THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
MADISON, WISCONSIN, U. S. A. 33706

DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY
BIRGE HALL
TELEPHONE NO. 608-262-1057

May 22, 1970

Dr. Joshua Lederberg

Department of Genetics

Stanford University School of Medicine
Stanford University Medical Center
Stanford, California 94305

Dear Dr. Lederberg:

Thank you very much for your courtesy in sending me a carbon
of your letter. I always read your column in the Madison Capital Times
and always find it most stimulating, interesting and of great value to
my students as well. I have clipped many of them and used them on our
bulletin board and refer to them in my lectures. Thank you again for
doing this service for American scientists, for acting, in fact, as
the conscience of socially concerned biologists.

 

Let me tell you in one sentence the genesis of the paper that was
published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist and of which I
enclosed a copy with this letter for your files. Originally it was
written in the winter of 1966-67 and was then submitted to Science. _,
The reviewers liked it but Abelson said no, then we reerdered—e Wink A yy
second time, sent it in, again the reviewers like it, but Abelson
again said no,with the excuse that this is all very obvious and need
not be said avain by somebody else. By this time it was the winter
of 1967-68. Eventually after simply giving up on ever having it
published, I sent it to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist who
were very glad to have it. Viewed in the perspective of having peing
written nearly five years ago, it is more understandable that we
were pessimistic. It is true that today,all over the place, many
people are becoming more and more interested in the whole question of
man's psychological, emotional needs as they were formulated by natural
selection over several million years in nature. Especially whatever
needs he may have for natural patterns, natural "beauty" and the
whole question of diversity and stimulation from a beautiful, colorful,
environment. I still find, however, on many panels and group meetings
that I have attended in the last year that the planners and especially
the industrialists and government groups, such as the Army Corgs of
Engineers, are quite unaware of the great need that man has for these
elusive qualities of the environment.

 

Enclosed are a few more papers that you might find of interest
and in a month from now I will send you two more, one of which,in the
75th anniversary issue of Field and Stream ,ought to reach a very
wide audience of non-scientists.
Dr. Joshua Lederbers Page 2 May 22, 1970

With all good wishes.

Very sincerely yours,

Vv

Hugh H. TIltis
Professor of Botany

HHI/ert

Enclosures

P.S. I have just reread your column on the Creed of Ecology and may
I say again, how much I admire not only what you say but the way you
say it. I think especially paragraph 3 and paragraph 4 are phrased
very beautifully. It is almost as if you were writing poetry.