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The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology
In the foreword to this expanded edition of his 1979 masterpiece, Horace Freeland Judson says, "I feared I might seem the official historian of the movement"--molecular biology, that is. If by official he means "authoritative; definitive; the standard against which all others are measured" then his fears are warranted. Detailed without being overly technical, humane without being fulsome, The Eighth Day of Creation tells of molecular biology's search for the secret of life. "The drama has everything--exploration of the unknown; low comedy and urgent seriousness; savage competition, vaulting intelligence, abrupt changes of fortune, sudden understandings; eccentric and brilliant people, men of honor and of less than honor; a heroine, perhaps wronged; and a treasure to be achieved that was unique and transcendent." And in Judson this drama found its Shakespeare.
714 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1979
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3738 people want to read
About the author
Horace Freeland Judson
14 books15 followersHorace Freeland Judson is a historian of molecular biology and the author of several books, including The Eighth Day of Creation, a history of molecular biology, and The Great Betrayal: Fraud In Science, an examination of the deliberate manipulation of scientific data.
The Eighth Day of Creation is a monumental work. Arising out of Judson's acquaintance with Max Perutz in 1968 came the idea of a book about the discovery of the structures of cellular macromolecules. Following a discussion with Jacques Monod in 1969, Judson expanded his planned book to a general history of molecular biology. The result is based on interviews of over 100 scientists, cross-checked and re-interviewed over a period of seven years. The book was partially serialized in three issues of The New Yorker in November and December, 1978. Following the publication of the book, Judson deposited the tapes and transcripts of the interviews at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Judson graduated from the University of Chicago in 1948, and worked for seven years for Time Magazine as a European correspondent in London and Paris. He subsequently wrote for The New Yorker, Harper's, and Nature among others. Judson spent four years as a research scholar at Stanford University and then nine years on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University. He was the director of the now defunct Center for History of Recent Science and Research Professor of History at George Washington University. In 1987 Judson won a MacArthur Fellowship.
He appears in Don't Look Back, D. A. Pennebaker's documentary film about Bob Dylan, in which he was subjected to what he believes to be a contrived tirade of abuse from Dylan. During Judson's interview, Dylan launched into a verbal attack on Time magazine, and Judson himself. The film's producer Pennebaker does not believe the tirade was planned, but notes that Dylan backed off, not wanting to come across as being too cruel. However, Judson believes the confrontation was contrived to make the sequence more entertaining. "That evening," says Judson, "I went to the concert. My opinion then and now was that the music was unpleasant, the lyrics inflated, and Dylan, a self-indulgent whining show off."
The Eighth Day of Creation is a monumental work. Arising out of Judson's acquaintance with Max Perutz in 1968 came the idea of a book about the discovery of the structures of cellular macromolecules. Following a discussion with Jacques Monod in 1969, Judson expanded his planned book to a general history of molecular biology. The result is based on interviews of over 100 scientists, cross-checked and re-interviewed over a period of seven years. The book was partially serialized in three issues of The New Yorker in November and December, 1978. Following the publication of the book, Judson deposited the tapes and transcripts of the interviews at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Judson graduated from the University of Chicago in 1948, and worked for seven years for Time Magazine as a European correspondent in London and Paris. He subsequently wrote for The New Yorker, Harper's, and Nature among others. Judson spent four years as a research scholar at Stanford University and then nine years on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University. He was the director of the now defunct Center for History of Recent Science and Research Professor of History at George Washington University. In 1987 Judson won a MacArthur Fellowship.
He appears in Don't Look Back, D. A. Pennebaker's documentary film about Bob Dylan, in which he was subjected to what he believes to be a contrived tirade of abuse from Dylan. During Judson's interview, Dylan launched into a verbal attack on Time magazine, and Judson himself. The film's producer Pennebaker does not believe the tirade was planned, but notes that Dylan backed off, not wanting to come across as being too cruel. However, Judson believes the confrontation was contrived to make the sequence more entertaining. "That evening," says Judson, "I went to the concert. My opinion then and now was that the music was unpleasant, the lyrics inflated, and Dylan, a self-indulgent whining show off."
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May 30, 2016
The Eighth Day of Creation (TEDoC for short, published in 1979) is a scientific history that shows how we get from vague misunderstanding to established scientific theory. The particular case that Horace Freeland Judson chronicles is the molecular biology revolution that happened between the 1940s and the early 1970s and echoes into present day biological research. The greatness of TEDoC lies in its deep, liberal arts approach. To Judson, anything that affects the course of scientific advancement needs to be followed to its roots.
