THE PROBLEMS 



Organism and Molecules 



A bacterium, which is a microorganism, absorbs food, 

 metabolizes, grows, and divides; two bacteria are thus produced out 

 of one. This process is called reproduction' bv binary fission. But 

 we are not interested in the external appearance of things. We are 

 not interested in what we see but in what we do not see, in the 

 invisible essence of things. 



A molecule is the smallest unit quantity of matter which can exist 

 bv itself and retain all the properties of the original substance. A 

 molecule can be split into fragments, but each fragment is necessarily 

 different from the original structure. .Molecules might aggregate, 

 but a molecule cannot divide. Neither can a molecule sfrow. Thus 

 the growth and division of a bacterium is not the growth and 

 division of its molecules. What is reproduction at the molecular 

 level? 



The living world is composed of thousands of species differing in 

 their size, shape, chemical composition, nutrition, metabolism, etc. 

 But all these species are constructed with the same building blocks. 

 The specificity of an organism in the last analysis is, and can only be, 

 the consequence of the specific structure of its macromolecules. This 

 means that each individual always produces identical macromole- 

 cules. What is biological specificity? How is the information stored 

 which is responsible for the biological specificity and diversity? 

 How is it reproduced? 



Everybody knows that organisms undergo variations, some of 

 which are inheritable. This is the basis of evolution. The statement 



[7] 



