An unacceptable level of teleology crept into Lewis Thomas' article on viruses (The Scientist, April 6, 1987, p. 13). They do not have functions, they just have properties. The small and simpler viruses are just chemical structures, perpetuated because they delude pre-existing synthetic mechanisms into copying them. They can do that effectively only if they survive in the hostile environment of a host cell. It is hostile more because of scavenging enzymes than because of directed host activities

Ibsen's dictum "minorities are always right" cannot be correct: minorities seldom agree, so they cannot all be right. It would be more correct to say that "majorities are always wrong—partially if not completely." In the past, when research was usually a part-time job or a hobby, scientists were less apt than they are now to follow safe and fashionable lines of work. We were less specialized and moved from subject to subject in a manner that worried grant-giving committees then, and would