April 10, 1959

Professor J. B. S$. Haldane.
Indian Statistical institute
203, Barrackpore Trunk Road
Calcutta, Indla

Dear Haldane:

Thank you for your messages of March 7, and April L. I've managed to
retrieve my copy of New Biology No. 16 and there can scarcely be any doubt
that some residues from my reading It some years ago had lingered on In
provoking my more recent discussions. I! am sorry not to have had this
more immediately in mind In my eartier writing.

Apart from the question of parity there is rather explicit evidence
of cosmic asymmetry In the polarization of light from distant stars. This
may well be expected to have some Influence on the symmetry of elementary
condensation reactions and may therefore, not be an altogether remote
factor in primal biological asymmetry.

Reproductive processes In interstellar matter are golng to have to be
taken very serlously as part of any picture of the condensation of the
gas and dust. As Bates and Spitzer point out, the rate of condensation
of free atome is very low and most effective accretion must take place
on already formed surfaces. That Is to say, the growing grains may
have to split in order to account for the aggregation of condensed matter.
There was a good deal of recent astrophysical work that ! was unable to
asknowledge fn detail] in that brief review.

i have been trying to think, during the last year or two, of artifi-
cially designed systems of molecular replication somewhat less complex than
DNA. There are some polymerization schemes that may be reasonably plausible
on paper and In models but they will have to be tried out In the chemical
laboratory. I! myself feel that there is a plaustble case for a probable
evolution, by gradual stages, of the faculty of precise self-replication
itself, the earllest systems having only the least effective technique of
replication.

1 think we may have succeeded in establishing a reasonably circumspect
position on planetary contamination In this country but the Russian attitude
is as enlgmatic ag ever. 1! think cerasainly the best course {fs to keep as far
away from politics and organized action as possible, and instead to use the
customary means of scientific communication as far as possible. | am exploring
the possibility of writing a brief article for publication In a Russtan
Journal but don't know when | will have the time for it. | had seen your name
on a tentative program for a Ciba Conference in Naples and am sorry to have to
conclude that that did not work out.

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics