Genetic Analysis: A History of Genetic Thinking

by Raphael Falk

Overview

There is a paradox lying at the heart of the study of heredity. To understand the ways in which features are passed on from one generation to the next, we have to dig deeper and deeper into the ultimate nature of things - from organisms, to genes, to molecules. And yet as we do this, increasingly we find we are out of focus with our subjects. What has any of this to do with the living, breathing organisms with which we started? Organisms are living. Molecules are not. How do we relate one to the other?

In Genetic Analysis, one of the most important empirical scientists in the field in the twentieth century attempts, through a study of history and drawing on his own vast experience as a practitioner, to face this paradox head-on. His book offers a deep and innovative understanding of our ways of thinking about heredity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521182812
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/17/2011
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology Series
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	346
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.79(d)

Table of Contents

List of figures xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1

Part I From Reproduction and Generation To Heredity 11

1 The biologization of inheritance 14

2 Mendel: the design of an experiment 25

Part II Faktoren in Search of Meaning 39

3 From Faktoren to unit characters 44

4 The demise of the unit character 58

Part III The Chromosome Theory of Inheritance 75

5 Chromosomes and Mendelian Faktoren 77

6 Mapping the chromosomes 94

7 Cytogenetic analysis of the chromosomes 108

Part IV Genes as the Atoms of Heredity 125

8 Characterizing the gene 128

9 Analysis of the gene by mutations 141

10 From evolution to population genetics 158

Part V Increasing Resolving Power 171

11 Recruiting bacteria and their viruses 178

12 Molecular "cytogenetics" 191

13 Recombination molecularized 202

Part VI Deducing Genes from Traits, inducing Traits from genes 209

14 How do genes do it? 211

15 The path from DNA to protein 220

16 Genes in the service of development 231

Part VII What is true for E. Coli is not True for the Elephant 245

17 Extending hybridization to molecules 249

18 Overcoming the dogma 259

19 Dominance 268

20 Populations evolve, organisms develop 274

Concluding comments 287

Bibliography 293

Index 321

Editorial Reviews

"This original and intensely compelling study breaks new ground in the study of the emergence and international spread of religious radical activism. A sophisticated exploration of how emotion, moral principles, and personal ties bring people into high-risk activism and what sustains them over time."
—Kathleen Blee, University of Pittsburgh

"Starting in the United States, small groups of religious people attacked weapons of mass destruction with small hammers and their own blood. Sharon Nepstad tells the compelling story of how this movement spread around the world, adapting different forms depending upon the religious and political setting. She gives voice to these activists, but rather than simply turning then into heroes or cranks, she explains the roots of their sustained activism. She convincingly shows how a sort of religious faith, even the faith of atheists, allows people to continue their efforts despite significant shifts in political opportunity. This is a fascinating book, essential for anyone who wants to make sense of long term political commitment in hard times."
—David S. Meyer, University of California at Irvine

"This is a wonderful read. Theoretically sophisticated, insightful in its conclusions about why some movements endure, Religion and War Resistance in the Plowshares Movement is also a fascinating account of people whose activism is, to many, enigmatic. In Nepstad's fine rendering, religious pacifists' determination to act without concern for the consequences, indeed, their eager contemplation of arrest and conviction, become not strange but admirable."
—Francesca Polletta, University of California at Irvine

"As a whole, the book offers an in-depth examination of the US Plowshares movement throughout history and a comparative analysis of divergent pathways that the international Plowshare movements took. In addition, she extends her analysis by offering a compelling and theoretically informed discussion of movement trajectories over time."
—Canadian Journal of Sociology

"....The book is extremely well written, and also contains an exhaustive bibliography addressing the major concepts of genetics, with historical references for readers interested in the primary literature.... Highly recommended...."
—R.K. Harris, William Carey University, Choice

From the Publisher