At a moment of great discovery, one Big Idea can change the world …
The discovery by Francis Crick and James Watson of DNA – the very building blocks of life – has astounding implications for mankind’s future. Not only in the scientific possibilities of cloning, life expectancy and medical research, but also in our everyday lives – such as forensics and the genetic engineering of food. But with this discovery have come important ethical questions …
Crick, Watson & DNA is an engaging and accessible examination of these two scientists’ lives, radical work and legacy. Theirs was a frantic race against other scientists to understand the structure of DNA. Their Big Idea extends even beyond their monumental achievement to the moral implications that have arisen from it.
The Big Idea series is a fascinating look at the greatest advances in our scientific history, and at the men and women who made these fundamental breakthroughs.
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Copyright © Paul Strathern, 1997
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First published in Great Britain in 1997 by Arrow Books
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About the Book
About the Author
Also in the Big Idea series
Title Page
Introduction
On the Way to DNA: A History of Genetics
Crick & Watson
Afterword
Genetics: A Few Facts, Fantasies & Fizzles
Dates in the History of Science
Suggestions for Further Reading
Copyright
Paul Strathern was born in London and studied philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin. He was a lecturer at Kingston University where he taught philosophy and mathematics. He is a Somerset Maugham prize-winning novelist. He is also the author of the Philosophers in 90 Minutes series. He wrote Mendeleyev’s Dream which was shortlisted for the Aventis Science Book Prize, Dr. Strangelove’s Game: A History of Economic Genius, The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance, Napoleon in Egypt and most recently, The Artist, The Philosopher and The Warrior, which details the convergence of three of Renaissance Italy’s most brilliant minds: Leonardo Da Vinci, Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia. He lives in London and has three grandchildren.
In THE BIG IDEA series:
Archimedes and the Fulcrum
Bohr and Quantum Theory
Crick, Watson and DNA
Curie and Radioactivity
Darwin and Evolution
Einstein and Relativity
Galileo and the Solar System
Hawking and Black Holes
Newton and Gravity
Oppenheimer and the Bomb
Pythagoras and his Theorem
Turing and the Computer
THE GREAT SCIENTIFIC advance of the first half of the 20th century was nuclear physics. Relativity and quantum theory began unlocking the secrets of the atom, discovering the ultimate matter of the universe. Nuclear physics became the cutting edge of human knowledge.
The mid-century discovery of the structure of DNA created an entirely new science. This was molecular biology, which began unlocking the secrets of life itself. Molecular biology now became the nuclear physics of the second half of the 20th century.
The discoveries being made in this field (and the possible discoveries yet to be made) are transforming our entire conception of life. Like children, we have discovered the ultimate building blocks of life, and we are also learning how they can be taken apart. Once again, science has outstripped morality. We are acquiring dangerous knowledge, without any clear idea of how we should use it. As yet, we are barely grappling with the moral problems posed by nuclear physics (which may yet destroy us). Molecular biology is showing us how to transform life into almost anything.
Such scary possibilities were barely glimpsed by those who sought to discover ‘the secret of life’. For them, this was one of the great scientific adventures. This adventure may have been pure in its aims, but those who took part in it were not immune from human frailty. All human life is here: ambition, supreme intelligence, folly, wishful thinking, incompetence, and sheer luck (both good and bad) – all had their part to play. The search for the secret of life proved no different from life itself. And the answer, when it was finally discovered, fell into the same category. The structure of DNA is fiendishly complex, astonishingly beautiful, and contains the seeds of tragedy.
UNTIL LITTLE OVER a century ago, genetics was mostly old wives’ tales. People saw what happened, but had no idea how or why it happened.
References to genetics go back as far as biblical times. According to Genesis, Jacob had a method for making sure that his sheep and goats gave birth to spotted and speckled offspring. He did this by making them breed in front of sticks with strips of peeled bark which had a similar mottled effect.
More realistically, the Babylonians understood that for a date palm to be fruitful, pollen from the male palm had to be introduced to the pistils of the female palm.
The ancient Greek philosophers were the first to look at the world in a recognisably scientific fashion. As a result they produced theories about almost everything, and genetics was no exception. Aristotle’s observations led him to conclude that the male and female do not make equal contributions to their offspring. Their contributions are qualitatively different: the female gives ‘matter’, the male gives ‘motion’.
A prevalent belief in ancient times held that if a female had previously mated and had progeny, the characteristics of their father would appear in the woman’s subsequent progeny by any other male. This fairy story was even dignified with a pseudoscientific name by the ancient Greeks, who called it telegony (meaning ‘distant-begetting’).
A more interesting theory was pangenesis, which held that each organ and substance of the body secreted its own particles, which then combined to form the embryo.
Such beliefs recur in genetic theory through the centuries, in a manner curiously similar to the actual recurrence of genetic traits. (Pangenesis was to pop up for well over 2000 years, and was even accepted by Darwin.)
Biology, and with it genetics, crossed the threshold into science in the 17th century. This was almost entirely due to the microscope, which was invented by the Dutch lens-grinder and counterfeiter Zacharias Jansen in the early 1600s. Microscopes led to the discovery of the cell. (This term was first used by the British physicist Robert Hooke, but was in fact misapplied to the tiny spaces left by dead cells, which reminded him of prison cells.)
The discovery of sex cells (or germ cells) caused great excitement. Soon over-enthusiastic microscopists were convinced that they had observed ‘homunculi’ (tiny human forms) inside the cells, and it looked as if the problem of reproduction was solved. More importantly, the English botanist Nehemiah Grew speculated that plants and animals were ‘contrivances of the same wisdom’. He suggested that plants too have sexual organs and exhibit sexual behaviour. When the pioneer Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus introduced his classification for species of plants and animals, the way was opened for more systematic research. The study of hybrids led to further speculation about the nature of genetic material.
For centuries it had been widely accepted that heredity was transmitted by ‘blood’. (Hence the origin of such commonplace expressions as ‘blue blood’, ‘blood line’, ‘mixed blood’ and so forth.) This was not only loose, but inadequate. How could the same parents produce differing offspring from the same ‘blood’? Also, what accounted for the appearance of characteristics not present in either parent, but seen in long-dead ancestors and distant relatives? For instance, in thoroughbred racehorse breeding, piebalds have been known to recur after a gap of dozens