"Introduction: Recent research in molecular biology"

Date:
1965
Reference:
PP/CRI/H/3/15
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: "Introduction: Recent research in molecular biology". Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Sehr0dInger*s book was very timely and attracted people who might otherwise not have entered biology at all. I also suspect that many workers in this fieli (and related fieli®} have been strongly motivated by the desire, rarely actually expressed, to refute Vitalis®» the current budding . interest of many Molecular Biologists in .the Higher Bervous System seems to me inexplicable in any other terms» But in fairness I should laention that even Molecular Biology has a vitalist fringe» as can be seen .from an article publishes a few years ago in Mature with the title** Urge and Molecular Biology. It is not surprising therefore, that proteine and nucleic acids have attracted more attention than lipid» or polysacharIdee, few Molecular Biologists would care to be caught studying the colour of butterflies* wings, unless they were doing so for genetieal reasons, fhey approach biology with the cold logical eye of the physicist, looking for fimdasumtal particles, rather than with the sympathetic and aesthetic approach of the naturalist, or with the urge to do something about human suffering which often motivates the aeâioal man. from this point of view it is impossible to deny thatv. Molecular Biology# in the last fifteen years, has been wildly * Mora, P. T. (1963) Nature, l^, 212