The Question Of The Origin Of Life

Published Papers May Omit Important Steps And The Memory Of Men Of Science, Even The Greatest, Is Sadly Fallible.

So Many Of The Chemical Reactions Occurring In Living Systems Have Been Shown To Be Catalytic Processes Occurring Isothermally On The Surface Of Specific Proteins, Referred To As Enzymes, That It Seems Fairly Safe To Assume That All Are Of This Nature And That The Proteins Are The Necessary Basis For Carrying Out The Processes That We Call Life.

The Very Bulk Of Scientific Publications Is Itself Delusive. It Is Of Very Unequal Value; A Large Proportion Of It, Possibly As Much As Three-quarters, Does Not Deserve To Be Published At All, And Is Only Published For Economic Considerations Which Have Nothing To Do With The Real Interests Of Science.

We Academic Scientists Move Within A Certain Sphere, We Can Go On Being Useless Up To A Point, In The Confidence That Sooner Or Later Some Use Will Be Found For Our Studies. The Mathematician, Of Course, Prides Himself On Being Totally Useless, But Usually Turns Out To Be The Most Useful Of The Lot. He Finds The Solution But He Is Not Interested In What The Problem Is: Sooner Or Later, Someone Will Find The Problem To Which His Solution Is The Answer.

Pauling Was Shocked By The Freedom With Which The X-ray Crystallographers Of The Time, Including Particularly Astbury, Played With The Intimate Chemical Structure Of Their Models. They Seemed To Think That If The Atoms Were Arranged In The Right Order And About The Right Distance Apart, That Was All That Mattered, That No Further Restrictions Need To Be Put On Them.