On Handling the Data | Page 3

results are meaningful? What if they were executed with care--and they were--and are not the results of sloppiness or inexperience? What if a nerve can twitch?
Very respectfully yours,
Jonathan Wells
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May 3, 1958
Dr. Robert Von Engen, Editor, Journal of the National Academy of Sciences, Constitution Avenue, Washington, D. C.
Dear Dr. Von Engen:
I would like to thank you for your encouraging letter and advice. I agree completely with your statement that science has a long way to go before we can explain the various inconsistencies that crop up in research. But I certainly can't see how the letter is far too "unsophisticated" for inclusion in the Letters to the Editor portion of your journal. While your letter should have calmed me, I feel even more strongly now after a year of research about the matter than I did before. I have deliberately postponed answering your letter until I had more facts.
I now find that I have accumulated--as you suggested--three distinctly conflicting groups of data on nucleic acid synthesis of frog liver cells:
1. There is a conversion of ribonucleic acid to desoxyribonucleic acid.
2. There is a conversion of desoxyribonucleic acid to ribonucleic acid.
3. The synthesis of both types of nucleic acid are independent of each other. (In addition, I have some data ... that I don't want to think about too much ... that shows that there is absolutely no nucleic acid in the liver cell.) Thus, these data all accumulated by experimental work, support all three hypotheses. Moreover, the literature supports all three hypotheses. I intend to go to the Woods Hole, Massachusetts Marine Lab this summer with my sponsor and get some new ideas there, especially since Professor Gould M. Rice from the University of London will be there presenting a seminar series on his work in nucleic acid synthesis in Oryzias.
The point is not that there is a conflict in the data, but that the data conflict because there is a conflict in my mind and in the literature. Don't you see it? As you said on page 20 of "Logical Control: Computer vs. Brain": "the order-system--this means the problem to be solved, the interaction of the user--is communicated to the machine by 'loading' it into the memory."
Sincerely yours,
Jonathan
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August 31, 1958
Dr. Robert Von Engen, Journal of the National Academy of Sciences, Constitution Avenue, Washington, D. C.
Dear Dr. Bob:
Again, many thanks for your letter--and encouragement. I especially treasure the inscribed copy of "Logical Control: Computer vs. Brain," and the current reprint. I am sorry that I didn't get an opportunity to get down to Washington en route to Woods Hole and talk over the whole thing over a bottle of beer, dark beer. From what I hear of the demands on a first-rate mathematician's time these days, you should be grateful that I didn't get to see you, because I would have monopolized all your time. I appreciate your generosity in extending the invitation as a rain check to me.
Your mention of the Duke School of "psychology"--my quotes--leaves me cold. It's too obvious and puts the cart before the horse. The important point that I was trying to make dealt not with the "possible parapsychological" manipulation of equipment or the materials a la telekinesis to produce the desired results, but that our Science may not be studying natural phenomena and trying to interpret them at all. The point, to get it down in black and white, is that our "Science"--yes, quotes--may be inventing the reality that it is supposedly studying. Inventing the atoms, molecules, cells, nuclei, et cetera ... and then describing them, and in the description giving them reality.
While I was at Woods Hole I had some really good bull sessions about this very thing. I realize now that I may have been falling into the trap of solipsism, "who watches the quad," et cetera, type of thing. Incidentally, my research is finally beginning to fall into shape. My sponsor and I had some pretty good sessions about it, and some of the screwy results I wrote you begin to make sense. I had the good luck to talk to an outstanding man in the field of nucleic acid synthesis and he was quite enthusiastic about the caliber of our work. He feels quite strongly--but has no real evidence--that the synthesis of both types of nucleic acid are independent of each other and has pointed out some significant references that I did not know about. I'm anxious to buckle down and really lick this nucleic acid problem ... in time for a June degree.
Cordially,
Jonathan
P.S.
Please send me a reprint of your lecture on "Memory Banks--Transistorized Neurones." The lecture was ingenious, but there are some biological phenomena with which I don't agree. Remember, I'm the biologist. Honestly, Doc, don't you think--entre nous--that your idea that