PREMATURITY AND UNIQUENESS IN SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY

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4
AppPontattotifirandAtiitiefitecse
in Scientific Discovery
A molecular geneticist reflect on two general historical questions:
(1) What does it mean to say a discovery is "ahead of its time"?
(2) Are scientific creations any less unique than artistic creations?
T: he fantastically rapid progress of
molecular genetics in the past 25
years now obliges merely middle-
aged participants in its early develop-
ment to look back on their early work
from a depth of historical perspective
that for scientific'specialties flowering in
earlier times came only after all the wit-
nesses of the first blossoming were long
dead. It .is as if the late-18th-century
colleagues of Joseph Priestley and An-
toine Lavoisier had still been active in
chemical research and teaching in the.
1930's, after atomic structure and the
nature of the chemical bond had been
revealed. This somewhat depressing
personal vantage provides a singular op-
portunity to assay the evolution of _ a
scientific field. In reflecting on the his-
tory :of molecular genetics from the
viewpoint of my own experience I have
found that two of its most famous inci-
dents?Oswald Avery's identification of
DNA as the active principle in bacterial
transformation and hence as genetic ma-
terial, and James Watson and Francis
Crick's discovery of the DNA double he-
lix?illumiliate two general problems of
cultural history. The case of Avery
throws light on the question of whether
it is meaningful or merely tautologous
to say that a discovery is "ahead of its
time," or premature. And the case of
Watson aed Crick can be used, and in
fact has been used, to discuss the ques-
tion of whether there is anything unique
in a scientific discovery, in view of the
likelihood that if Dr. A had not discov-
ered Fact X today,- Dr. 13 would have
discovered it tomorrow.
Five years ago I published a
to Ave
by Gunther S. Stent
origins. In that historical account I men-
tioned neither Avery's name nor DNA-
mediated bacterial transformation. My
essay elicited a letter to the editor by a
microbiologist, who complained: "It is
a sad and surprising omission that...
Stent makes no mention of the definitive
proof of DNA as the basic hereditaty
substance by 0. T. Avery, C. M. Mac-
Leod and Maclyn McCarty. The growth
of [molecular genetics) rests upon this
experimental proof.... I am old enough
to remember the excitement and en-
thusiasm induced by the publication of
the paper by Avery, MacLeod and Mc-
Carty. Avery, an effective bacteriologist,
was a quiet, self-effacing, non-disputa-
tious gentleman. These characteristics of
personality should not [cause) the gen-
eral scientific public...to let his name
go unrecognized."
? I was taken aback by this letter and
replied that I should indeed have men-
tioned Avery's 1944 proof that DNA is
the hereditary substance. I went on to
say, however, that in my opinion it is
not true that the growth of molecular
genetics rests on Avery's proof. For
many years that proof actually had little
impact on geneticists. The reason for the
delay was not that Avery's work was un-
known to or mistrusted by geneticists
but that it was "premature."
My prima facie reason for saying
Avery's discovery was premature is that
it was not .appreciated in its clay. By
lack of appreciation I do not mean that
Avery's discovety went unnoticed, or
even that it was not considered impor-
tant. What I do mean is that geneticists
did not seem to be able to do much
brief nit-. with it or build on it. That is, in its day
: This statement can be readily sup-
ported by an examination of the scien-
tific literature. For example, a convinc- -
ing demonstration of the lack of appre-
ciation of Avery's discovery is provided
by the '1950 golden jubilee of genetics
symposium"Genetics in the 20th Cen-
tury.". In the proceedings of that sym-
posium some of the most eminent ge-
neticists published essays that surveyed
the progress of the first 50 years of ge-
netics and assessed its status at that
time. Only one .of the 20 essayists- saw
fit to make more than a passing refer-
ence to Avery's discovery, then six years
old. He was a- colleague of AveAvery's at
the Rockefeller Institute, and he ex-
pressed some doubt that the active
transforming principle was really pure'
DNA. The then leading philosopher Of
the gene, H. J. Muller of Indiana Uni-
versity, contributed an essay on the na-
ture of the gene that mentions neither
Avery nor DNA.
So why was Avery's discovery not ap-
preciated in its day? Because it was
44.1.
premature." But is this really an ex-
planation or is it merely an empty tau-
tology? In other words, ? Is there a way
of providing a criterion of the prema-
turity of a discovery other than its fail-
ure to make an impact? Yes, there is
such a criterion: A discovery is prema-
ture if its implications cannot be con-
nected by a series of simple logical steps
to canonical, or generally accepted,
knowledge.
Why
.
Why could Avery's discovery not be
connected- with canonical knowledge?
