VI INTRODUCTION 



global entities rather than with the most microscopic individual entities which 

 can be recognized. For biology the lesson is clear. We can rejoice in theories 

 which tell us about the causal structure of the simplest living things, such as 

 viruses which consist of little more than a core of nucleic acids in a shell of 

 proteins; but we cannot be wholly content with them. We are faced with 

 the necessity to develop from this basis a superstructure of derived theory, 

 which will give us some insight into the basic formal organization of the highly 

 evolved and elaborate forms of life which we commonly encounter; into, let 

 us say, a mouse, with its rich variety of cell-types, distinguished into muscle, 

 kidney, liver, nerve and many other kinds of cells. The " DNA-RNA-Protein" 

 story may be as basic for biology as the "fundamental particle-quantum" 

 story is for physics. But the elaboration of this basis which is called for in 

 biology, to proceed from the virus to the mouse, is probably greater than that 

 necessary in physics to go from the atomic nucleus to the chemical molecule, 

 the semi-conductor and the star. 



Dr. Brian Goodwin is one of the first workers to make a serious and sus- 

 tained attempt to work out the kind of elaboration of fundamental biological 

 theory which is required to deal with the global phenomena with which the late 

 products of evolution confront us. Although his work was carried to quite a 

 late stage in my laboratory (and completed in the Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology), I should be the last to claim any technical qualifications to 

 judge it. Goodwin combines, in a way which is still rather exceptional, an 

 insight into basic biological processes with an ability to formulate relations in 

 mathematical terms. Until his studies on the temporal sequence of biological 

 processes — and the studies which will follow his pioneer efforts — have reached 

 a point which allows us to overcome what I referred to as the built-in obsoles- 

 cence of existing biological organisms, some of us will have to reconcile our- 

 selves to the fact that we lack the sheer intellectual ability to follow him. But 

 although I cannot say whether he is right or wrong in the precise conclusions he 

 advances, I am pretty confident that he is trying to find his way along a path 

 into the unknown and uncomprehended which does, in fact, lead towards a 

 kind of understanding which will be increasingly recognized as one of the 

 essential features in a complete and comprehensive biology. 