The novelty of the TEDoC is that Judson does not single out science as being coldly logical and separate from other human endeavors. Scientific progress is inextricably intertwined with the personalities and the relationships of the people involved, the culture within the field, and the political milieu. To elaborate these complexities, Judson conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with all of the scientists involved and reproduces parts of lab notebooks (!) and letters. Along with him, we learn how it felt to arrive at a conceptual breakthrough, or to have an “intellectual bond of the highest intensity.” I am a scientist, and it was exhilarating to see Judson engage with some of the giants of 20th century science like Linus Pauling, Francis Crick, Sydney Brenner, Jacques Monod, Francois Jacob, and Max Perutz. The aggregation of conversations and descriptions of each of these scientists make a convincing argument that their specific personalities were crucial to their scientific advances.
Though the facts of molecular biology covered by the book could be summarized in a couple of pages, almost every one of the book’s 616 pages contains a nugget of wisdom about the practice of science. An example is Judson's description of a scientist as "a scout rather than a homesteader.” In a short phrase, Judson captures the two research tacks of a scientist: the ’scout,’ who is much better at opening a new area rather than digging down in the details of an established field (the ‘homesteader’). Experiments are described in as much detail as necessary. We repeatedly are made to understand what was the missing link in the theory, and the experimental or conceptual logic that filled it in. The only time the book gets bogged down is in the buildup to the determination of the genetic code, in which Judson prints too many letters that contain the minutia of Crick's and Brenner's lives.
Far from being a book that’s in the weeds, TEDoC contains two chapters that capture the conceptual questions that underlie biology. In Chapter 4, “TH Morgan’s Deviation and the Mystery of Life,” Sydney Brenner, in just 4 pages, completely and clearly describes the major questions in biology and potential pitfalls in the current (January 1971) practice of it. It is 2016 at the writing of this review and the major questions and problems in the way of progress remain exactly the same. Yet these seemingly important points go unremarked in seminars and graduate education. In the Epilogue, Judson attempts to encapsulate the main contributions of the molecular biology revolution to biology and in the process grapples with biological specificity. Both Chapter 4 and the Epilogue should be required reading for all biologists.
TEDoC gets the details of experiments and the emotional feel for people and places correct, while extending to the limits of our understanding. It is undoubtedly one of the best popular scientific books ever written.
The novelty of the TEDoC is that Judson does not single out science as being coldly logical and separate from other human endeavors. Scientific progress is inextricably intertwined with the personalities and the relationships of the people involved, the culture within the field, and the political milieu. To elaborate these complexities, Judson conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with all of the scientists involved and reproduces parts of lab notebooks (!) and letters. Along with him, we learn how it felt to arrive at a conceptual breakthrough, or to have an “intellectual bond of the highest intensity.” I am a scientist, and it was exhilarating to see Judson engage with some of the giants of 20th century science like Linus Pauling, Francis Crick, Sydney Brenner, Jacques Monod, Francois Jacob, and Max Perutz. The aggregation of conversations and descriptions of each of these scientists make a convincing argument that their specific personalities were crucial to their scientific advances.
Though the facts of molecular biology covered by the book could be summarized in a couple of pages, almost every one of the book’s 616 pages contains a nugget of wisdom about the practice of science. An example is Judson's description of a scientist as "a scout rather than a homesteader.” In a short phrase, Judson captures the two research tacks of a scientist: the ’scout,’ who is much better at opening a new area rather than digging down in the details of an established field (the ‘homesteader’). Experiments are described in as much detail as necessary. We repeatedly are made to understand what was the missing link in the theory, and the experimental or conceptual logic that filled it in. The only time the book gets bogged down is in the buildup to the determination of the genetic code, in which Judson prints too many letters that contain the minutia of Crick's and Brenner's lives.
Far from being a book that’s in the weeds, TEDoC contains two chapters that capture the conceptual questions that underlie biology. In Chapter 4, “TH Morgan’s Deviation and the Mystery of Life,” Sydney Brenner, in just 4 pages, completely and clearly describes the major questions in biology and potential pitfalls in the current (January 1971) practice of it. It is 2016 at the writing of this review and the major questions and problems in the way of progress remain exactly the same. Yet these seemingly important points go unremarked in seminars and graduate education. In the Epilogue, Judson attempts to encapsulate the main contributions of the molecular biology revolution to biology and in the process grapples with biological specificity. Both Chapter 4 and the Epilogue should be required reading for all biologists.
