June 19, 1952

Dr. T. 2. Someborn
Dent of smlogy
Indi6nQ Utivarsity
Bloomi@m, Iridiana

The WAC&a queaCion Qf auto&Wmus ro-w
               PA cck tim (Gut3!.&? of xtotrophic orgshitas
taken as a whole) needs more oimmspsction thin 2t ha52 hnr! for the mst
part (vI?E. mmh of the yaaet work).  f hope you and atim readers will take
quite serious&y EQT disclaimer of any originality. There are very few specrulatllons
quite new War the sun in a fisld Uks this, and the only fun&ion of the
raview is that of enphasLs/ and ohoice (hence r!eclmti@l).

p. 51: "Alp9&,ute unft of &at?" is just the PGiDt! Too zmy biologists,
geneticists in&tied, have eeemgd to adopt a rather naive monadic philosophy.
But I'll try to sharpen this up!   You are quite right &out mtabUit,ybe~
~onoeptually independent of omplexity. I had in mind a distinM.on betwm-~
all-or-none ohanges, md multiple alleles. OHI itself would not satis& the
mutability requirement, at first sight,


The one point MJ.l debatable has to do with the mcromauleue ee a plea&L
I have tzied to vidiss whet would happen if the sacronucleue were not eo
prominent microsaopicelly, end one had to rely entirely oh genetia observations,
I think that its intmpretation ae a aytoplmmia syetem would have eaemed
plausible for the following ob~rammtlonar

Rrrdiation effecta exmted oaly after autogafny (much of thie, of aouree, could
result from dominance, and the role of the maoronwleua would mC& be paradoxical.
only for dombnt mutationa);

Matroclinoue deter&nation under conditions of mcronuclear regenerat4onj
QeneuCr bQlhaviw of micronucleates (nulloploid ve. diploid);
Y$t,oplaemirr contaminetion~ under conditions of maaronuolear-f ragmeni: emhenge I

If, eventually, reveral treite were to be studied together, we would some to
realize that the persistent cytoplemic eyetern (ueually m-derived from the nuclekue)
at each reor&ani%ation, wee highly organbed.

Perhape at thie dlstanue I have owaremphaaised the eignificmce of maaronuclser
regeneration. But thie looks to me I.&e by possible starting point for even a lees
organismi ex%ra4n.icronuale4tr ayaWn, It atight be worth looking for the poaaibility
of mecronucleinderived only part;lg: by regeneration.

I had already t&en out the i@ioaticn od dualits of rnlrormalsar end aytopla@c
control in different varietied (this wm4, of aoume, from the '46 6ympodwn).

Did you find it aawing to eee what an intereatsd student can fi&l from your oapers?
Outdatad interpretations have a habit of psreiet~;longer then they should
(like tmperfluou8 mcromiclear f ragmnta 1)

May I confeaa that my worst trouble writing thie thing wae Making there wee
not much point to it, since you had alraady stated a similar cam, and you yourself
would hardly find enyth&ng new in it. But there are a few thousand other readers
who may be jolted even by a restatement.

I h* saved some of w noted on ths condensed eecticne (e.g. lymqpmiaity). `here
may be opportunify (if you think it appropriate) for more4 elaborate dieaues ione in
aorrm chaptere of the book QOM.  &is review has taken mch mom tims than it would
be worth for its own 88&e. bever, I did learn a mmber of things 4yaelf, and it
provided nome opportunity tc organise n\p thinking on Veil geneticel', 80 &at I will
be a little better able to participate with you on 0011. Sometime eooa we should
perhaps resolve doare of the general quest&me ofqanisation.

Thank8 for your help on thie review,

Sinaerely,

Joshua bdsrbsrg