Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review“An ambitious work . . . In paying attention to today's sophisticated ideas about genetics, Radick poses a deceptively simple question: why, he asks, knowing what we do now, do we still bother with Mendel? . . . This isn’t the first attempt to lay history’s ghosts to rest and reset our ideas about genetics. That said, I can’t think of one that is better argued, more fair-minded, or more enjoyable.” * New Scientist *
“Radick provides a scholarly, detailed and perceptive analysis of why Mendelian genetics has long dominated our approach to understanding inheritance, despite valiant attempts to propose alternatives. . . . By describing how the debates of scientists shaped the field of genetics,
Disputed Inheritance provides a basis for understanding the work that has led, over the past century, to a richer understanding of heredity than Mendelian genetics could ever have provided.” * Nature *
“‘You name it,’ writes Radick in his brilliant, provocative new book,
Disputed Inheritance, ‘and there is, we are told, a gene for it, invisibly pulling the strings, determining how our bodies grow and our lives go.’ . . . Radick argues that, had genetics taken a Weldonian turn in the early twentieth century, we need have sacrificed nothing in our understanding of biology and would have reduced the hereditarianism that remains so prevalent today. . . . Radick has an extraordinarily rich research program in front of him that has the potential for significant impact on both science and society.” * FASEB Journal *
“Radick is raising the stakes here with an inventive approach . . .
Disputed Inheritance gives centrality to contingency, and in so doing presents convincingly a ‘what could have been’ argument. The book culminates in a reiteration of the desire to elevate the study (and presentation) of counterfactuals to be part and parcel of standard methodology. It is a difficult argument to dismiss, and this book is the reason why: Radick’s meticulous research and balanced presentation can help redefine the essential struggle against historical amnesia—arguably the main culprit for reductive thinking and facile generalizations.” * H-Sci-Med-Tech *
“This is a magnificent book. It is really a tour de force, elegantly written and diligently documented. There is so much that I learned while reading it that has made me now better understand this story. I think it will be fascinating reading for everyone interested in the early history of genetics.
Disputed Inheritance deserves to be widely read, and Radick deserves praise for an intellectual achievement that will change not only our understanding of history but also our approach to its study.” -- Kostas Kampourakis, author of Understanding Genes
“Radick’s magisterial study scrutinizes common understandings—the ‘folk wisdom’—of the history of genetics. Informed by unusual historical depth and philosophical sophistication, Radick offers a compelling rival view, one that reinterprets both the history and the science itself. In a world often affected by loose talk about ‘genes for’ interesting traits, this book supplies a welcome antidote to simplistic thinking. It is as important as it is fascinating.” -- Philip Kitcher, author of In Mendel’s Mirror: Philosophical Reflections on Biology
“There are few ideas in biology as powerful—and dangerous—as the notion that genes determine who we are and what we can become. In this deeply researched and beautifully written history, Radick reveals the contingent pathways through which genetic determinism took hold among biologists and beyond.
Disputed Inheritance rewrites the story of genetics with care and verve, in the hopes that future students will learn to see both history and biology differently.” -- Helen Anne Curry, author of Evolution Made to Order
“Radick underscores some of the most vital but neglected facts of genetics—that genes don’t work in simple ways, and that variation and context matter. This is a beautifully researched, important book. It may be a work of history, but the lessons are also relevant for us today.”
-- Angela Saini, author of Superior: The Return of Race Science
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Introduction
Part 1: Before
1 Who Needs a Science of Heredity?
2 The Meaning of the Quincunx
3 Biology for the Steam Age
4 Royal Entrances (and Exits)
Part 2: Battle
5 Between Boers and Basset Hounds
6 Two Plates of Peas
7 Mendel All the Way
8 Damn All Controversies!
9 An Unfinished Manuscript
Part 3: Beyond
10 The Success of a New Science
11 What Might Have Been
12 Mendelian Legacies
13 Weldonian Legacies
Conclusion
Postscript 1: On “Genetic Determinism” and “Interaction”
Postscript 2: A Simple Mendelian Cross Weldonized
Postscript 3: From a Counterfactual Edition of the
Dictionary of Scientific Biography Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index
