In the fullness of time, educated people will believe there is no soul independent of the body, and hence no life after death.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that as knowledge increases, the belief in an independent soul and life after death will diminish.
Francis Crick's quote reflects the idea that as humanity becomes more educated and understands more about the biological basis of life, the notion of an independent soul separate from the body will fall out of favor. Crick implies that knowledge and science will lead people to believe that consciousness is strictly tied to the physical form, questioning traditional views about an afterlife and spiritual existence.
In practice
During a debate about consciousness and spirituality, this quote could illustrate a scientific viewpoint.
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.
Time is the inexplicable raw material of everything. With it, all is possible, without it nothing. The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it.
The egotist is all surface; underneath is a pulpy mess and a lot of self-doubt. But the egoist may be yielding and even deferential in things he doesn't consider important; in anything that touches his core he is remorseless.
When we learn to read the story of Jesus and see it as the story of the love of God, doing for us what we could not do for ourselves--that insight produces, again and again, a sense of astonished gratitude which is very near the heart of authentic Christian experience.
No one, however weak, is denied a share in the victory of the cross. No one is beyond the help of the prayer of Christ.
I would choose freedom over comfort every time.
I was becoming post-ideological.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.