52 SCIENTIST 



Even within a given organism, closer study shows an 

 aknost bewildering complexity of chemical and physio- 

 logical reactions. Often there are alternate ways of ac- 

 comphshing the same result. For example, most cells have 

 two sets of reactions for producing energy, one for use 

 when there is an abundant supply of oxygen and another 

 for when oxygen supplies run low. A still uncounted 

 number of hormones are involved in the business of con- 

 ceiving, bearing, and nourishing offspring, and the differ- 

 ences among mammalian species in the character of the 

 oestrus cycle and the period of gestation are almost as 

 numerous as the species themselves. 



The idea that nature does things in simple ways is hard 

 to abandon, however. I remember attending a lecture 

 twenty-five years ago given by the foremost student of 

 the female sex cycle. As I was leaving, the chief of the 

 laboratory I was then working in drew me aside and said, 

 "Bob, the scheme he outlined on the board just can't be 

 true; nature wouldn't be as comphcated as that." Since that 

 time, the lecturer's proposals have been amply verified and 

 many further complexities have been added. 



The fact that most physical phenomena can be reduced 

 to relatively simple formulas, while most biological phe- 

 nomena are complex and various, has meant in the past 

 that physicists and biologists have been rather different 

 sorts of people. As mentioned above, physicists have had 

 to know more mathematics, a fact which almost immedi- 

 ately set them off from other men. It also made it difficult 

 for physicists to admit that other scientists were as bright 

 as they were themselves. The physical scientist sought 

 and often found beauty and what he called elegance in 

 the simple relationships revealed by his world. The biolo- 

 gist found his esthetic satisfactions in quite a different 



