W. O. BAKER 



. . . The raw material consumed in having an idea is negligible: 

 the incremental fuel cost of intense mental effort has been esti- 

 mated as one peanut per hour. 



Influence of Physical Theory 

 in Life Sciences 



Still another aspect of these matters of resolving the para- 

 dox of choice concerns the life sciences. Here the possibility 

 of invoking a unifying physical theory in order to guide the 

 organization of programs and thus also to invoke the assistance 

 of the talented individual is almost impossible at present. While 

 brilliant hypotheses and shrewd applications of statistics have 

 dramatically advanced our understanding of biological events 

 and effects, there is yet hardly a case where a guiding theoret- 

 ical precept is established. Further, the need is intense, because 

 in the life sciences the fragmented structure of many gifted 

 individuals working independently may be a problem in our 

 present national position in science. This seems to be partic- 

 ularly true in medical research. Ironically, the financial support 

 of research, particularly of basic research, in medical science is 

 probably as easy to find now as in any other field of science. 

 This is mostly because the issues here, that is the end needs, 

 seem especially clear to everyone, including the Congress. Ap- 

 propriations in this field approach the capacity of present quali- 

 fied research laboratories to use the support. Thankfully, mostly 

 because of the skills in the National Institutes of Health, stand- 

 ards are nevertheless being maintained. The shortage of indi- 

 ct o 



vidual talent in this field is presumably not because of the num- 

 ber of college graduates in biology (14,408 in 1958). This num- 

 ber slightly exceeds annually the total number of graduates in 

 all the physical sciences (14,352 in 1958). Perhaps the choice 

 of research in programs advancing medical science is unappeal- 

 ing — possibly because little unity of concept has yet appeared. 



62 



