NUCLEIC ACIDS, DECODING, ETC. 163 



before the time when it went to nursery school — it was almost 

 still in its baby carriage — a few words may serve to paint a 

 backdrop. For decades, the sciences of biochemistry and of 

 genetics had each gone their own way, stepchildren in turn of 

 two older sciences: biochemistry of chemistry, genetics of biology. 

 What to the one was the molecule, the gene was to the other. 

 There was no bridge between the two, and they were on the 

 whole quite happy. It may be remarked that also in the Tower of 

 Babel the many nations got along quite nicely as long as they did 

 not talk to each other; bedlam broke loose when togetherness set 

 in. This point arrived for us between 1937 and 1944 when plant 

 viruses were shown to be ribonucleoproteins, when the trans- 

 forming principle in pneumococci was shown to be deoxyribonu- 

 cleic acid. At about the same time — and I had my share of the 

 guilt — the concept of "biological information" raised its head and 

 began to sport a multicolored beard which has become ever more 

 luxurious despite numerous appUcations of Occam's razor. What 

 must be remembered is that the entire idea of a chain of com- 

 mand, of a transmission belt of biological information could 

 hardly have been formulated, had not the study of viruses made 

 it possible to place a dateline on the start of development of a 

 biological system. It is of course possible that we have been 

 foolish in applying the principle of the unity of nature to such 

 biological primitives and in extending the results from these 

 studies to the entire realm of life. There are many regions in 

 which the unity of nature cannot be invoked. By the way, it is 

 quite astonishing that there is practically no evidence for the 

 existence of such chains of biological information in higher forms 

 of life, in multicellular communities, as have been derived from 

 the study of a few viruses and micro-organisms. Even the loudly 

 proclaimed "universal genetic code" rests, for the time being at 

 least, mostly on highly brain-washed E. coli. 



It can, however, not be denied that very impressive advances 

 have been made in the last fifteen years in the chemistry, the 



