In Search of the Double Helix

Fülszöveg

The evolution of a science
Molecular biology is one of the great modern sciences. Headline-making development in cloning, genetic engineering and the fight against disease all stem from the breakthrough in the 1950s and 60s which first saw the molecule of life, DNA, identified. But as those headline-making stories pile up, it is all too easy to forget the roots of this revolution, the breakthrough that created the science of molecular biology.
The breakthrough depended on study of both parts of the new science - the molecules and biology. The biology is Darwin's theory of evolution, dating back to the middle of the nineteenth century. It was only in the 1920s, with the advent of the new understanding of atoms and subatomic particles called quantum mechanics that scientists first began to appreciate how complex molecules are made and
held together.
The story of Darwinian evolution has been told many times; the story of DNA and molecular evolution has been told almost as often.... Tovább

Fülszöveg

The evolution of a science
Molecular biology is one of the great modern sciences. Headline-making development in cloning, genetic engineering and the fight against disease all stem from the breakthrough in the 1950s and 60s which first saw the molecule of life, DNA, identified. But as those headline-making stories pile up, it is all too easy to forget the roots of this revolution, the breakthrough that created the science of molecular biology.
The breakthrough depended on study of both parts of the new science - the molecules and biology. The biology is Darwin's theory of evolution, dating back to the middle of the nineteenth century. It was only in the 1920s, with the advent of the new understanding of atoms and subatomic particles called quantum mechanics that scientists first began to appreciate how complex molecules are made and
held together.
The story of Darwinian evolution has been told many times; the story of DNA and molecular evolution has been told almost as often. But no previous book has told the entire story of evolution, from Darwin to DNA and beyond, giving full credit to the role of quantum physics in our modern understanding of life itself, including human life.
If you want to understand the background behind those stories about clones, genetic engineering and the brave new world of molecular biology, read this book. Nobody who does can doubt the reality of evolution and the prescience of pioneers such as Darwin and Gregor Mendel, who first pointed the way to molecular biology. Vissza