped. Crick's tale is a digested one: written after all the confusion of the moment had cleared up.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing travel in science
Review: I am a graduate student in neuroscience and a book by crick was not without any expectations for me. I feel that the book is totally up to my expectations to feel the diversity of a scientific journey from physics to behavior neuroscience through a mile stone achievement in molecular biology.. In the starting Crick gets little stuck in discussion of existance of God which confuses a bit , but later on it is worth of reading in one go. A bonus point of this book is to know other great scientists of that time and their way of thinking , and an excellent capability of crick to pass the meassages of those souls to the reader in a very readable way.
Rating:
Summary: People behind the discovery
Review: I've always been interested in the stories and scientists behind grand scientific discoveries. Everything seems so glamorous and magical on the news and in the textbooks. I know from experience that no science is as easy as it seems. Here, I read about how people in the different labs competed and worked together, got along and didn't get along, and discovered the structure of DNA as a side project. I was so amused by the anecdote about the RNA tie club that I actually laughed out loud. Each member was to receive a tiepin of one of the amino acids (so of course there could only be 20 members). Crick says he was to be tyr, but he never received his pin. There are even pictures of some of the members with there ties on. I am even more amused now that I'm in graduate school where we really do have an RNA club, but unfortunately no amino acid tiepins. The end of the book tries to get into the science and implications of the DNA structure discovery, but it is too quickly done and in the wrong context to really try to give textbook like information.
Rating:
Summary: People behind the discovery
Review: I've always been interested in the stories and scientists behind grand scientific discoveries. Everything seems so glamorous and magical on the news and in the textbooks. I know from experience that no science is as easy as it seems. Here, I read about how people in the different labs competed and worked together, got along and didn't get along, and discovered the structure of DNA as a side project. I was so amused by the anecdote about the RNA tie club that I actually laughed out loud. Each member was to receive a tiepin of one of the amino acids (so of course there could only be 20 members). Crick says he was to be tyr, but he never received his pin. There are even pictures of some of the members with there ties on. I am even more amused now that I'm in graduate school where we really do have an RNA club, but unfortunately no amino acid tiepins. The end of the book tries to get into the science and implications of the DNA structure discovery, but it is too quickly done and in the wrong context to really try to give textbook like information.
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