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In any history of biology, the 1980s will surely be noted for the extremely rapid pervasion of the concepts and techniques of molecular biology into other fields. Endocrinology is one of those fields and we have new conferences and new journals (including our new sister journal) to reflect this burgeoning interest. The pervasiveness of molecular biology is not surprising since there is no doubt that this new discipline brings enormous heuristic power in science and applicability in technology: it allows the exploration of biological mechanisms in terms and with exactitudes undreamt of even a few years earlier; equally it holds the key to major advances in the manipulation of biological processes in medicine and agriculture as well as in the newer industrial processes labelled as biotechnology.

But there are dangers in the headlong rush. The explanatory reductionist approach, of which molecular biology is the newest example, has been extremely successful