WEBVTT

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oh there was no doubt we were living

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through a revolution I certainly

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experienced that as such internalized it

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in that way when the paper by Avery

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MacLeod McCarty came along I didn't use

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the phraseology but my exclamations were

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equivalent saying this is the dawn of

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molecular genetics as for this first

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time we could have a biological assay

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for the genetic activity of an external

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molecule so that publication next to

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Francis Ryan were the the molding

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effects on my career was talked about

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quite extensively around the department

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at at Columbia it turns out we had a

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couple of people who were important

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liaison alfred murski who has been

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remarked on as having been an

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inappropriate critic of Avery MacLeod

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and McCarty I don't think it was

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inappropriate but it was certainly a

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severe critic chequered was also the

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greatest Herald of the story so we would

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hear about what was going on at the

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Rockefeller Institute on the other side

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of town from as if we had been at the

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same institution but also Harriet Taylor

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was a graduate student working with LC

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Dunn had become interested in as well

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and she in fact went to do postdoctoral

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work in Avery's laboratory shortly after

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that time so we had very close

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information linkages to the research

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that was going on there we were very

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well-informed about it we reacted to it

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there was a lot of critical dialectic

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but it was not something that could be

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ignore it was the most exciting thing

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that had happened in many many decades

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and was precisely because it was so

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important that is the identification of

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DNA as genetic material that I emphasize

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with the view that it should be

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subjected to the most critical

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examination it was two important issue

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to just accept casual

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so as long as the debate was alive that

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was the way the scientific method

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operates