Information in bits and bytes. Reply to Lifson's review of ‘information theory and molecular biology’

✍ Scribed by Hubert P. Yockey

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 453 KB
• Volume: 17
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0265-9247
• DOI: 10.1002/bies.950170115

✦ Synopsis

Shneior Lifson(l) has reviewed my book Information Theory and Molecular Biologfi2). His comment that the book is 'witty' and that he was 'fascinated by the author's rich style and broad erudition' is high praise for a technical book full of mathematics. Such books are supposed to be pedestrian, prosaic, dull and dry.

Lifson declares that I have committed heresy by pointing out the deficiencies of come popular beliefs in molecular biology and lese majesté by taking in vain certain leaders, in particular Professor Manfred EigenW, his as socia te^(^-^), Francis Crick(') and, worst of all, Dawkind8). I also confess to taking in vain llya Prig~gine(g)~ although Lifson does not mention him. Heresy and lese majesté also were the substance of a review published in Nature by Professor Hermann Haken('0). Although Lifson