Ever since DNA had been discovered in
the cell nucleus by Friedrich Miescher
rospective essai on molllar in 1869- it had been suspected of exert-
netics, with paPl
A gt a IX PleMrOngligtOse'oP iinfl6/6-66"Veet""/"6"
virtalky
84
Foe-
0 esses. us suspicion. became stronger
in the 1920's, when it was found that
DNA is a mayor component of the chro-,
mosomApPf30 &on Release
molecular nature of DNA, however,
made it well-nigh inconceivable that
DNA could be the canier of hereditaty
information. First, until well into the
1930's DNA was generally thought to
be merely a tetranucleotide composed
. of one unit each of adenylic, guanylie,
thymitlylic and cytidylic acids. Second,
even when ft was finally realized by the
VIO/i4qciucti
irly.1.949:s_thaLpki 1.16k
111 Ma'
CIO
'
? the tetranucleotide hypothesis required,
it was still widely believed the tetranu-
cleotide was the basic repeating unit of
the large DNA polymer in which the
four units mentioned recur in regular
sequence. DNA was therefore viewed
as a uniform macromolecule that, like
other monotonous polymers such as
starA or cellulose, is always the same,
tAdli5logical source.
liqgcd 'IPrdeTetice of DNA in the
chromosomes was therefore generally
explained in purely physiological Or
structural terms. It was usually to the
chromosomitl protein that the informa-
tional role of the genes bad been as-
signed, since the great differences in
the specificity of structure that exist be-
tween various proteins in the same or-
PICASSO'S "LES DESMOISELLES D'AVIONON,? painted in Par-
is in 1907, is often eked by art historians as the first major Cubist
painting and a milestone in the development of modern art. It is
reproduced here as an archetype of the proposition that works of
artistic creation are unique iin the-wense lam ft/26x:
Approved For Keiea
?
isted, it would never have been painted), whereas works Of scien-
tific creation are inevitable tin the sense that if Dr. if had not dis-
covered Fact X today; Dr. B would discover it tomorrow). The va-
lidity of the proposition is disputed by the author, The painting
C l'A1RDPV3400 713(M)002130 68006441 New York.
85
d iff ere nt
gaoism, or ilft?isitikiprign
? S Ole ditgCst
Mar 11 ? 4 stAite. That point
Rm.! 8.6-).0 iriviwri twilit gas mo!e-
ciated since the beginning of the cen- sedated with the name of Gregor Men- of view, however, was irreconcilable
tury. The conceptual difficulty of as- del, whose discovery of the gene in 1865 with Polanyrs basic assumption of the
signing the genetic role to DNA had not had to wait 35 years before it was "redis- mutual independence of individual gas
escaped Avery. In the conclusion of his covered" at the turn of the century. molecules in the adsorption process. It
paper he stated: "If the results of the Menders discovery made no immediate was only in the 1930's, after a new the-
present study of the transforming pin- impact, it can be argued, because the ory of cohesive molecular forces based
ciple are confirmed, then nucleic acids concept of discrete hereditary units on quantum-mechanical resonance rath-
must be regarded as possessing biologi- could not be connected with canonical er than on electrostatic attraction had
cal specificity the chemical basis of knowledge of anatomy and physiology been developed, that it became con-
which is as yet undetermined." in the middle of the 19th century. Fur- ceivable gas molecules could behave in
By 1950, however, the tetranucleo- thermore, the statistical methodology the way Polanyrs experiments indicated
tide hypothesis had been overthrown, by means of which Mendel interpreted they were actually behaving. Meanwhile
thanks largely to the work of Erwin the results of his pea-breeding experi- Polanyrs theory had been consigned so
Chargaff of the Columbia University ments was entirely foreign to the way -authoritatively to the ashcan of crackpot
College of Physicians and Surgeons. He of thinking of contemporary biologists, ideas that it was rediscovered only in the
showed that, contrary to the demands By the end of the 19th century, how- 1950*s.
of that hypothesis, the four nucleotides ever, chromosomes and the chromo-
are not necessarily present in DNA in some-dividing processes of mitosis andLi can the notion or prematurity be
equal proportions. He found, further- meiosis had been discovered and Men- said to be a useful historical concept?
more, that the exact nucleotide compo- del's results could now be accounted for First of all, is prematurity the only pos-
sition of DNA differs according to its in terms of structures visible in the mi- sible explanation for the lack of ton-
biological source, suggesting that DNA croscope. Moreover, by then the appli- temporary appreciation of a discovery?
