Summary
In the face of huge biotechnological advances, Colin Tudge tries to temper enthusiasms. He brings back the figure of Gregor Mendel, excoriated by the religious and university communities for his work that ultimately laid the foundations of modern genetic theories. He also discusses the need for ethical guidelines when working with such awesome and potentially transformative technologies.
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Media Reviews
"An engaging and comprehensive analysis of genetic theory with occasional lapses into technophobia."
-- Kirkus
"Tudge's celebration of Mendel's life and work is enjoyable and informative. His "lightning overview" of modern genetics, however, is too brief to be enlightening." -- Anne Magurran
-- New York Times Book Review
"[This book offers] up both old and new insights and will be of interest to readers with diverse points of view and varying levels of background knowledge of genetics." -- William C. Summers
-- American Scientist
Bibliographic Details
Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
Published date: 2002
Size: 5.5 x 8.25 inches
Weight: 0.75 pounds
Publisher's Notes
How genetics, and the technologies that arise from it, will affect the way we live in the twenty-first century.
In the mid-nineteenth century, a Moravian friar made a discovery that was to shape not only the future of science but also that of the human race. With his deceptively simple experiments on peas in a monastery garden in Brno, Gregor Mendel was the first to establish the basic laws of heredity, laws from which the principles of modern genetics can be drawn. In this fascinating account, acclaimed science writer Colin Tudge traces the influence on science of Mendel's extraordinary ideas, from the 1850s to the present day, and goes on to ask what might happen in the coming century and beyond.
A comprehensive and entertaining work that combines scientific history with a compelling discussion on the future trends of genetic technologies, The Impact of the Gene examines how the ideas that underpin the spectrum of all genetic issues are interrelated, and proposes that with a basic understanding of Gregor Mendel's theories and discoveries, all modern genetics falls easily into place. From a monastery garden to the laboratories of the twenty-first century, The Impact of the Gene provides a vital overview of the science of genetics, at once "enjoyable and informative . . . readable and entertaining" (The New York Times Book Review).
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