oh there was no doubt we were living

through a revolution I certainly

experienced that as such internalized it

in that way when the paper by Avery

MacLeod McCarty came along I didn't use

the phraseology but my exclamations were

equivalent saying this is the dawn of

molecular genetics as for this first

time we could have a biological assay

for the genetic activity of an external

molecule so that publication next to

Francis Ryan were the the molding

effects on my career was talked about

quite extensively around the department

at at Columbia it turns out we had a

couple of people who were important

liaison alfred murski who has been

remarked on as having been an

inappropriate critic of Avery MacLeod

and McCarty I don't think it was

inappropriate but it was certainly a

severe critic chequered was also the

greatest Herald of the story so we would

hear about what was going on at the

Rockefeller Institute on the other side

of town from as if we had been at the

same institution but also Harriet Taylor

was a graduate student working with LC

Dunn had become interested in as well

and she in fact went to do postdoctoral

work in Avery's laboratory shortly after

that time so we had very close

information linkages to the research

that was going on there we were very

well-informed about it we reacted to it

there was a lot of critical dialectic

but it was not something that could be

ignore it was the most exciting thing

that had happened in many many decades

and was precisely because it was so

important that is the identification of

DNA as genetic material that I emphasize

with the view that it should be

subjected to the most critical

examination it was two important issue

to just accept casual

so as long as the debate was alive that

was the way the scientific method

operates