Box 1. Excerpts from the book "Genes, molecules, language" MMR, 1988, on page 4: "The way in which arrived at scientific conclusions is closer to the methodology of scientific reasoning in information theory and systems theory than to the methodology of reasoning in classical biology. Darwin's entire work also has a systemic character. ... The founder of structural linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure, already in 1908 said everything about the universal in language, either natural speech or the language of other sign systems; even about the interdependence of language units ... By genetic language we mean the system of nucleotide sequences in nucleic acids and a system of amino acid sequences in proteins." On p. 64: "From De Saussure's point of view, language (observed in its phylogeny) is a system of words with all the connections and relations between them, and all the changes that have befallen them on the evolutionary path; that is, from an other side, it is a system of macromolecules (nucleic acids or proteins), also with all the connections and relationships between them and changes in the evolutionary path"] "Therefore, it is not about any norms that are prescribed, but the laws of language, the laws of synchrony and diachrony, independent of "agreements about language, from the norms prepared by experts and specialists"... "The laws of synchrony and diachrony have a universal character". Saussure well observed the universal character of phenomena in language, in the same way as Darwin, when it comes to the laws of evolution of organisms. "... On ne pourrait concevoir un tel changement [lors de l'introduction de normes dans la langue] que par l'intervention de spécialistes, grammairiens, logiciens, etc.; mais l'expérience montre que jusqu'ici les ingérences de cette nature n'ont eu aucun succès" (De . "How poor will his (of man) products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods." [Origin of Species: second British edition (1860), page 84.] Many more such, almost identical statements, can be found in The origin of species and Cours de linguistique general, with Darwin talking about organisms and Saussure about language." On p. 65: "This universality in language, which can also be revealed in other phenomena, was emphasized by linguists even after De Saussure, especially Louis Hjelmslev. In his famous monograph, a scientific study, Prolegomena to the Theory of Language, he says: 'In a new sense, it seems that it is as fruitful as it is necessary to establish a certain common point of view for a whole range of sciences, from literature science, through the science of art, musicology and general history, to logic and mathematics, wouldn't they all, from such a common platform, focus on the problem defined by linguistics. Each of them will be able to contribute to the general science of language in their own way if they try to investigate to what extent and in what way their subject can be subjected to an analysis that would be in accordance with the requirements of language theory, so perhaps new light could be shed on these disciplines, encourage them to do their own self-reflection. In this way, through all-round fruitful cooperation, it would be possible to arrive at a kind of general encyclopedia of sign structures' )". On p. 223: "This Ideas for possible research into the scientific problems that are the subject of this study began in the early seventies, when I came across literature on such biochemical processes as the transcription and translation of genetic informations from one macromolecular language to another..."