A prolific science writer and journalist, as well as a working university professor and molecular biologist, Jesper Hoffmeyer was born in Copenghagen, Denmark on Februrary 21, 1942. "Born during the second world war in occupied Denmark and to a family with strong anticlerical and moderate leftist persuasions," recounts Hoffmeyer, "I was destined to develop a materialistic, and indeed a positivistic, understanding of our world. To fight irrationalism in all its disguises was an inherent value in my upbringing and in choosing to become a biochemist, I faithfully continued along this path. ...But over time, it gradually occurred to me that some of the central tenets of such materialistic self-confidence were perhaps less secure than had been previously assumed" (2009: 292).