might not be a monotonous polymer cation of statistics to biology had be- Evidently not. For example, my micro-
after all. And so when two years later, come commonplace. Nonetheless, in biologist critic suggested that ft was the
in 1952, Alfred Hershey and Martha some respects Avery's discovery is a "quiet, self-effacing, non-disputatious"
Chase of the Carnegie Institution's lab- more dramatic example of prematurity personality of Avery that was the cause
oratory in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., than Mendel's. Whereas Menders dis- of the failure of his contribution to be
showed that on infection of the host bac- covery seems hardly to have been men- recognized. Furthermore, in an essay
terium by a bacterial virus at least 80 tioned by anyone until its rediscovery, on the history of DNA research Chargaff
percent of the viral DNA enters the cell Avery's discovery was widely discussed supports the idea that personal modesty
and at least 80 percent of the viral pro- and yet it could not be appreciated. for and aversion to self-advertisement ac-
tern remains outside, it was possible to eight years. count for the lack of contemporary sal.-
connect their conclusion that DNA is Cases of delayed appreciation of a entific appreciation. He attributes the
the genetic material with canonical discovety exist also in the physical sci- 75-year lag between Miescher's discov-
knowledge. Avery's "as yet undeter- ences. One example (as well as an ex- ery of DNA and the general apprecia-
mined chemical basis of, the biological planation of its circumstances in terms tion of its importance to Miescher's be-
specificity of nucleic acids" could now of the concept to which I refer here as lug "one of the quiet in the land," who
be seen as the precise sequence of the prematurity) has been provided by lived when "the giant publicity ma-
four nucleotides along the polynucleo- Michael Polanyi on the basis of his own chines, which today accompany even. 2
tide chain. The general impact of the experience. In the years 1914-71916 the smallest move on the chess-board of
Hershey-Chase experiment was imme- Polanyi published a theory of the ad- nature with enormous fanfares, were not
diate and dramatic. DNA was suddenly sorption of gases on solids which as- yet in place." Indeed, the 35-year hiatus
in and protein was out, as far as think- suinecl that the force attracting a gas
ing about the nature of the gene was molecule to a solid surface depends only
concerned. Within a few months there on the position of the molecule, and not POLYSACCHARIDE PNEUMOCOCCIf
arose the first speculations about the ge- on the presence of other molecules, in CAPSULE BACTERIA
netic code, and Watson and Crick were the force field. In spite of the fact that
inspired to set out to discover .the struc- Polanyi was able to provide strong ex-
ture of DNA. perimental evidence in favor of his the-
Of course, Avery's discovery is only ory, it was generally rejected. Not only
one of many premature discoveries in was the theory rejected, it was also con-
the history of science. I have presented sidered so ridiculous by the leading un-
it here for consideration mainly because thorities of the time that Polanyi be-
of my own failure to appreciate it when lieves continued defense of his theory
I joined Max Delbriick's bacterial virus would have ended his professional ea-
group at the California Institute of reer if he had not managed to. publish
Technology in 1948. Since then I have work on more palatable ideas. The rea-
often wondered what my later career son for the general rejection of Polanyrs
would have been like if I had only been adsorption theory was that at the very
EXPERIMENT OF 1944 with which Oswald
astute enough to appreciate Avery's dis- time he put it forward the role of eke. Avery correctly identified the chemical na-
covery and infer from it four years be- trical forces in the architecture of matter tare of the genetic material is regarded
fore Hershey and Chase that DNA must had just been discovered. Hence there by the author as a classic example of a pre.
also be theAppitovetetifg of fteleasee20011403i26cipel*Reft0611007117tROmpooaoasiA
experimental organism. ...he virulent
tion of gases must also involve an elee- normal, or S-type, pneumococcus, a bacteri.
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in the appreciation of Mendel's discov-
ery is often atlartittohkod? keie
ing been a mo monY living in an
out-of-the-way Moravian monastery.
Nene. e the notion of prematurity pro-
vides an alternative to the invocation?
in my opinion an inappropriate one for
the instances mentioned here?of the
lack of publicity as an explanation for
delayed appreciation.
More important, does the prematurity
concept pertain only to retrospective
judgments made with the wisdom of
hindsight? No. I think it can be used also
to judge the Present. Some recent dis-
coveries are still premature at this very
time. One example of here-and-now pre-
maturity is the alleged finding that ex-
periential information received by an
animal can be stored in nucleic acids or
other macromolecules.
Some 10 years ago there began to ap-
pear reports by experimental psycholo-
gists purporting to have shown that the
engram, or memory trace, of a task
learned by a trained animal can be
transferred to a naive animal by inject-
ing or feeding the recipient with an ex-
tract made from the tissues of the donor.
At that time the central lesson of mo-
lecular genetics?that nucleic acids and
proteins are informational macromole-
cules.?had just gained wide currency,
and the facile equation of nervous in-
formation with genetic information soon
led to the proposal that macromole-
cules?DNA, RNA or? protein?store
memory. As it happens, the experiments
on which the macromolecular theory of
memory is based have been difficult to
repeat, and the results claimed for them
may indeed not be true at all. It is none-
theless 'significant that few neurophysi-
ologists have even bothered to check
these experiments, evenS though it is
qi
e llecemicat ettg6 e ik-fRolbtm-o
o c memory trans er wou
constitute a fact of capital importance.
The lack of interest of neurophysiolo-
gists in the macromolecular theory of
memory can be accounted for by recog-
nizing that the theory, whether true or
false, is clearly premature. There is no
chain of reasonable inferences by means
of which our present, albeit highly im-
perfect, view of the functional organiza-
tion of the brain can be reconciled with
the possibility of its acquiring, storing
and retrieving nervous information by
encoding such information in molecules
of nucleic acid or protein. Accordingly
for the community of neurophysiologists
there is no point in devoting time to
checking on experiments whose results,
even if they were true as alleged, could
not be connected with canonical knowl-
edge.
The concept of here-and-now prema-
turity can be applied also to the trouble-
some subject of ESP, or extrasensory
perception. In the summer of 1948 I
happened to hear a heated argument at
Cold Spring Harbor between two future
mandarins of molecular biology, Salva-
dor Luria of Indiana University and
R. E. Roberts of the Carnegie Institu-
tion's laboratory in Washington. Roberts
was: then interested in ESP, and he felt
it had not been given fair consideration
by the scientific community. As I re-
call, he thought that one might be able
to set up experiments with molecular
beams that could provide more defini-
tive data on the possibility of mind-
induced departures from random dis-
tributions than J. B. Rhine's then much
discussed card-guessing procedures.
