Tho central dogma was put forward4 at a period when .
much of what we now know in molecular genet ics was not
established. All we had to work on were certain fra.gmontary
experimental results, t hemselves often rather
uncertain and confused, and a bq,uudless opt imism t hat
t he basic concepts involved were rather s imple and
vrobably much t he same in all living t hings. In. such a
situation well construct ed t heories can playa really usefu l
part in stat ing problems clearly and thus guid ing exper iment.