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DEC ig 1962
UNIVERSITY of PENNSYL VANIA
PHILADELPHIA 4
The School of Medicine
DEPARTMENT OF BIOCHEMISTRY
327 Anatomy Chemistry Bldg. December 5, 1962

Dr. Joshua Lederberg

Department of Genetics

Stanford University

School of Medicine -
Palo Alto, California

Dear Josh:

I am taking the liberty of sending you a copy of a
paper presented at a Symposium of the Society of General
Physiologists in August, 1962. The paper will be published
at some time in the future, but I thought that there are
some notions in the paper on which you might wish to comment.
Indeed, I would very much appreciate hearing from you about
it if you found both time to read the paper in the first
instance, and time to comment.

M22 -S

With best wishes, I remain

Sincerely yours,
f
“ay ;
AM Ms th

Seymour s\ cohen

SSC:db
Encl: MSS

Dear Seymour-~ Thanks very much. I don't find much to disagree with, except what we
each marvel at. Of course there has been innovation in evolution, but if you accept
the monophyletic peemise, we are on common ground. Perhaps we are each reacting to
a different set of irritations, and I can well understand yours at finding such un-
reasonable resistance to the monophosphate shunt. When fou do find a genetic mucleic
acid with, say, a polyhexosephosphate backbone, I will shift my own marvels closer
to yours. Meanwhile, I think you may be doing harm by underemphasizing the basic
evolutionary pathway, along which the innovations are strung-- or do I completely
misunderstand you? I would not be so forceful in deploring the “unity of biochemistry";
I would certainly agree that it should not be d dogma to shut out appreciation of the
variations. So, which is more important, the forest or the trees?

Goce