Luria declared that not only was he not
:
11 CELL-FREE EXTRACT SERUM FACTORS
interested ;xi Roberts' proposed experi-
erfRi7kinettiff0664j5was un-
woliti o iir7iiieCraiming to be a scien-
tist even to discuss such rubbish. How
could an intelligent fellow such as Rob-
erts entertain the possibility of phenom-
ena totally irreconcilable with the most
elementary physical laws? Moreover, a
phenomenon that is manifest only to
specially endowed subjects, as claimed
by "parapsychologists" to be the case
for ESP, is outside the proper realm of
science, which must deal with phenom-
ena accessible to every observer. -Rob-
erts replied that far from him being un-
scientific, it ? was Luria whose bigoted
attitude toward the unknown was un-
worthy of a true scientist. The fact that
not everyone has ESP only means that
it is an elusive phenomenon, similar to
musical genius. And just because a phe-
nomenon cannot be reconciled with
what we new know, we need not shut
our eyes to it. On the contrary, it is the
duty of the scientist to try to devise ex-
periments designed to probe its truth
or falsity.
It seemed to me then that both Luria
and Roberts were right, and in the in-
tervening years I often thought about
this puzzling disagreement, unable to
resolve it in my own mind. Finally six.
years ago I read a review of a book on
ESP by my Berkeley colleague C. West
Churchman, and I began to see my way
toward a resolution. Churchman stated
that there are three different possible
scientific approaches to ESP. The first of
these is that the truth or falsity of ESP,
like the. truth or falsity of the existence
of God or of the immortality of the soul,
is totally independent of either the
methods or the findings of empirical sci-
ence. Thus the problem of ESP is de-
(TRANSFORMING
PRINCIPLE)
PRECIPITATION
CELL DEBRIS
urn that causes pneumonia in mammals, is enclosed in a smooth
(hence S) polysaccharide capsule that protects the bacterium from
the ordinary defense mechanisms of the infected animal. The avir-
ulent mutant, or R-type (R for rough), strain has lost the genetic
capacity to form this protective capsule and hence is comparatively
, ?
harmless. WbenAripitPretIgFerfteleased2001402426
TRANS-
FORMATION
STRAIN
S donor bacteria was added to mutant R recipient bacteria, some
of the mutants were found to regain the genetic capacity to form
the capsule and thus were transformed back into the normal, vir-
ulent S type. Avery purified the transforming principle and suc-
ceeded in showing that it is DNA. The significance of Avery's dia.
pOIA.1413P96134:40.7437ROM0008006440561 1952-
87
fined out of existence. I imigine that f
was ApromiestrafomAhe. as e.010
Churchman's second approach is to
reformulate the ESP phenomenon in
terms of currently acceptable scientific
notions, such as unconscious perception
or conscious fraud. Hence, rather than
defining ESP out of existence, it is triv-
ialized. The second approach probably
would have been acceptable to Luria
too, but not to Roberts.
The third approach is to take the
proposition of ESP literally and to at-
tempt to examine in all seriousness the
evidence for its validity. That was more
or less Roberts' position. As Churchman
points out, however, this approach is not
likely to lead to satisfactory results.
?Parapsychologists can maintain with
e' l
tikiiitesottit Kft0200080C1546fie, as Luria h
Been proc
ve to t e hT
i t, since c aimed, they would not be "scien
but because any positive evidence I
might have found in favor of ESP wou
have been, and would still be, prem
Lure. That isfrintil it is possible to c
nect ESP with canonical knowledge c
say, electromagnetic radiation and ne
rophysiology no demonstration of i
occurrence could be appreciated.
Is the lack of appreciation of pre
ture discoveries merely attributable
the intellectual shortcoming or inna
conservatism of scientists who, if the
were only more perceptive or mor
open-minded, would give immecliat
recognition to any well-documented se
entific proposition? Polanyi is not of th-
opinioiil Reflecting on the cruel fate
his theory half a centuw after first a
vancing it, Ire declaredij "This misc
riage of the scientific method, could n
have been avoided....Lihere must be
all times a predominantly accepted sci
entifie view of the nature of things,
the light of which research is joint
conducted by members of the commu
nity of scientists. A strong presumptio
that any evidence which contradic
this view is invalid must prevail. Sue
evidence has to be disregarded, even i
it cannot be accounted for, in the ho
that it will eventually turn out to lx
false or irrelevant." 4
That is a view of the operation of sci
ence rather different from the one coni
monly held, under which acceptance Of
authority is seen as something to be
avoided at all costs. The good scientist
is seen as an unprejudiced man with an
open mind who is ready, to embrace any
new idea supported by the facts. The
history of science shows, however, that
its practitioners do not appear to act
according to that popular viel.;""
's
Five years ago Chargaff wrote one of
the many reviews of The Double
Helix, Watson's autobiographical ac:
count of his and Crick's discovery of the
structure of DNA. In his review Char-
gaff observes that scientific autobiogra-
phy is "a most awkward literary genre:
Most such works, he says, "give the im-
pression of having been written for the
remainder tables of bookstores, reaching
them almost before they are published."1
The reasons for this, according to Char
gaff, are not far to seek: scientists lead
monotonous and uneventful lives and....
besides often do not know how to write."
