I actually thank Watson in the acknowledgements of my book, where I note that he "was appalled that I had the audacity to criticize molecular biology’s Schrödingerian view of the cell. Paradoxically, I found Watson’s complaints rather reassuring, as they showed that I am not attacking a strawman"

Thanks, Ed!

Nice! Interested to hear what you make of my analysis

Note for purists: the original published version had a typo at the bottom of the first page (introduced during copy-editing) which rendered the last sentence nonsensical. This has now been corrected in the online/PDF version. The printed version coming out next month will also be the corrected one.

The flip side is that because Schrödinger's ideas lent themselves to numerous (often contradictory) interpretations, their influence was magnified as a result. Readers of WIL have found in it whatever they happened to be looking for, which is why the book means different things to different people.

But the importance of negative entropy for Schrödinger's view of life has been overstated and misconstrued. Schrödinger is not the apostle of self-organization that proponents of non-equilibrium thermodynamics have made him out to be. In fact he is saying the opposite of what they think he's saying.

As I show in my book, Schrödinger's idea of 'negative entropy' has been interpreted in a variety of different ways. Proponents of cybernetics and information theory on the one hand and of non-equilibrium thermodynamics on the other have drawn on it for different purposes.

Thanks Christian! Monod's C&N builds on many of the themes in WIL. In fact, in my book I argue that the former represents the realization of the biological vision of the latter. And you're right that Monod articulates it more explicitly. Life is based on OFO according to Schrödinger hence my focus

Nice! That sounds quite close to my interpretation. Would love to read your analysis; did you publish it?

¡Gracias, Alejandro! Este proyecto ha sido toda una odisea, pero me alegra mucho poder compartirlo por fin con el mundo. Verás que te agradezco explícitamente en un pie de página los datos que encontrastes en los archivos de CUP, y también al final, por supuesto :) Un abrazo

Thanks Kevin!

Thanks Ehud! I'm curious to hear what you make of it!

Thanks Chris. And hope the conference today goes well! I wil try to catch some of it online.

¡¡Enhorabuena, Alejandro!! 🎉🎉🎉

I think the reasons are not just institutional. Historians of science should have the freedom to do whatever they want, but they should not be terribly surprised when scientists ignore them. In any case they don't own history. The history of science is far too important to be left only to historians

Historians tend to write for other historians, not for scientists (or philosophers, for that matter)

Really looking forward to this, Phil! (And to finally meeting you in person)