STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
STANFORD MEDICAL CENTER Ib 6
300 PASTEUR DRIVE, PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA

DEPARTMENT OF GENETICS
Professor Joshua Lederberg

Sept. 7, 1969

Dear Professor Biswell
Thank you for your reprints and references.

The article on fire control slipped somewhere
in the pipeline, end escaped getting into today's
Chronicle per schedule. However, I am not par-
ticularly proud of it as a rounded discussion};
aiong other things, I did not havethe benefit of
your own writings before composing it. Perhaps
I will take up the subject egain sometime, after
I have read more deeply on it.

I hope I don't come out as a “social Derwinist"
from this discussion; analogies between naturel
selection and social ethics are usually treacherous.
What intrigues me the most about the present sub-
ject is how easy it is to destroy an important
value, with the best of xsumtx intentions, by sub-
optimizing policies, executed with incomplete

knowledge.

cody
ee