Francis Crick Dies

Here's one that made me shout out in sadness: DNA co-discovered Francis Crick has died in a San Diego hospital. He was 88.

For the creationists out there, let me say that God took him home and now you can stop reading.

For everyone else, this guy was truly a giant of science. In 1953, the team of Crick and Dr. James Watson (who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Dr. James Wilkins, but not with Dr. Rosaland Franklin, whose X-ray work was primary in the discovery) described the DNA molecule, and experienced one of those rare moments in science where their theory was so eloquent and clear that it was nearly immediately accepted.

In later years, Crick spent his time theorizing on the origins of life, and in the 1970s presented what he called the Directed Panspermia hypothesis, which suggested that life on Earth could have been intentionally seeded from an older civilization on another world. Crick felt that the time period between Earth's cooling enough to allow for life and the abundance of life did not quite square.

That's a sad one. A great thinker and problem solver has passed, and a man who granted us what has turned out to be a tremendous gift. And burden.