Who Wrote the Book of Life?
Book description
This is a detailed history of one of the most important and dramatic episodes in modern science, recounted from the novel vantage point of the dawn of the information age and its impact on representations of nature, heredity, and society. Drawing on archives, published sources, and interviews, the author situates…
Why read it?
1 author picked Who Wrote the Book of Life? as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I love the way that this book puts solving the genetic code in the context of the development of the "information age" in the 1950s.
This book explains the origins of the popular (but wrong) idea that DNA is the "book of life" and some sort of advanced information system. I call this a ‘one-dimensional’ view of life (as opposed to a four-dimensional view, which takes into account not just sequence but secondary and tertiary structures and how they change with time).
I use this book in my introductory bioinformatics lectures to help get across the "new" concept that, contrary…
From David's list on the history of heredity and DNA.
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