Moreover, "there may also be profound-,
er reasons for the general triteness of
SI Timon of
7 8
bEn'a3e?been writtene%
no other set of hypotheses in psychology
has received the degree of critical scru-
tiny that has been given to ESP experi-
ments. Moreover, many other phenom-
ena have been accepted on much less
statistical evidence than what is offered
for p SP. The reason Churchman ad-
vances for the futility of a strictly evi-
dential approach to ESP is that in the
absence of a hypothesis of how ESP
could work it is not possible to decide
whether any set of relevant observations
can be accounted for only by ESP to the
exclusion of alternative explanations.
After reading Churchman's review I
realized that Roberts would have been
ill-advised to proceed with his ESP ex-
THYMINE
ADENINE
OLD VIEW of the chemical structure of DNA, widely held until well into the 1930's, saw
the molecule as being merely a tetranucleotide composed of one unit each of adenylic, gua.
nylic, thymidylic and cytidylic acids. This hypothesis demanded that the molecular weight
of DNA be little more than 1,000 and that the four nucleotide bases (adenine, guanine,
thymine and cytosine) occur in exactly equal proportions. Even when it was finally realized
in the 1910's that the molecular weight of ANA is much higher (in the millions or bil-
lions), it was still widely believed that the tetranucleotide was the basic rep ' ?
large DNVOrtnitici rFenkRbiletee20,04ffi3126.;odUrg
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to be an ob a e to the eventual acceptance of the idea that DNA is the genetic material. 'Les Desmoiselles &Avignon' not have,
' II
, GUANINAP paigegor Ac'elnie_2(M65/26 ":11elr-hDP6Mfa7R16613/boosoVerf
7
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PRESENT VIEW of the chemical structure of DNA sees the mole-
eale as a long chain in which the four nucleotide bases can be ar-
ranged in any arbitrary order. Although the proportion of alle-
eine is always equal to that of thymine and the proportion of pia-
nine is always equal to that of cytosine, the ratio of adenine?thy-
r-? been painted, had Shakespeare and Pi-
et casso not existed. But of how many
at scientific achievements can this be
j. claimed? One could almost say that, with
in very few exceptions, it is not the men
ly that make science, it is science that
makes the men. What A clues today, B
all
or C or D could surely do tomorrow."
-ts On reading this passage, I found my-
.self in full agreement on the general lack
if of literary skills among men of science.
2e I was surprised, however, to find an
be eminent scientist embracing historicism
(the theory championed by Hegel and
Marx holding that history is determined
by immutable forces rather than by las-
man agency) as an explanation for the
evolution of science while at the same
time professing belief in the libertarian
*great man" view of history for the evo-
lution of art. Since it had not occurred
to me that anyone could hold such con-
tradictory, and to me obviously false,
act views concerning these two most im-
portant domains of human creation, I
began to ask scientific friends and col-
leagues whether they too, by any
chance, thought there was an impor-
tant qualitative difference between the
achievements of art and of science,
namely that the former are unique and
the latter inevitable. To my even greater
surprise, I found that most of them
seemed to agree with Chargaff. Yes, they
-said, it is quite true that we would not
have had Timon of Athen,s or "Les Des-
raoiselles d'Avignon" if Shakespeare
and Picasso had not existed, but if Wat-
son and Crick had not existed, we would
have had the DNA double helix any-
way. Therefore, contrary to my first im-
pression, it does not seem to be all that
obvious that this proposition has little
Philosophical or historical merit. Hence
I shall now attempt to show that there
is no such profound difference he
A pprovea F 8vrelk e
of
tie
_ist
aat
of
he
he
ag
I."
ad
a.
41*-
f
of
re
mine to guanine-cytosine can vary over a large range, depending
on the biological source of the DNA. With the elaboration of this
single-strand structure it became possible to envision that genetic
Information is encoded in the DNA molecule as a specific se.
quence of the four nucleotide bases (see illustration on next page).
the arts and sciences in regard to the
uniqueness of their creations.
Before discussing the proposition of
differential uniqueness of creation it is
necessary to make an explicit statement
of the meaning of "art" and of "science."
My understanding of these terms is
based on the view that both the arts
and the sciences are activities that en-
deavor to discover and communicate
truths about the world. The domain to
which the artist addresses himself is the
inner, subjective world of the emotions.
