Biology

The Logic of Life: A History of Heredity

    Foreword by
  • Matthew Cobb

鈥淭he most remarkable history of biology that has ever been written.鈥濃擬ichel Foucault

Paperback

Price:
$19.95/拢16.99
ISBN:
Published (US):
Aug 2, 2022
Published (UK):
Sep 27, 2022
Pages:
376
Size:
5.5 x 8.5 in.

Nobel Prize鈥搘inning scientist Fran莽ois Jacob鈥檚 The Logic of Life is a landmark book in the history of biology and science. Focusing on heredity, which Jacob considers the fundamental feature of living things, he shows how, since the sixteenth century, the scientific understanding of inherited traits has moved not in a linear, progressive way, from error to truth, but instead through a series of frameworks. He reveals how these successive interpretive approaches鈥攆ocusing on visible structures, internal structures (especially cells), evolution, genes, and DNA and other molecules鈥攅ach have their own power but also limitations. Fundamentally challenging how the history of biology is told, much as Thomas Kuhn鈥檚 Structure of Scientific Revolutions did for the history of science as a whole, The Logic of Life has greatly influenced the way scientists and historians view the past, present, and future of biology.