AMPHISBAENA 193 



deny that the dazzUng light being thrown on a few spots to the 

 exclusion of the rest has distorted all the proportions of our 

 science. How many frantic about-faces someone of my age has 

 had to live through! And the yelping is not at an end; in fact, it 

 is getting worse. Miss Molecule of 1962 remains to be crowned; 

 and I fear — and you hope — there will be many more. The next 

 candidate will no doubt be messenger RNA. And some time 

 later it will be the operon buffo: "Figaro qui, Figaro qua!" But 

 to continue with what I was saying before. You may, of course, 

 ascribe to my advancing years the difficulties I experience in 

 understanding what is claimed to go on. Even if we accept the 

 existence of a short-lived species of RNA that is made under the 

 direct control of DNA and by mirroring the composition of the 

 latter transfers the information from DNA to the proteins and if 

 we add the relatively small amount of so-called soluble RNA, we 

 are left with the bulk, almost 85 per cent, of the cellular RNA 

 for which neither function nor mode of formation is apparent. 

 You will, of course, with your usual originality tell me that Rome 

 was not built in one day, to which I shall reply that less credit 

 should be given to those who fail to solve great problems than to 

 those that succeed in solving small ones. There is nothing easier 

 than to fall off the Mount Everest. 



y: 



But you cannot deny the existence of a rapidly turning-over RNA 

 that does mirror the composition of DNA, in base-pairing, etc.? 



o: 



Most of the analyses that I have seen are far from convincing. 

 A lot of good will or, better, lack of experience is necessary for 

 such enthusiastically sweeping claims. But never mind, many 

 people have made a good living in science by selling the emperor's 

 new clothes. De nihilo nihil does not hold for molecular biology. 

 Only where there is nothing, all is possible. If you consider a 

 cell, and the amount of packing or compression it must require, 

 the traffic problems become so enormous as to demand the for- 