Artistic statements therefore pertain
mainly to relations between private
events of affective significance. The do-
main of the scientist, in contrast, is the
outer, objective world of physical phe-
nomena. Scientific statements therefore
pertain mainly to relations between or
among public events. Thus the transmis-
sion of information and the perception
of meaning in that information consti-
tute the central content of both the arts
and the sciences. A creative act on the
part of either an artist or a scientist
would mean his formulation of a new
meaningful statement about the world,
an addition to the accumulated capital
of what is sometimes called "our cul-
tural heritage." Let us therefore examine
the proposition that only Shakespeare
could have formulated the semantiq
structures represented by Timm, where-
as people other than Watson and Crick
might have made the communication
represented by their paper, "A Structure
for Deoxyribonucleic Acid," published
in Nature in the spring of 1953.
First, it is evident that the exact word
sequence that Watson and Crick pub-
lished in Nature would not have been
written if the authors had not existed,
any more than the exact word sequence
of Timers would have been written with-
fabulous monkey typists complete their
random work at the British Museum.
And so both creations are from. that
point of view unique. We are not really
concerned, however, with the exact
word sequence. We are concerned with
the content. Thus we admit that people
other than Watson and Crick would
eventually have described a satisfactory
molecular structure for DNA. But then
the character of Timon and the story of
his trials and tribulations not only might
have been written without Shakespeare
but also were written without him.
Shakespeare merely reworked the story
of Timm be had read in William Paint-
er's collection of classic tales, The Palace
of Mame, published 40 years earlier,
and Painter in turn had used as his
sources Plutarch and Lucian. But then
we do not really care about Timon's
story; what counts are the deep insights
into human emotions that Shakespeare
provides in his play. He shows us here
how a man may make his response to
the injuries of life, how he may turn
from lighthearted benevolence to pas-
sionate hatred toward. his fellow men.
Can one be sure, however, that Timon
is unique from this bare-bones stand-
point of the work's artistic essence? No,
because who is to say that if Shake-
speare had not existed no other drama-
tist would have provided for us the
same insights? Another dramatist would
surely have used an entirely different
story (as Shakespeare himself did in his
much more successful King Lear) to
treat the same theme and he might have
succeeded in pulling it off. The reason
no one seems to have done it since is
that Shakespeare had already done it
in 1607, just as no one discovered the
structure of DNA after Watson. and
Crick had already discovered it in 1953.
leSsilefelaide2batCPAYNtbib96-othetneRtroinotrtiseifixotto as-
89
Approved For Release.2001/03/26 : CIA-RDP96-00787R140200080054-5
Oman serting that Timon is uniquely Shake.;
speare's, because no other dramatist, al=
though he might have brought us more
or less the same insights, would have
done it in quite the same exquisite way;
as Shakespeare. But here we must not.
shortchange Watson and Crick and take
for granted that those other people who
? eventually would have found the struel
hire of DNA would have found it in just
the same way and produced the same
revolutionary effect on contemporary bi-
ology. On the basis of my acquaintance
with the personalities then engaged in
trying to uncover the structure of DNA,
I believe that if Watson and Crick had
not existed, the insights they provided
In one single package would have come
out much more gradually over a period
of many months or years. Dr. B might
have seen that DNA is a double-strand
helix, and Dr. C might later? have reci
ognized the hydrogen bonding between
the strands. Dr. D later yet might have
proposed a complementary purine-pyi
rimidine bonding, with Dr. E in a
sequent paper proposing the specific
adenine-thymine and guanine-cytosine
nucleotide pairs. Finally, we might have!
had to wait for Dr. G to propose the,
replication mechanism of DNA based on
the complementary nature of the two
strands. All the while Drs. 11, I, J, K anti
L would have been confusing the issue
by publishing incorrect structures and
proposals. Thus I fully agree with the
judgment offered by Sir Peter Medawan
in his review of The Double Helix: "The
great thing about [Watson and Crick's'
discovery was its completeness, its air
of finality. If Watson and Crick had
been seen groping toward an answer, if
they had published a partly right soltet
tion and had been obliged to follow it
up with corrections and glosses, some
of them made by other people; if the
solution had come out piecemeal instead
of in- a blaze of understanding; then it
would still have been a great episode in
biological history; but something more
in the common run of things; something
splendidly well done, but not in the
grand romantic manner."
HYDROGEN BONDS
to
the
in
Ch
as
and
an(
sei!
qui
and
aw
all
all
ed.
cee
oth
ent
rea
the
wh
lab
son
cor
for
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to
or
nig
the
apj
his
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the
the
of
Inc
of
ev!
rar
the
the
roc
the
gn
fat
w h y is it that so many scientists ap- hat
T parently fail to see that it can be at
said of both art and science that where- sin
as "what A does today, B or C or D tic
could surely do tomorrow," B or C or. vie
D might nevertheless not do it as well as; nc
A, in the same "grand romantic man, na
ner." I think a variety of reasons can be be
Approved For Release 2001/03/26 : CIA-RDP96-00787PC1002000600:54t4
r this strange.
