Generation: The Seventeenth-Century Scientists Who Unraveled the Secrets of Sex, Life, and Growth

by Matthew Cobb

Generation is the story of the exciting, largely forgotten decade during the seventeenth century when a group of young scientists-Jan Swammerdam, the son of a Protestant apothecary, Nils Stensen (also known as Steno), a Danish anatomist who first discovered the human tear duct, Reinier de Graaf, the attractive and brilliant son of a rich and successful Catholic architect, and Antoni Leeuwenhoek, a self-taught draper-dared to challenge thousands of years of orthodox thinking about where life comes from. By meticulous experimentation, dissection, and observation with the newly invented microscope, they showed that like breeds like, that all animals come from an egg, that there is no such thing as spontaneous generation, and that there are millions of tiny, wriggling "eels" in semen. However, their ultimate inability to fully understand the evidence that was in front of them led to a fatal mistake. As a result, the final leap in describing the process of reproduction-which would ultimately give birth to the science of genetics-took nearly two centuries for humanity to achieve. Including previously untranslated documents, Generation interweaves the personal stories of these scientists against a backdrop of the Dutch "Golden Age." It is a riveting account of the audacious men who swept away old certainties and provided the foundation for much of our current understanding of the living world.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, History, Biology

354 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Matthew Cobb (born 4 February 1957) is a British zoologist and professor of zoology at the University of Manchester. He is known for his popular science books The Egg & Sperm Race: The Seventeenth-Century Scientists Who Unravelled the Secrets of Sex, Life and Growth; Life's Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code; and The Idea of the Brain: A History. Cobb has appeared on BBC Radio 4's The Infinite Monkey Cage, The Life Scientific, and The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry, as well as on BBC Radio 3 and the BBC World Service.
Cobb has written and provided expert comments for publications including New Scientist and The Guardian, translated five books from French into English, and written two books on the history of France during World War II.

Reviews

[Chelsea Martinez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kurt laughed at me for checking this book out from the Berkeley Public Library when I don't live in Northern California. And he was right to because I'll probably end up paying overdue fines/shipping costs enough to buy my own hardcover copy, but sometimes I see things in the library and get really excited and can't help myself.

I wished that this book was longer. It's jovial but clearly written by someone who has a soft spot for embryology/development. Whenever I read scientific papers that have nothing to do with what I actually study, I often find myself gravitating to stuff about reproduction. So, while I think that 253 pages is probably enough for most people to read about dissecting ovaries and squirting hot wax into cadaver testicles, I wish that there had been more chapters that gave details about the more recent history of the field, rather than compressing the last 300 years into the 8th chapter.

That being said, it's a quick read, and has lots of amusing anecdotes about the way the scientific community evolved. Amusement aside it does a better job than most of respecting the wisdom and partial correctness of history's debunked hypotheses, and it's a good bit of science writing, and if you read this far, maybe you should read it.

[Larissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

You mean women can't give birth to rabbits or kittens?

Only a few hundred years ago that was big news. So was the idea that insects reproduced at all. (People thought they just grew out of rotting meat.) It took a lot of work to figure this out and this book is the story of the men who were determined to do so.

You can't help but giggle at some of the theories that were proposed on the road to figuring out where we come from. Matthew Cobb tells the story with a great deal of intellectual wit and humour and leaves with an appreciation of just how far we've come.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Because of my biology background, I wanted to like this more. I did find the first half of the book engaging, but I had to skim for the main ideas through the last half of the book because there was so much superfluous information and I had a hard time following Cobb's train of thought. As a scientist, I found the information about the beginnings and evolution of the scientific experiment process quite interesting.

[Jess Dollar · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not fair to the author that I read this very shortly after reading Sam Kean's great science history books (The Disappearing Spoon and The Violinist's Thumb). While the history is interesting, the author isn't the story-teller that Kean is. His style is dry and a bit stodgy. Still, I enjoyed the book. In the end, it gave me much food for thought on how young our scientific journey as humans really is.

[Lyndsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

fascinating so far.... you can't make scorpions by crushing a basil leaf between two rocks!
And interesting history of our understanding of generation (havin' babies) and the evolution of the scientific method.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting and readable for a book on the history of scientific discovery. i was surprised at how much i enjoyed it.

