The central dogma was put forward at a period when .
much of what we now know in molecular genetics was not
established. All we had to work on were certainfra.gmontary
experimental results, themselves often rather
uncertain and confused, and abq,uudless optimism that
the basic concepts involved were rather simple and
vrobably much t he same in all living things. In. such a
situation well constructed theories can playa really useful
part in stating problems clearly and thus guid ing experiment.