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= Rockefeller'= THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY
=\ Universit 2 PITQYVORK AVENUE NEWYORK NY Too 1
On Igo ts

Px September 9, 1982

“SEO

POSHEL A TE CER EI RS

Per aN

Dr. John A. Fuerst
Department of History
University of Queensland
St. Lucia 4067
Queensland, Australia

Dear Dr. Fuerst:

I was very pleased to see you address the history of "reduc-
tionism in molecular biology" in Social Studies of Science. Max
Delbruck's idiosyncratic views about "“complementarity" were al-
ways quite puzzling to me. They would be even more so if I did
not see occasional manifestations of a similar strain of thought
amongst other physicists -- including, for example, my predeces~
sor Dr. Frederick Seitz (quotation enclosed). I have received
similar communications from Eugene Wigner.

The physicists were of course very deeply shaken by indeter-
minacy 50 years ago; biology during the 50s and 60s did, I suppose,
have to leave some room for the potential inadequacy of physical
and organic chemistry as a sufficient level of explanation.

The only point that I might question about your account -~
tees a tender one -- is how little such deprecation of bio-
chemistry prevented them from welcoming the biochemists like Seymour
Cohen...

Cohen might speak rather more eloquently about the frustrations
that he and other chemists encountered in their efforts to interest
Delbruck in their line of approach. Luria, and especially Hershey,
were of course far more facile with, and receptive to, molecular
biochemical techniques. To that exvent it is probably something of
an over-simplification to talk ahomt A “phage group". Especially
after 1952 there was substantial dissidence in the experimental
approaches actually used by the @ifferent investigators.

gue
I was also interested iat trifsutions to Jacques Loeb at The

Rockefeller Institute as a mainspriimgy of mechanistic thinking,at a

time when this was more an article wf faith than concrete accom-

Dr. John A. Fuerst
September 9, 1982

- 2 -

plishment in biological investigation. Whether Avery needed particu-
lar support in this respect is an interesting question; and I wish
our archives could say more about Loeb's influences on Avery's
thought.

In his History of The Rockefeller Institute, Corner reminds us
that its faculty also enbraced Alexis Carrel! (See p.31 enclosed)

I learned something about “reductionism” as an operating program
in my conversations with Yehuda Elkana some years ago. An avowed
reductionist in principle, for many years, 1 despaired that we would
be able to penetrate the actual complexity of living systems at a
molecular level within my own lifetime. I was excited and inspired
by Arthur Kornberg's courage in his determination to see how far
pure enzymology could go in penetrating to the very core problem of
genetics: the molecular mechanisms of DNA replication! Until then,
my working strategies in experimental investigation might not have
been readily distinguishable from those of an avowed "anti-reduction-
ist"! Confidence in what is pragmatically achieveable, at a given
stage in the development of a science, should probably be given as
much prominence in the analysis of intellectual influence as the
eschatological principles.

I believe that my own convictions on these matters were not far
different from the main stream of physiologically oriented biologists
from the mid-40s on. It was for that very reason that I put so much
emphasis on the achievements on the structure of DNA, rather than my
own investigations, in my Nobel Lecture "A View of Genetics" given
in 1959. I thought the time had arrived to put a closure to any
pessimistic restraint about the potential scope of physicochemical
investigation. You will see other manifestations of that pragmatism
in a few other writings that I also enclose.

To recapitulate, I would say that more than most historians you
have understood the complexity of thinking of what went on within
the "phage group”; but even so, that story remains to be properly
told from the perspective of some of the “outsiders” Like Seymour
Cohen. If you look carefully at Al Hershey's comments -- and he is
always careful to be polite -- you will see still further evidence
of that complexity. The platform of our perspectives may well also
account for the controversy between Gunther Stent and myself as to
just how far and how well Avery's findings in 1944 were understood
by his contemporaries. Jt is all the more remarkable (as I learned
just lately) that Roy Avery promptly discussed the famous letter, he
had received from his brother with Max Delbruck when they were both
Dr. John A. Fuerst
September 9, 1982

-3-

on the Vanderbilt campus: and i
C pus: that this was received with i
abte ana sympathetic interest on Max Delbruck's part. My cones
e complexity of thought within the "group" might very well

apply to the not always consist i inki
entertain as individuals as well. Straans of thanking that we ali

Plea i
se treat these remarks as a private correspondence for the

ti . Ind urs 1 on m mor =
me bein ue co eiw 1 have c st a the ore
g 1 ructe care

Yours sincere

ph

Jgshua Lederberg

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Wy
nae

YOPS MOT ats scivuce
we Poat

JTt is casy te faa o
ambivalent oy
sciemec os . ellectuas
(even inciudin,: sume sea
tists}, in Congress, @:0ng ad
tenated yeu oud aun
bewilde:cd citizens We live
in a scientific a,c Whee’ glo.
ries and terre:s are bath
credited to seieneo. At this
level, we ean herdiy deny
thal our ever growin? scien:
tiie mastery over (ie Lorees
of nature impos. yan
unbearable responsi}
pohtical authority 2
democratic clecterate to
learn about, think about,
plan for and use these
forces for real huiman bone
fit.

