The Natural Repertory of Prof. William Nelson

In 1986, Carl Popper delivered an address to the Royal Society. In this
address he told the attendees, who included many of the fathers of
synthetic molecular biology, that biochemical organizations and
processes could never be understood in chemical terms alone. Because of
this, Popper proposed that organic evolution would never be explained by
chemical or Darwinian Theory and that chemical reductionism for the
environment proposed many different risks, as we put many of these
synthetic chemicals into our environment and our bodies. In fact, due to
the large number of chemicals which have been put into our bodies,
perhaps Carl Popper’s warning has come too late. Many dramatic
problems have resulted from iatrogenic poisoning of the planet and
iatrogenic diseases which were caused by synthetic compounds.
Dramatic damage has resulted from ignorance and profiteering.
Man’s ability to understand is always limited by his ability to measure
the results of his work. At every point in science the scientists assume
that their measurements are complete, therefore their knowledge must
be complete. As new discoveries are made and more sophisticated
measurement techniques are developed this philosophy opens the door
to deeper and deeper understanding. With the advent of quantum theory
and the idea of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle we now realize that
true knowledge cannot be attained, and that we cannot in any way
manufacture the same compounds developed by nature. Our attempts at
this are merely guesses, perhaps good guesses but still, nature holds
secrets as we continue to explore biology to the end of our days. Only
nature truly knows.
In 1893, Albrecht Kossel, doing physiological research identified
chromatin as a nucleoprotamine. This was found to be a nucleoprotein,
and was some of the beginning work needed in looking at RNA and DNA
function.
Nucleic acid sugars and their phosphate-bonded brothers were written
about by Phoebus Levene in 1905. Levene, working with Walter A.
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