DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE
PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE
HEALTH SERVICES AND MENTAL HEALTH ADMINISTRATION

 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH
MENTAL HEALTH INTRAMURAL
RESEARCH PROGRAM
9000 ROCKVILLE PIKE
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AREA CODE 301 TEL: 656-4000
August 10, 1976
Prof. Joshua Lederberg
Dept. of Genetics
Stanford Univ. School of Medicine

Stanford, California 94305
Dear Josh:

You once indicated that you believe reflexive catalysts are, in principle,
possible (my term, at least, has been made respectable by Melvin Calvin).
No doubt the biologists on the Viking project are prepared to recognize

a biological system very different from that on the earth, but are they
prepared for anything as simple as a flora of reflexive catalysts?

You have probably read and dismissed my arguments for believing that
a system of one or more reflexive catalysts would initiate evolution
in a process equivalent to mtation and natural selection. If so, I
urge you to reconsider them; they may be very relevant to the search
for extraterrestrial life.

After the advent of coacervate droplets, compounds other than catalysts
could be selected by the mechanism described recently by D. S. Wilson

in "Evolution on the Level of Commnities" (Science, June 25, p.192).
The system might remain for a very long time at the level of catalysts
functioning cooperatively as free molecules, or even longer (because of
inefficient propagation, mutation and selection) as a form of protoplasm
lacking template-replicating macromolecules. I expect most life in the
universe belongs to one of these two simple types.

Sincerely yours,

Gadyr

Gordon Allen
ee: Dr. D. S. Wilson
enc.