TEDoC gets the details of experiments and the emotional feel for people and places correct, while extending to the limits of our understanding. It is undoubtedly one of the best popular scientific books ever written.
May 29, 2007
This is an area that I know too well. I have been personally acquainted with many of the protagonists described in this book--Novick, Watson, Brenner, Stahl, Meselson, Luria, Khorana, to name a few--and so to read the history of the discipline that never ceases to fascinate me since the age of 14 when I first came to know of DNA was a treat indeed.
The history of molecular biology as we know today began probably with Delbruck and Pauling, but a continuous line of intellectual descent can be traced from the physicists Ratherford, Bragg, Bohr, Szilard and Schroedinger on the one hand, and from geneticists Haldane, Beadle, Lederberg, Hershey and Luria on the other. The history of DNA from the geneticist's heritage was traced well by the author Horace Freeman Judson, but the intellectual descent from the physicist's side perhaps not adequately beyond the influence of Schroedinger, Pauling and Delbruck. The book is an engaging story of the making of molecular biology, which does not end with DNA but goes on to explore the early phases of molecular biology including the discovery of messenger RNA, coding, the French effort to understand the regulation of genes. It is scholarly as well as engagingly entertaining. The author depends heavily on interviews of the protagonists, nearly all of whom were alive at the time the book was written. Some of the information are startling...for example we learn that Haldane had anticipated the isotopic density labeling experiment for addressing the mechanism of replication of the genetic material some twenty years before the famous Meselson-Stahl experiment (and had published this conjecture in an editorial written in a newspaper of all places!!), though Haldane had (erroneously) assumed protein, not DNA, to be the genetic material. [Stahl had never read that article by Haldane, as he told me later when I asked Stahl about it]
It is an exciting read--thrilling, if you ask me--if you wish to know how the science of life came to be what it is today.
The history of molecular biology as we know today began probably with Delbruck and Pauling, but a continuous line of intellectual descent can be traced from the physicists Ratherford, Bragg, Bohr, Szilard and Schroedinger on the one hand, and from geneticists Haldane, Beadle, Lederberg, Hershey and Luria on the other. The history of DNA from the geneticist's heritage was traced well by the author Horace Freeman Judson, but the intellectual descent from the physicist's side perhaps not adequately beyond the influence of Schroedinger, Pauling and Delbruck. The book is an engaging story of the making of molecular biology, which does not end with DNA but goes on to explore the early phases of molecular biology including the discovery of messenger RNA, coding, the French effort to understand the regulation of genes. It is scholarly as well as engagingly entertaining. The author depends heavily on interviews of the protagonists, nearly all of whom were alive at the time the book was written. Some of the information are startling...for example we learn that Haldane had anticipated the isotopic density labeling experiment for addressing the mechanism of replication of the genetic material some twenty years before the famous Meselson-Stahl experiment (and had published this conjecture in an editorial written in a newspaper of all places!!), though Haldane had (erroneously) assumed protein, not DNA, to be the genetic material. [Stahl had never read that article by Haldane, as he told me later when I asked Stahl about it]
It is an exciting read--thrilling, if you ask me--if you wish to know how the science of life came to be what it is today.
May 25, 2024
Less a book than a journey, The Eighth Day of Creation is a unique chance to experience the birth of the first truly modern scientific discipline as the molecular biologists, physical chemists and physicists mostly, overtook the biochemists in their relentless pursuit of the Central Dogma: that DNA yields RNA yields protein.
More than anything, it was the story of Francis Crick, the theoretician and guide who, more than anyone, guided the development - personally, scientifically, emotionally, of the entire discipline, who, like a chess player, moved pieces around the board, arranged for PhDs and scholarships and fellowships and grants, and who, on multiple occasions, was able to break free of the shackles of data and create new theories from scratch which had the ability to totally re-arrange the entire discipline.
I highlighted hundreds of individual quotes from the book, but Crick's quotes were the ones that stuck with me the most - a constant reminder that one must constantly create the space to be underemployed, to continue exploring, not just exploiting, to never mistake hard work for hard thinking, and always to use the minimal data possible. These ideas, not merely about science, but about how to do science, are so different from how we think about science today - they are the ideas of a revolutionary scientific thinker, not a man satisfied with normal science. Reading the book in 2020, one couldn't help but being struck by how...unscientific...many of these incredible scientists acted, how different their views, especially Crick's views, of science really are from those of the 21st century.