[Josephine Olivier · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book in question is one that I recommend for those who want to get into non-fiction. The book in question is quite amusing. We follow a group of about 18 different scientists on the long-winded journey of discovering the secrets of reproduction, from disproving the theory of spontaneous generation to discovering and drawing diagrams of the uterus. From seeing who will first publish about the female uterus first to more personal banter and conflict among good friends. “Van Horn might have been the first to realize the female ‘testicles’ were in fact ovaries, but as far as the rest of the world is concerned, Steno had a priority. Whatever prestige might accrue to the discoverer of women’s egg---- none of it would come the way of Van Horne and Swammderman, no matter how justified their claim,”. Although the remark of the ovaries being female “testicles” made giggle a few times there is quite a bit drama.
While I am not sure how I would feel about the book if I had to read it for scholastic purposes, however, I certainly would still recommend this book to my fellow peers. From what I experienced the book seems to be rather slow-paced from time to time. I enjoyed the writing style of the book, and the language used was fairly simple and easy to understand. I thought the book was a great way to pass the time and relax when your brain is sort of turned off. One of my favorite parts of the book was probably the discovery of sperms because it was fascinating to see how someone figured out how to make a microscope and how it related to reproduction. But it was because of this gem of a quote. “Less than ‘six beats a pulse’ after ejaculating, he took some of his semen, scooping it up or squeezing it out, sucked it into a narrow capillary tube, fitted the tube into his microscope, moved to a window or near to a bright candle and pressed his eye close to the minute glass lens. Cornelia’s opinion is not recorded,”. So for a bit of context Cornelia is the wife of the “scientist” who discovered sperms and the quote is describing the process in how he discovered sperms. But a bit before he ejaculated he was making love to his wife. Now I giggled quite a lot during this section of the book because it was so funny and amusing on how sperms were discovered and what the scientific discovery meant to people There was also a fair bit of the section explaining the public opinion on the discovery of the female “testicle” to people refusing to believe man came from an egg.
As an avid reader of non-fiction books, I would say that this book is one that I would recommend for those who are a bit unfamiliar with non-fiction works.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the book's subject is the birth of our understanding of reproduction in the 1600s, its themes are excitingly broad, touching on the role of contingency, social structure and prevailing models in steering the conclusions scientists draw. Some of the don't-put-jam-on-a-magnet madness that passed for science in the 17th century could have been easily ascribed to the lack of a rigorous scientific method or certain experimental tools, but Cobb looks further, and the conclusions he draws are highly relevant to understanding the culture and practice of science even in the present day. The conversational style and rich historical detail made this a very pleasant read.

[Philip Weiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book missed the mark for me. Unfortunately, the author couldn't keep me as enthralled with the characters and the story as the author should have. There are rich characters and a steady plot, however the author skips around and loops back in a way that I found to be detrimental to both the character development and the plot. I found that it was hard to follow the story because of the anecdotes pertaining to the characters; and I found it hard to connect with the characters because the plot was not straight forward.
I liked the book but left unsatisfied because it could have been great.
There is so much good content, the book should have really shined.

[Diane Jeske · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very clearly written and interesting account of the little known 17th century scientists who made important discoveries about how human conception occurs. Until that point no one understand that women produced eggs or, if they did, they didn’t know what its role is. When they first saw sperm under a microscope they thought they were ‘animalcules’ that happened to live in semen. Well worth a read if you are interested in the history of science.

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice read about a part of the history of biology that is often forgotten, It is amazing how long it took for biologists to actually determine how reproduction works, but, it really is a difficult thing to sort out.

[Kahraman KURT · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kitabın iddiası bilim tarihinin bir polisiye roman gibi sürükleyici olarak yazılabileceği. Bu iddiayı gerçekleştiremiyor. Üremenin nasıl gerçekleştiğine dair ilgisi olanların okuyabileceği bir kitap.

[Kandachamy Vijayakumaran · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely interesting book tracing the history of science of human reproduction in a lucid and captivating language. A must read for all biologist and others who are engaged in reproduction.

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

The content in this book was fab, especially because I was fortunate enough to be able to attend lectures with the author on this very subject. The book coupled with the lectures left me feeling like I had a good understanding of the material. As somebody with an interest in the history and development of science and medicine, I knew that I would love this book before I even started reading it.
The author obviously has a passion for the subject matter, and has gone above and beyond to locate primary sources.
Overall an incredibly well researched, well written book.

[Don]

Where does life come from? Until the 17th century, this question was answered with speculation and wild stories, including the concept of ‘spontaneous generation.’ In the 1660s and 70s, three scientists in the Netherlands were united by Leeuwenhoek’s invention of the powerful microscope. Despite their early discoveries in human and animal reproduction, generation still remained mysterious and controversial until well into the 19th century.

[Catherine Sanchez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book isn't not good, it's just no Mary Roach or Sam Keam. There were sections that were really interesting and engaging and it is worth reading on the whole.