myopia. The first of them is simply that: pe
WATSON-CRICK MODEL of the structure of DNA, the discovery of which was announced most scientists are not familiar with the . ca
to picture the artist's act of creation in cal literature. In contrast, the modern
4 . the terms of Hollywood: Cornet Wilde wrp- -, composer or painter still needs
the role of Apiamoieuhf coreneleasa.g0t/OW260o1CWRD41961-
-; c}:Ktpin gazing fondly at Merle Oberon works of Shakespeare, Bach or Leonar-
T ss his muse and mistress George Sand do, which, so it is thought, have not been
and then sitting down at the Pleyel pi- superseded at all. In spite of the seeming
anoforte to compose his "Preludes." As truth of this proposition, it must be said
a scientists know full well, science is done that art is no less cumulative than sci-
quite differently: Dozens of stereotyped ence, in that artists no more work in a
and ambitious researchers are slaving traditionless vacuum than scientists do.
away in as many identical laboratories, Artists also build on the work of their
;..; all trying to make similar discoveries, predecessors; they start with and later
all using more or less the same knowl- improve on the styles and insights that
edge and techniques, some of them sue- have been handed down to them from
ceeding and some not. Artists, on the their teachers, just as scientists do. To
other hand, tend to conceive of the sci- stay with our main example, Shake-
. entific act of creation in equally un- speare's Timon has its roots in the works
r realistic terms: Paul Muni in the role of of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
the one and only Louis Pasteur, who It was those authors of Creek antiquity
while burning the midnight oil in his who discovered tragedy as a vehicle for
laboratory has the inspiration to take communicating deep insights into af-
ik some bottles from the shelf, mix their fects, and Shakespeare, drawing on
4i.? contents and thus discover the vaccine many earlier sources, finally developed
^ ? for rabies. Artists, in turn, know that art that Creek discovery to its ultimate
it. is done quite differently: Dozens of height. To some limited extent, there-
stereotyped and ambitious writers, fore, the plays of the Creek dramatists
c painters and composers are slaving away have been superseded by Shakespeare's.
_e k, in as many identical garrets, all trying Why, then, have Shakespeare's plays not
k. to produce similar works, all using more been superseded by the work of later,
7'
C or less the same knowledge and tech- lesser dramatists?
II .4.67" niques, some succeeding and some not. Here we finally do encounter an im-
-o 4-0'- A second reason is that the belief in portant difference between the creations
41 the inevitability of scientific discoveries of art and of science, namely the feasi-
te appears to derive support from the bility of paraphrase. The semantic con-
?d :4- often-told tales of famous cases in the tent of an artistic work?a play, a cantata
se if. history of science where the same dis- or a painting?is critically dependent on
-tr covery was made independently two or the exact manner of its realization; that
se "".? more times by different people. For in- is, the greater an artistic work is, the
sl stance, the independent invention of more likely it is that any omissions or
jr t the calculus by Leibniz and Newton or changes from the original detract from
the independent recognition of the role its content. ' In other words, to para-
if of natural selection in evolution by Wal- phrase a great work of art?for instance
a- ; lace and Darwin. As the study of such to rewrite Timon?without loss of artis-
it "- "multiple discoveries" by Robert Merton tic quality requires a genius equal to
of Columbia University has shown, how- the genius of the original creator. Such
# ever, on detailed examination they are a successful paraphrase would, in fact,
d q? rarely, if ever, identical. The reason constitute a great work of art in its own
it they are said to be multiple is simply right. The semantic content of a great
that in spite of their differences one can scientific paper, on the other hand, al-
recognize a semantic overlap between though its impact at the time of publi-
them that is transformable into a con- cation may also be critically dependent
? gruent set of ideas. on the exact manner in which it is pre-
The third, and somewhat more pro- sented, can later be paraphrased with-
found, reason is that whereas the cumu- out serious loss of semantic content by
lative character of scientific creation is lesser scientists. Thus the simple state-
at once apparent to every scientist, the ment "DNA is a double-strand, self-
similarly cumulative character of artis- complementary helix" now suffices to
tic creation is not. For instance, it is oh- communicate the essence of Watson and
vious that no present-day working ge- Crick's great discovery, whereas "A man
neticist has any need to read the origi- responds to the injuries of life by turn-
nal papers of Mendel, because they have ing from lighthearted benevolence to
been completely superseded by the passionate hatred toward his fellow
^ work of the past century. Menders pa- men" is merely a platitude and not a
pers contain no useful information that paraphrase of Titnon. It took the writing
cannot be better obtained from any of King Lear to paraphrase (and ira-
modern text
II
I.
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Shaktspearean dramatic repertoire.
- The fourth, and probably deepest,
reason for the apparent prevalence
among scientists of the proposition that
artistic creations are unique and .scien-
tific creations are not can be attributed
to a contradictory epistemological at-
titude toward the events in the outer
and the inner world. The outer world,
which science tries to fathom, is often
viewed from the standpoint of material-
ism, according to which events and the
relations between them have an exis-
tence independent of the human mind.
Hence the outer world and its scientific
laws are simply there, and it is the job of
the scientist to find them. Thus going
after scientific , discoveries is. like pick-
ing wild strawberries in a public park:
the berries A does not find today B or C
or D will surely find tomorrow. At the
same time, many scientists view the in-
ner world, which art tries to fathom,
from the standpoint of idealism, ac-
cording to which events and relations
Ra4,010101ifieb2ealietidifillb9e
their reflection in human diought. ence
there is nothing to be found in the inner
world, and artistic creations are cut sim-
ply from whole cloth. Here B or C or D
could not possibly find tomorrow what
A found today, because what A found
had never been there. It is not altogether
surprising, of course, to find this split
epistemological attitude toward the two
worlds, since of these two antithetical
traditions in Western philosophical
thought, materialism is obviously an un-
satisfactory approach to art and idealism
an unsatisfactory approach to science.
