Serious Questions. An ABC of Skeptical Reflections by Erwin Chargaff (review)

I. Book Reviews BookReview Panel:RudolfArnheim, Eva Belik,John Bowlt,John W Cooper, ElmerDuncan, RobertS. Lansdon, Alan Lee, Rimma Lerman,Joy Turner Luke,John Mallinckrodt, David Pariser, CliffordPickover, Rosalinda Sartorti, David Topper, Stephen Wil50n. SERIOUS QUESTIONS. AN ABC OF SKEPTICAL REFLECTIONS by Erwin Chargaff. Birkhauser, Basel, Switzerland, 1986. 261 pp. Trade, $40.00. ISBN: 3-7643-3337-5. ReviewedlTy Istvan Hargittai, P. O. Box 117, H-1431 Budapest, Hungary. I found a curious set of cards in a popular Manhattan card store on one of my recent visits to New York. These were birthday cards, a separate card for each day of the year, listing a couple of dozen names of important people who were born on that particular day of the year. Of those listed on the card of my birthday, I could recognize only one name, Erwin Chargaffs. I was impressed by the cardmaker's appreciation of science. Chargaff is one of this century's greatest biochemists , most distinguished, perhaps, for his discovery of base complementarity in DNA, which provided the key to the double-helix model. It is now generally called base pairing in reference to the DNA structure. If appearing on such a card is not a sign of popularity, then what is, at least for a scientist whose work rarely gets recognition beyond a rather confined circle of people? At about the same time, I heard that Chargaff's writings lately have appeared increasingly in German rather than in English as he finds a shrinking audience in America for what he has to say. I was surprised to hear this in the light of my experience with the birthday cards. Having read his SeriousQuestions, I am no longer so surprised. What Chargaff has to say, for example , about American democracy is not exactly what the audience likes to read. Not that he doesn't find it (along with Winston Churchill) the best possible system in spite of it being very far from the ideal. He is disturbed, however, by the lack of healthy skepticism and finds the people being too easily manipulated by advertising, not only in the marketplace but also in politics. He distinguishes between civil liberties and freedom, and with plenty of the former around, he finds want for the latter. His fear is that America may become what he calls a totalitarian democracy. His concerns about America are the insider's genuine concerns, even though he calls himself an outsider on the inside. He is critical of America because America has such a great potential and may not live up to our expectations. Here I am saying 'our expectations', and I have only been a visitor in America. However, regardless of legal status, we all have a lot at stake in America. I don't think, however, that the main reason for Chargaffs shrinking American audience is in his criticism of America. It is shrinking because he is right when he evaluates the American value system, interests and aspirations . I happened to work on this review on a library copy that I checked out of a huge library of one of America 's largest schools, with 40,000 students and faculty. There was only one copy of this book, and in summer 1989 I was the first ever to check it out since the book appeared in 1986. Chargaff deals with literally very serious questions, questions that he mostly does not and probably cannot answer. However, raising these questions is important enough. There are 33 entries in alphabetical order in this small-format, 261-page book, and that means 33 weighty topics. I am a relatively quick reader, but this book does not lend itself to quick reading. This is not because Chargaff's style is not smooth or easy flowing; indeed, it is. Rather the topics make the reader pause, reflect, set the book aside for a while before embarking on the next topic. My attempts may be very inadequate to give at least a flavor of the topics discussed. "Frozen Delight" tells us about the first baby born of a frozen embryo. This brought great happiness to a particular family. It is the extrapolation from this event that gives us...