THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY

pro bono humani generis
1230 YORK AVENUE - NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10021-6399

Joshua Lederberg
UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR-emeritus

June 22, 2004

L
Dear Bill: GI bon

Thank you for your recent vignettes, in particular Barbara McClintock.

It’s a vivid account; but I caution you about propagating the mythologies, esp. the reception
of her paper at the 1951 Cold Spring Harbor Symposium. I was there!

Spradling’s book review (enclosed) is an accurate account.

I also enclose a list of citations promptly after 1951 (till 1954), including my own, and Ernst
Caspari’s contemporary remark.

Cheers,

Yours sincerely,
' Joshua Lederberg

(* Science 114:3a 1951)
Returning to Cold Spring Harbor she found her “plantation” of corn awaiting her scrutiny
and bit by bit she devoted the next six years to a methodical interpretation of the changes seen in
her plots of corn. Her annual reports to the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C., were
treasure-houses of information that few understood, except the author, who just kept pressing on
to a full understanding of corn genetics. Economic security only began when a lifetime
MacArthuraward Satie to, her.

nKede—

Six years later - after step-by-step analysis of what she was seeing in her “cornpatch” -
leaf after leaf - with unusual patterns, she noted the “genetic crosses.” Her 1951 paper
summarizing her then massive data was not even discussed, nor reprints requested. By 1956, the
doubts of her listeners had increased.

However, as her devoted biographer Evelyn Fox Keller puts it: “As she watched the corn
plants grow, examined the patterns on the leaves and kernels, looked down the microscope at
their chromosomal structure, she saw directly into that ordered world.”

Only gradually did scientific leaders come to recognize the unique value of McClintock’s
basic work. “Things are much more marvellous than the scientific method allows us to
conceive.”

Dr. McClintock had many great personal qualities. She was an environmentalist, lifelong. /. _
She hoped that students would find time to think! She certainly took the time, despite many
frustrations. In 1983, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to her at age 81.
She was the single recipient in that year - a rare honour for one individual. She died in 1992 at
the age of 90.
due

Serence Chabon’ be Rig

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JUNES tr vy UO UTle Ur ~we -
CLINTOCK B
5) COLD SPRING HARW stm av
BONNER OM COLD S HARB 16 143
51 COLD SPRING HARB SYM 16

BARCLAY PC P NAS US 40 1118
BARRATT RW ADV GENETIC R 6 {
BRAUN W AM NATURAL 86 355
BRINK RA GENETICS 39 724
KAPLAN WD . 38 630
KOLLER PC PROG BIOPH R 4 195
LEODERBER.J PHYSIOL REV AR 32 403
MCCLINTO.B GENETICS 38 579
MECHELKE F Z INDUKT AB 86 224
MICHAELI.P ” 85 282
NEWCOMBE HB GENETICS 39 619

. J GEN MICRO 9 30
SINGLETO.WR GENETICS 39 587
SPRATT NT PHYSIOL REV R 34 1
STADLER LJ SCIENCE 120 811
STEBBINS GL GENETICS 39 378
TREFFERS HP P NAS US 40 1064
WITKIN EM oo” 39 427
WRIGHT S J NAT CANC 15 837
R 20 277

Pe ie

YARNELL SH. BOTAN REV

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