One would be remiss to ignore the French, and Monod deserves special attention for both his joyfully whimsical life (an orchestra conductor, a French resistance fighter, an anti-communist communist - as a note, it's wild to see how the critical theories of marxist dogma absolutely neutered the development of Soviet biology) and his unique contributions to the fascinating world of gene repression and expression finally moving from a simple one-way pathway towards a cyclical set of feedback loops.
And yet despite the immensely productive period of study produced by the dogmas revolutionary simplicity, the book also chronicles a rising disillusionment, the resentment as the perceived simplicity gave way to increasing complexity as study progressed into the 80s.
The central dogma, in its most basic sense, is a story of encoding: the mapping of one data structure (DNA) into another (protein) via an intermediate representation (RNA). In this sense, it's not dissimilar from the way compilers map source code into instructions via an intermediate representation. And yet in this analogy, and in the conversations between Judson and Brennar and Von Neumman, one begins to see the tragic fraying of the central dogma of molecular biology - the relationship between structure and function not quite able to pierce past the realm of data into the realm of logic. As von Neumman says so eloquently: maybe the thing is that you can’t give a theory of pattern vision—but all you can do is to give a prescription for making a device that will see patterns!
The future of molecular biology as explained by Brenner is a world of algorithms, molecular logic as a supplementary aspect to molecular data - a dynamic world of feedback and computation rather than a static world of transcription and translation. As with our data systems, we need to begin to see data as logic and logic data - just as with metaprogramming and data / logic systems, code will become data, and data will become code.
And, of course, the regular cast of polymaths follow us through yet another beautiful scientific expose: Slizard, Pauling, Teller, Sydney Brenner, Von Neumann all show up with their uncanny nose for the next big thing. It remains remarkable how many of the same people show up in so many different stories, a powerful reminder of the compounding power of knowledge, ability, and ever-expanding personal networks.
In either case, this book was a joy to read, a picture into a uniquely passionate crew of scientific explorers who in the course of just over a decade, unraveled mysteries that had laid dormant since the seventh day of creation.
More than anything, it was the story of Francis Crick, the theoretician and guide who, more than anyone, guided the development - personally, scientifically, emotionally, of the entire discipline, who, like a chess player, moved pieces around the board, arranged for PhDs and scholarships and fellowships and grants, and who, on multiple occasions, was able to break free of the shackles of data and create new theories from scratch which had the ability to totally re-arrange the entire discipline.
I highlighted hundreds of individual quotes from the book, but Crick's quotes were the ones that stuck with me the most - a constant reminder that one must constantly create the space to be underemployed, to continue exploring, not just exploiting, to never mistake hard work for hard thinking, and always to use the minimal data possible. These ideas, not merely about science, but about how to do science, are so different from how we think about science today - they are the ideas of a revolutionary scientific thinker, not a man satisfied with normal science. Reading the book in 2020, one couldn't help but being struck by how...unscientific...many of these incredible scientists acted, how different their views, especially Crick's views, of science really are from those of the 21st century.
One would be remiss to ignore the French, and Monod deserves special attention for both his joyfully whimsical life (an orchestra conductor, a French resistance fighter, an anti-communist communist - as a note, it's wild to see how the critical theories of marxist dogma absolutely neutered the development of Soviet biology) and his unique contributions to the fascinating world of gene repression and expression finally moving from a simple one-way pathway towards a cyclical set of feedback loops.
And yet despite the immensely productive period of study produced by the dogmas revolutionary simplicity, the book also chronicles a rising disillusionment, the resentment as the perceived simplicity gave way to increasing complexity as study progressed into the 80s.
The central dogma, in its most basic sense, is a story of encoding: the mapping of one data structure (DNA) into another (protein) via an intermediate representation (RNA). In this sense, it's not dissimilar from the way compilers map source code into instructions via an intermediate representation. And yet in this analogy, and in the conversations between Judson and Brennar and Von Neumman, one begins to see the tragic fraying of the central dogma of molecular biology - the relationship between structure and function not quite able to pierce past the realm of data into the realm of logic. As von Neumman says so eloquently: maybe the thing is that you can’t give a theory of pattern vision—but all you can do is to give a prescription for making a device that will see patterns!
The future of molecular biology as explained by Brenner is a world of algorithms, molecular logic as a supplementary aspect to molecular data - a dynamic world of feedback and computation rather than a static world of transcription and translation. As with our data systems, we need to begin to see data as logic and logic data - just as with metaprogramming and data / logic systems, code will become data, and data will become code.