882auOisOticOsA0111m54P-?51
for granted that all the information gatli4 PtrinriarrillsarYE:tn:a::
an
Both materialism and idealism take it-
ered by our senses actually reaches our:4, from "wec
mind; materialism envisions that thanks tive destr
to this information reality is mirrored 1114 of primal
the mind, whereas idealism envisions' only after
that thanks to this information reality is so transfo
gruxistinentgw
on the other hand, has provided the e ii
constructed by the mind. Structuralism,
sight that knowledge about the worIcLj, studies cc
enters the mind not as raw data but in 4 process c
already highly abstracted form, namelri mammali?
as structures. .In the preconscious proc-4 that the
ess of converting the primary data of ing to du
It is only in the past 20 years or so,
--I- more or less contemporaneously with
the growth of molecular biology, that a
resolution of the age-old epistemologi-
cal conflict of materialism v. idealism
was found in the form of what has come
to be known as structuralism. Structur-
alism emerged simultaneously, inde-
pendently and in different guises in sev-
eral diverse fields of study, for example
our experience step by step into struc.?3. offer an ?
tures, information is necessarily lost, be---4: t those ten
cause the creation of structures, or the Finall
recognition of patterns, is nothing elsect? Vance of
two pro'
under d
matimit)
structur
standini
apprecilogicalll
than the selective destruction of infor-
mation. Thus since the mind does not
gain access to the full set of data about.,
the world, it can neither mirror nor con-,,,,a
struct reality. Instead for the mind rea14
ity is a set of structural transforms of -
SCIENTISA13131506)%4IRSMbiereunr#00
ists is idealized in this scene from the 194 o a c
duction A Song to Remember. Prairie Chopin (played by Cornel
Wilde), after gazing fondly at his muse George Sand (Merle Ober.
,,obatotostlismipres his "Prel-
C I AiFtEt R96600170?"
tides." Science, as any scientist ? ows, I ffb Ifilie differently.
;0-nary data taken from the world. This knmiNclge. In the parlance of struc- because they all make a given set of
transformation 4PPE0Vett erazahaelearsa010410MIX?v,Ikej A-riliiir61.11.tmAritiaboptv world
jn that "stronger" structures are formed the set a preexisting - stron struct Ver 't1611theit?hifylvtMbica TRatt, or
k ?Rom "weaker" structures through selee- with which primary scientific data are mental structure. With reference to art,
tive destruction of information. Any set made congruent in the mental-abstrac- analytic psychology has taught that
of primary data becomes meaningful tion process. Hence data that cannot be there is ?a sameness in the subconscious
only after a series of such operations has transformed into a structure congruent life of different individuals because an
i so transforrned.it that it has become con- with canonical knowledge are a dead innate human archetype causes them to
gruent with a stronger structure pre- end; in the last analysis they remain make the same structural transforma-
existing in the mind. Neurophysiological
studies carried out in recent years on the
process of visual perception in higher
i mammals have not only shown directly
1 that the brain actually operates accord-
1 ing to the tenets of structuralism but also
offer an easily understood illustration of
those tenets:7
a Finally, -we may consider the Me-
?. - vance of structuralist philosophy for the
- two problems in the history of science
t ,,,- under discussion here. As far as pre-
maturity of discovery is concerned,
I- A structuralism provides us with an under-
. -
standing of why a discovery cannot be
of ,:.. appreciated until it can be connected
logically to contemporary canonical
it-?
meaningless. That is, they remain mean-
ingless until a way has been shown to
transform them into a structure that is
congruent with the canon.
As far as uniqueness of discovery is
concerned, structuralism leads to the
recognition that every creative act in
the arts and sciences is both common-
place and unique. On the one hand, it
is commonplace in the sense that there
is an innate, or genetically determined,
correspondence in the transformational
operations that different individuals per-
form on the same primary data. With
reference to science, cognitive psychol-
ogy has taught that different individuals
recognize the same "chairness" of a chair
tions of the events of the inner world.
And with reference to both art and sci-
ence structural linguistics has taught
that communication between different
individuals is possible only because an
innate human grammar causes them to
transform a given set of semantic sym-
bols into the same syntactic structure.
On the other hand, every creative act is
unique in the sense that no two individ-
uals are quite the same and hence never
? perform exactly the same transforma-
? tional operations on a given set of pri-
mary data. Although all creative acts in
both art and science are therefore both
commonplace and unique, some may
nonetheless be more unique than others.
,u14.....z.t.. 7 ....X.-
' ARTISTS' MISCONCEPTION of the scientific act of creation is Muni) has the sudden inspiration to discover the vaccine for rabies.
7?- equally 1011031tWAS &CA110 4Conll the 19313419C iirPliwrs
4.- film The Viiiiil* Art, as any artist knows, is done quite differently. Both photo-
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