I would like to thank you for your encouraging letter and advice. I agree completely with your statement that science has a long way to go before we can explain the various inconsistencies that crop up in research. But I certainly can't see how the letter is far too "unsophisticated" for inclusion in the _Letters to the Editor_ portion of your journal. While your letter should have calmed me, I feel even more strongly now after a year of research about the matter than I did before. I have deliberately postponed answering your letter until I had more _facts_. I now find that I have accumulated--as you suggested--three distinctly conflicting groups of data on nucleic acid synthesis of frog liver cells: 1. There is a conversion of ribonucleic acid to desoxyribonucleic acid. 2. There is a conversion of desoxyribonucleic acid to ribonucleic acid. 3. The synthesis of both types of nucleic acid are independent of each other. (In addition, I have some data ... that I don't want to think about too much ... that shows that there is absolutely no nucleic acid in the liver cell.) Thus, these data all accumulated by experimental work, support all three hypotheses. Moreover, the literature supports _all three hypotheses_. I intend to go to the Woods Hole, Massachusetts Marine Lab this summer with my sponsor and get some new ideas there, especially since Professor Gould M. Rice from the University of London will be there presenting a seminar series on his work in nucleic acid synthesis in _Oryzias_. The point is not that there is a conflict in the data, but that the data conflict because there is a conflict in my mind and in the literature. _Don't you see it?_ As you said on page 20 of "Logical Control: Computer vs. Brain": "the order-system--this means the problem to be solved, the interaction of the user--is communicated to the machine by 'loading' it into the memory." Sincerely yours, Jonathan * * * * * August 31, 1958 Dr. Robert Von Engen, Journal of the National Academy of Sciences, Constitution Avenue, Washington, D. C. Dear Dr. Bob: Again, many thanks for your letter--and encouragement. I especially treasure the inscribed copy of "Logical Control: Computer vs. Brain," and the current reprint. I am sorry that I didn't get an opportunity to get down to Washington en route to Woods Hole and talk over the whole thing over a bottle of beer, _dark beer_. From what I hear of the demands on a first-rate mathematician's time these days, you should be grateful that I didn't get to see you, because I would have monopolized _all_ your time. I appreciate your generosity in extending the invitation as a rain check to me.