Institute of Animal Genetics         ,

West Mains Road Edinburgh 9 Telephone NEW 1011

University of Edinburgh Department of Genetics

Professor C H Waddington CBE ScD DSc LID FRS

27th Demzber, 1367.

Dr. Francis Crick, F.R.S.,
Lzbsr2tory OE P!ol:cc~!L-!?,r Blol.og7,
Thiversity Post-Gr2duato Yedical School,
Hills l?oad,
C;\;'IBF~DQJ.
     ..L

   Fimt on the question of quarks, I cp,:ite agree that -!.I:
is eztremely unli?<ely that  t5.e structure of the atonic nucleus
1233 anything mxch to do with biology.   I rmxtioned qu.:r.ks
only as an exxqlc of xornzthing r-rhi sh you raise vhen you d.isc~~.ss
JTOLZ third type of viteL,=,
               ; 3, the one YJ~O thinks that sane
r,zdically ne1.7 @q~ci.c~l idezs my emerge from the andysis
of biological systems.   1 should have thought nzyself that thi.s
prg. $ well. on the cs:-ds.  After all chemists ktudyixg relzt-i vely
si77?p?.e corqlexes of atom h$ad to make use for a long time
of the concept of valency,and i-t was quite a long time 13ter
that the physicists got around to fi.ndin.g how to express this
in thei? tems, and in doing so they had to rew?.te a good
deal of basic ~hysieal theory.  Is it not at lenst possible
that xhen one is construing the properties of very large
macronolccules or,e would cone across tg:1es of b031din~;rattractior,
between ~ox+zions,active states, etc. vhich sir?yly do not come
to notice in other simpler      5
                     situations.   I a2m, of cowse, not
at all RYL expert, but it has always seemed to me that the sort
of thktgs people trl\t  about -  van der Wals forces and the
like, are still miles away from giving an explmation of how
bodies as big as prophase chrorhosomes come together and Fair
nC7-,fiu relations between histonrs and D3TA md so on,        I
vd L


2.

  Putting the point more generally, I think the usual
discussion 1t vitalism-mechanism" puts the question upside
down by asking "if we start with physics and chemistry
cati we explain the whole of biology?lt   Whereas the real
question should be "if we walyse biological systems shall
we come gross anything which physics and chemistry cannot
event~ually nccommodatetl?   This second form of questicn
itself implies of course that physics and cherzistry  are
themselves growil;g and developing subjects.

    This is also @the point I should like to make concerning
your second class of vitalists (the biotonice laws). There
'c-l
10 a lot of biology which is at present is as far from basic
physics as the gas laws are from the dynamics of the individual
&as molecules.   As you say th5 field of natural'selection
and evolution is o.ne ewampl Q and I should myself sugc:*est that
the morphogenesis of large scale structures such as 'E
                                                                          \
will quite likely turn out in the same category.  Thmans,
I think, that new bodies  o f theory will have to be developed
to deal with. such phenomena, but this does not imply in any
wsy that the nepj@& cannot  b e finally incorporated into
an expanded body of physics.   Morphogenesis for instance
may present us with phenomema <as novel as those of low temperature
physics or some of the more peculiar solid state systems,
Evolution and higher nqM
             cLvo~~s activity may be more analogous
to the operations of computers/$s I once pointed olut some years
ago 1 $ >ooking at a few pieces* of wire and plastic.from the
point of view of ordinary physics I would not easily come to
the conclusicn that they could be&t one at chess.   Suitably
assembled and programmed *hey<-,could do SC, and their behclviour
then is not Van-physical" but is I should say "super
(conventitinal) physics".

  Finally about consciousness8 I agree I would feei somewhat
happier if I had a certain means of physical detection from
outside whether someone else was conscious or notJznd happier
again if I knew that when he was conscious certain things were
going on in his higher nervous system, but personally I have
sufficient of a netazhysical bent to feel that I would not be
satisfied with this" f!$fterall knowing that when a chap is und.er-
going rapid  eyc-
is all very nice movements he is almost certainly drczmingJ %&s
         but it really do&Sn't tell cne cnsugh.  Persona1l.y
I think one has to go back to the beginr?ing of the analysis of
the primary experiences into objective and subjective parta, I
think &?an has alp:ays done this by a rather unreflecting application
Of a system which has beer built up by natural selection,,which
puts into the objective v, i N5-J
                                  7 s things which it is selectively
dangerous to overlook.   It is the theoretical physicists Einstein,
Xchroedinger, Heisenberg, and so on right up to the most recent
                          I


of writers about
forced to       ,physics,who have found themselves
                   conventional outlook.   I think it  is
possible in future a definitely
developlin which the basic physical
are now defined
   4      in such a way as to
phenome a as consciousness and perception.

With best wishes for 1968.

Yours sincerely,