INDIANA UNIVERSITY

BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA 47405 OCT 25 1966
Oct. 2h, 1966
DEPARTMENT OF ZOOLOGY AREA CODE 812
JORDAN HALL 222 TEL. NO. 337-L.570

Dr. Joshua Lederberg

Department of Genetics

Stanford University School of Medicine
300 Pasteur Drive

Palo Alto, California

Dear Josh:

By this time, I hope, you have received a copy of the paper you asked for.
Please bear - mind that it has not yet been published and,insofar as ight -eec
mentions’ itShould be referred to only as an address, not as an article that has
been circulated, It is likely of course to be a couple of years before it is really
published because Proceedings usually take about that long. But I see no reason to
refrain from referring to anything that it says as having been said in an address.

The address was written too hastily for my taste and therefore has various
omissions and slurred treatments that I would otherwise have avoided. I would also
have been more careful to do justice to what other people have said although -- as
you will presently see when I send you a copy of sbelson's address given about a
month after that -- there are people who pursue exactly the opposite policy in this
respect. I do think it is important for you to know how misrepresented my position
has been by some of the most prestigeous persons. That is one reas Hhaperec ave
the more your desire to read a copy of my address. But bear in mind, here are
important things I should have said but failed tc. After all, the ‘Naress, with an
intermission in the middle of it, occupied two hours on that last day, last session,
of the Congress, where it stood alone since no one could be found who would stick
his neck out to be on the program with me.

It is very good of you to ask to sce this for tne discussions you are going to
enter into in "Science and Man." It is a remarkable series that has in my opinion
out-Haidaned Haldane himself,being on the whole even sounder, partly because not so
smart-Alecky. I hope it sets the beginning of a new kind of scientific writing for
the public and the popular press. You could, though, jazz it up just a little, to
the advantage of its goinz-over and getting- E ~the- -public aspect.

Although I appreciate your suggesting that I might write my own guest colwan
Pome tine on this sugject of human genetic betterment, for which I consider tne term
eugenics"entirely inappropriate because of its past connections and present mental
associations, it is very unlikely that I would find tne time, at least for several
months to come. Perhaps you have heard of my permanently weakened condition, caused
by heart attacks of some 18 months ago. This has enormously restricted my activities
and the time I have for them. Even my going to Chicago to give the address was made
possible only because a couple of people went along and I confined myself just to
giving that address, hiding out the remainder of the time. We do not have visitors
or go visiting, with the rarest and most restricted kind and manner of exception#g.
Nevertheless, I am piled up with commitments, not to speak of a continual accumila-
tion of correspondence, that hardly allows me time to even think, and I find myself
unable to get what I have set as the most important jobs for myself done. But I am
always hoping to see some lightening up in a further part of the tunnel that I may
Muller to Lederberg,

reach within two or three months. fo if your discussions of human genetic
control, and its relation to other important projects for man, were to be
postponed for a couple of months, it might well be (so I now hope and think)
that I could accept your kind invitation to write what you call a "possible
corrective",

If I were younger I too would want to have a very close look at the
neurological basis of human psychology and the possibilities of computers as
aids am as rivals to it. I wonder whether Sperry, with whom Benzer has been
working (I don't know if he still is there), is doing what you consider good
work along these lines. But it is out of the question for me -- I should only

like occasionally to get a brief that gave general outlines for an ignoramus.
With kindest personal regards,
Yours sincerely,

re

HJMsslh a. J. Muller