Do we like Francis Crick?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent record and a huge contribution, held back by a contested eugenics endorsement and a credit row over Rosalind Franklin.
Francis Crick was born in Northampton in 1916, studied physics at University College London, and spent the war designing magnetic and acoustic mines for the British Admiralty. After the war he switched to biology, which was a big leap for a physicist, and landed at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory in 1949.
In 1953 he and James Watson proposed the double-helix structure of DNA, and the pair shared the 1962 Nobel Prize with Maurice Wilkins. Crick then worked with Sydney Brenner on the genetic code, and in 1977 moved to the Salk Institute in California to chase the problem of consciousness.
The big stoush is Rosalind Franklin. The pair have long been accused of using her data without her permission. Her work was essential, and she died before the Nobel was handed out, and the prize is not given posthumously. Biographer Matthew Cobb argues the common story is an oversimplification and says they did not commit theft, but that they should have asked permission.
A Guardian review of Cobb's book says Franklin did not get enough credit and that the episode reeks of sexism. So this is not a clean sheet. But it is bad manners and poor credit-sharing as the biographer tells it, rather than a campaign against anyone.
On the harm test, I found no evidence of him pushing hate at a group, and no conspiracy slide. The mark against him is that reviews of the new biography describe him as known for endorsing eugenics. I couldn't open the original letters, so the detail and the dates are thin. It is a real stain, but a single contested position, not a career of it.
As a person, those who knew him describe someone quick-witted, charming and bold. A Guardian review calls him loud and arrogant, someone who sometimes stepped on colleagues' toes and was sometimes badly wrong. He was also known for disliking publicity and turning down most interviews and award ceremonies.