Francis Crick — "If you want to get ahead in science, you have to be prepared to be a bit of a ba…"
If you want to get ahead in science, you have to be prepared to be a bit of a bastard.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Francis Crick
"The most important thing in science is to ask the right questions."
"The purpose of science is to make the mysterious obvious."
"One of the most striking features of the human mind is its ability to believe what it wants to believe."
"The idea that man was created in God's image is a myth."
"A theory that fits all the facts is bound to be wrong, as some of the facts will be wrong."
Verification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
1 source checked
Understanding this quote
What it means
To succeed in a competitive field, you must be willing to pursue your goals aggressively, even if it means being ruthless, stepping on colleagues' toes, or refusing to be deferential. Success requires a certain hardness — claiming credit confidently, challenging others without apology, and prioritizing your ambitions over social niceties. It's a frank admission that academic achievement and nice-guy behavior often conflict.
Relevance to Francis Crick
Crick was famously blunt and competitive. He and Watson used Rosalind Franklin's X-ray diffraction data — Photo 51 — without her knowledge or proper credit, a move many historians consider ethically questionable. Crick was known for dismissing weak ideas sharply, dominating conversations, and relentlessly challenging peers. His own self-description acknowledged this combative streak as essential to cracking problems others couldn't.
The era
The early 1950s race to decode DNA was brutally competitive — Watson and Crick at Cambridge, Linus Pauling at Caltech, and Franklin and Wilkins at King's College London all converging simultaneously. Post-WWII science expanded rapidly under Cold War funding pressure and an emerging publish-or-perish culture. Priority disputes, data secrecy, and credit battles were common. The stakes — Nobel Prizes and institutional prestige — made ruthlessness practically rational.
AI-generated insights based on extensive research and information for context. Factual errors? Email [email protected].