Haemoglobin is a very large molecule by ordinary standards, containing about ten thousand atoms, but the chances are that your haemoglobin and mine are identical, and significantly different from that of a pig or horse. You may be impressed by how much human beings differ from one another, but if you were to look into the fine details of the molecules of which they are constructed, you would be astonished by their similarity.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the molecular similarities among humans, emphasizing our shared biology despite external differences.
Francis Crick points out that while humans perceive themselves as vastly different, at the molecular level, our basic building blocks are remarkably similar. This suggests that the perceived distinctions among individuals are superficial when compared to the shared biological heritage that unites us, drawing a contrast between our external variations and internal similarities.
In practice
In a lecture on human genetics, one might use this quote to illustrate the shared biological foundation of humanity.
One can say, looking at the papers in this symposium, that the elucidation of the genetic code is indeed a great achievement. It is, in a sense, the key to molecular biology because it shows how the great polymer languages, the nucleic acid language and the protein language, are linked together.
Exact knowledge is the enemy of vitalism.
A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong
It is essential to understand our brains in some detail if we are to assess correctly our place in this vast and complicated universe we see all around us.
To produce a really good biological theory one must try to see through the clutter produced by evolution to the basic mechanisms lying beneath them, realizing that they are likely to be overlaid by other, secondary mechanisms. What seems to physicists to be a hopelessly complicated process may have been what nature found simplest, because nature could only build on what was already there.
It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.
If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.
It is a right, yes a duty, to search in cautious manner for the numbers, sizes, and weights, the norms for everything [God] has created. For He himself has let man take part in the knowledge of these things ... For these secrets are not of the kind whose research should be forbidden; rather they are set before our eyes like a mirror so that by examining them we observe to some extent the goodness and wisdom of the Creator.
The conscious mind is not at the center of the action in the brain; instead, it is far out on a distant edge, hearing but whispers of the activity.
No human investigation can be called real science if it cannot be demonstrated mathematically.
I think the question is, are there women and have there been women who want to do science and could be doing great science, but they never really got the opportunity?
In the experimental sciences, the epochs of the most brilliant progress are almost always separated by long intervals of almost absolute repose.
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