Crick's letter was written in response to a review by Waddington of Crick's book, Of Molecules and Men (1966), a discourse on the relationship between science and philosophy in which Crick argued against vitalism, the belief that living beings are animated by an autonomous soul or metaphysical inner force that cannot be explained by natural laws. Instead, Crick argued that, with the major exception of evolution by natural selection (a process driven by chance mutations), all biological phenomena, including human consciousness, could eventually be reduced to the laws of physics and chemistry.
Number of Image Pages:
3 (485,864 Bytes)
Date:
1967-11-09 (November 9, 1967)
Creator:
Crick, Francis
Recipient:
Waddington, C. H.
Source:
Original Repository: Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers
Letter from C. H. Waddington to Francis Crick (December 27, 1967)