Biochemistry and 

 Evolution 



Ernest Baldwin 



Department of Biochemistry 

 University College, University of London 



As N. W. Pirie (1937) has written, "'Life' and 'Living' are clearly 

 words that the scientist has horrowed from the plain man. The loan 

 has worked satisfactorily until comparatively recently. . . . Now. 

 however, systems are being discovered and studied which are neither 

 obviously living nor obviously dead, and it is necessary to define these 

 words or else give up using them and coin others." With the discovery 

 that viruses are crystallizable nucleoproteins, it began to be necessary 

 for the first time to realize that there is no fundamental gap between 

 what is living and what is not. The effects on biological thinking have 

 been profound and far-reaching. The origin of life, formerly no more 

 than a pseudo problem upon which time, energy, ink, and paper had 

 been most generously — and uselessly — lavished, now became a true 

 and a real problem, worthy at last of serious scientific consideration. 

 The origin of life has become something to be sought in times far 

 remote from our own — at some early time in terrestrial history. Al- 

 ready many stimulating essays on this important matter have been 

 written, speculation has abounded, and a major symposium has been 



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