And, of course, the regular cast of polymaths follow us through yet another beautiful scientific expose: Slizard, Pauling, Teller, Sydney Brenner, Von Neumann all show up with their uncanny nose for the next big thing. It remains remarkable how many of the same people show up in so many different stories, a powerful reminder of the compounding power of knowledge, ability, and ever-expanding personal networks.
In either case, this book was a joy to read, a picture into a uniquely passionate crew of scientific explorers who in the course of just over a decade, unraveled mysteries that had laid dormant since the seventh day of creation.
June 15, 2011
This book was assigned as a supplemental or recommended text (i.e., not a required text) in our full year Biochemistry course for Biochemistry Majors at UC Berkeley in 1980-1981. It is difficult for me to think of another scientific book that has had such a profound impact on my development and career. If you enjoy reading about the history of science (especially 20th century science) then in my opinion this book is absolutely a "must read." If you are trained as a molecular biologist, geneticist, or biochemist, then I think you will find reading this book well worth your while. Horace Freeland Judson (whom I believe was a Prof. at Princeton at the time) followed these people around in the lab, interviewed them incessantly, and followed up with letters and phone calls, and manages to capture and present the palpable excitement of unraveling the structure of DNA and deciphering the genetic code in a way that no one has ever done before, or since. One of my absolutely favourite books of all time (this review was posted from Cambridge, UK, on a trip where I visited 'The Eagle' Pub that Jim Watson and Francis Crick ran into to announce that they had discovered the secret of life. The Cavendish Laboratories, which was at that time the site of the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology, stands to this day (2011).
April 24, 2021
It's kind of amazing that this book exists. Originally published in 1979, Horace Judson explains how molecular biology emerged as a field distinct from its five influences: genetics, x-ray crystallography, microbiology, biochemistry, and physical chemistry. Through extensive interviews with the key scientists and explanations of their major experiments, he details the events leading up to three major discoveries: the structure of DNA, the genetic code for proteins, and the structures of hemoglobin (a much larger and more complicated molecule than DNA). Although he doesn't cite Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (originally published in 1962), I imagine he must have been aware of it, and molecular biology's emergence is a classic example of a Kuhnian paradigm shift and the pain that accompanies one.
The interviews are quoted at such length that the book often feels like an oral history (which may be why Naval Ravikant, a venture capitalist, thought this book was written by Watson and Crick -- see https://nav.al/rich). Often several pages are in the voice of a single scientist. I found Jacques Monod, Sydney Brenner, and Francis Crick's sections the most interesting. Unfortunately, the author makes sure to slip in a comment (or four) at regular intervals, so I was never quite able to forget about his presence. Still, the book's primary-source-ness allows for the unique opportunity to go down the dead ends and follow the confusion that led up to the clarity of major discoveries. This gives a better sense of the process of discovery than other science histories I've read.
Besides Judson's unprecedented access to the major (and minor) biologists of the 40s to 70s (as well as their letters and notebooks), the book is defined by a sense of nostalgia. Nostalgia for the golden age of science, when elegant experiments emerged from the minds of brilliant lone-hero theoreticians like Crick fully formed and then were quickly carried out by meticulous, but not genius, experimentalists (often grad students or lab technicians who, when named, are only mentioned in passing). This nostalgia is accompanied by a pervading sexism that caused me to distrust the author's description of events involving women scientists, including Rosalind Franklin, Barbara McClintock, and Monica Riley.
Of course, the actual facts in the book complicate the "golden age" narrative and allow the reader to debunk it. How different is the modern-day "Big Science" Human Genome Project from Seymour Benzer's meticulous mapping of phage genes, which proved essential to cracking the encoding of proteins in DNA? Weren't the institutions, like Caltech, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, and the Institut Pasteur, that brought these scientists together across international borders just as essential as the individual scientists?
Despite Judson's editorializing (made worse by a pretentious and convoluted writing style), the source material shines through. So, please don't let my irritations dissuade you from getting to experience the molecular biology revolution in book form. I learned a ton about biology (although I often had to consult Wikipedia to supplement Judson's descriptions of many of the experiments) and the book is great at making clear that science and scientists are just as fallibly human as anyone else.
Sourcing note: I found this book deep in the comment section of a Scott H. Young blogpost on teaching yourself biology (which is in fact something I'm trying to do). https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2021...