In this climate, many peo
ple have becoin.e highty sen-
sitized to mere ethereal
questions that are raised by
the scientific study of man.
One such question 1s the
doctrine of mechanism. Dr,
Dp. E. Wooldridge, a well-
known physicist and systems
enginecr and 3 sucecssfarl in-
dustrialist— formerly presi-

   

      

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 
 

dent of TRW (Thompson.

Ramo-Wooldridge) Inc.—-has
written several excellent
syntheses of present day
thought in biclozy. is lat-
est work, "Mechanical Man
~the Physical Basis of In-
telligent Life,” concludes
“that a single body of natu-
ral laws operating on a sin-
gle set of material particles
completely accounts for the
origin and propertics of Liv.
ing organisms. Accordingly,
man is essentialiy no more
than a complex machine.”

_A FEW ECCENTRICS
aside, the whole community
of contemporary — science
shares the view that the

 
  

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. ar wtdtrd casa Lace D .

rye a

 

Joshua Lederberg

DA OAM

, TO AX E i
hoi Cea Ba Cae

Te ‘
Lone on awh f
ube hice! Com

Ge LV ce We ie

saiae Jaws of nature apply
to nowmiving and divans niat+
ter al.ke. Atl of us wie in-
vestigate the chemistry and
phys of living ol piers
pursue our work as iforgan-
isms) were cumplexy mae
chines, and we find man to
exhibit no Ussues or fune-
fons that woud except him
from this way of analyzing
human nature.

Nevertheless, We arc or
should be careful ty state
just what we mean befoic
we assert that ‘man is ama.
chine,” an e
before using the
“merely a machine.” The
statement that man is "a
mere machine,” or a mere
anything, is a mecdiess iri
fant to precise communica.
tion between scientists and
laymen. (We might better
procitim that “man is
merely the most complex
product of organic evolution
on earth, the only organiom
whose intelligence has
evolved to the point that his
culture far transcends his
biological endowment.")

The “mere machine”
phrase is usually a retort to
the claim that there are
mysteries of human nature
that are, in principle, be-
yond the reach of scientific

    
 

   
  

 

investigation. Scientists
would do better to save
their breath = quarreling

about what they can analyze
in principle, in their own
work, they are mercilessly
praginatic about confining
their conclusions to what
they can examine In practice

THERE ARE, in fact, the-
oretical limits to sctentifie
analysis that may Justify
men In repudiating Dr,
Wooldrige’s assertion that

-. :
dobre v 4)

J2~-av- 69

 

sreptof the machine
te of man is incom
with oa) long cher:
SGef oin  hunan
There ts noth-
it a thachine
aoinan, the
‘machine’ js jus a

 
 
  
  
 

 

man.er of speaking about
the scientist's faith ina uni
ver ydenmd by natural

 

law. Vhat faith) was ey.
pressed most cloquenty by
the French phitosepher the
Marquis de Laplace, who
avcrred that, civen compcic
knovledte of the umvene
aioone eta, dhe scientist
could in principle compute
all of its future states in in-
finite detail.

In practice, we must now
remind ourselves, the scicn-
tist and his computers are
machines that occupy space
and consume eneray. Dr.
Rolf Landauer of WM has
pointed out that the process
of calculation fiself soon
reaches fundamental limits,
If the whole visible universe
were one gigantic computer,
made of componcnts at the
theoretical lower limit of
size and energy consump:
tion, it would still be insuffi.
cient for some problems
that are soluble “in princi.
ple.”

Far short of the complex-
ity represented by a human
being, some mere machines
called computers neverthe-
Yess have already reached
the point where their actual
behavior. is predictable only
to a rough approximation,
and we must be careful to
program internal checks to
detect when these highly In-
dividualized robots deviate
from their intended instruc:
tions.

© 1958, The Washington Past Ca.

 

 

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