Re: preposterous

From: Jonathan Clarke (jdac@alphalink.com.au)
Date: Thu Apr 05 2001 - 19:31:07 EDT

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    Ah the answer to my question about the contribution to Delbruck and Schrodinger
    (in an email I hadn't got round to reading).

    Obviously this is important, but only to specialists in a few areas. The double
    helix means nothing to behavioural biologists or ecologists, and little to
    classical genetics, taxonomy or even organic evolution. it was of course very
    important to the field of molecular biology which is now an enormous field
    because of this break though.

    However to claim that these two worthies as biologists is similar to saying that
    Rutherford was a geologist because he recognised the possibility of radiometric
    dating (even though Homes and Phillips were the people who actual developed the
    techniques. Radiometric dating revolutionised our understanding the geologic
    time, but whole areas of geology would have continued to advance without it.

    Jon

    Moorad Alexanian wrote:

    > Astronomy is observational, physics is experimental and so it was more
    > Galileo than anyone else. I have published papers on the Big Bang but I
    > must say I do not know how all came into being. I am more at easy with
    > experimental science rather than forensic science. Delbruck and
    > Schrodinger paved the way for the double helix, which is fundamental to
    > making biology more like physics. Moorad
    >
    >



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