The interviews are quoted at such length that the book often feels like an oral history (which may be why Naval Ravikant, a venture capitalist, thought this book was written by Watson and Crick -- see https://nav.al/rich). Often several pages are in the voice of a single scientist. I found Jacques Monod, Sydney Brenner, and Francis Crick's sections the most interesting. Unfortunately, the author makes sure to slip in a comment (or four) at regular intervals, so I was never quite able to forget about his presence. Still, the book's primary-source-ness allows for the unique opportunity to go down the dead ends and follow the confusion that led up to the clarity of major discoveries. This gives a better sense of the process of discovery than other science histories I've read.
Besides Judson's unprecedented access to the major (and minor) biologists of the 40s to 70s (as well as their letters and notebooks), the book is defined by a sense of nostalgia. Nostalgia for the golden age of science, when elegant experiments emerged from the minds of brilliant lone-hero theoreticians like Crick fully formed and then were quickly carried out by meticulous, but not genius, experimentalists (often grad students or lab technicians who, when named, are only mentioned in passing). This nostalgia is accompanied by a pervading sexism that caused me to distrust the author's description of events involving women scientists, including Rosalind Franklin, Barbara McClintock, and Monica Riley.
Of course, the actual facts in the book complicate the "golden age" narrative and allow the reader to debunk it. How different is the modern-day "Big Science" Human Genome Project from Seymour Benzer's meticulous mapping of phage genes, which proved essential to cracking the encoding of proteins in DNA? Weren't the institutions, like Caltech, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, and the Institut Pasteur, that brought these scientists together across international borders just as essential as the individual scientists?
Despite Judson's editorializing (made worse by a pretentious and convoluted writing style), the source material shines through. So, please don't let my irritations dissuade you from getting to experience the molecular biology revolution in book form. I learned a ton about biology (although I often had to consult Wikipedia to supplement Judson's descriptions of many of the experiments) and the book is great at making clear that science and scientists are just as fallibly human as anyone else.
Sourcing note: I found this book deep in the comment section of a Scott H. Young blogpost on teaching yourself biology (which is in fact something I'm trying to do). https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2021...
October 20, 2009
It took me forever to read this book. The history of the science is interesting (as well as the science itself). My biggest complaint is that Judson spends time telling us what he had to drink while he interviewed people or where he met them the first time. It almost feels like instead of simply writing the history he wanted to be part of it but couldn't so now he drops all the names of the people he met while writing the book. Also, the story isn't told strictly chronologically so if you pick it up expect to jump around in time a bit. I ended up having to write a timeline as I read it to keep things straight, his constant mentioning of the year he interviewed people is somewhat detracting from trying to put the science (which generally happened anywhere from 30 to 5 years before the interview) in a historical context. Good Luck!
September 7, 2020
The Eighth Day of Creation chronicles the epic story of molecular biology: from its origins in the X-ray crystallography group at Cavendish Laboratory in the 1930s and the US geneticists of the Phage Group in the 1940s, to the formulation of The Central Dogma (DNA -> RNA -> protein) in 1961, culminating in 1962 when Watson & Crick and Perutz & Kendrew shared the Nobel Prizes in chemistry and in physics, respectively. Freeland tells the story through a combination of history, detailed descriptions of experiments and results, and contemporary interviews (1970-78) with many of the scientists involved in the saga.
The Central Dogma* does not emerge from a single, continuous line of experimentation. Rather, it is a theory that Francis Crick (largely) devises by synthesizing the results from several different groups at Cavendish, Caltech, MGH/Harvard, and Institut Pasteur working in loose collaboration through periodic meetings at Cold Spring Harbor, chaired by Max Delbrück and Crick (Delbruck and Crick : molecular biology :: Niels Bohr : nuclear physics). A timeline of key experiments is as follows:
• (1944) – Oswald Avery determines DNA, not protein, is the “transforming principle”, the specific molecule responsible for heredity;
• (1949) – Linus Pauling discovers the alpha-helix structure of insulin, a common motif in many proteins and pioneers physical model-building in structural biology;
• (1953) – Watson and Crick with help from Donohoe, Rosalind Franklin, and Edwin Chargaff solve the double helix structure of DNA;
• (1954) – Gamow’s theory on the genetic code and formation of the “RNA tie club”;
• (1953-6) – Zamecnik and Hoagland discover the nature of the ribosome and tRNA through in vitro protein synthesis;
• (1958) – Meselson and Stahl prove semiconservative replication of DNA;
• (1959) – Max Perutz publishes the structure of hemoglobin after a dogged, multi-decade-long pursuit;
• (1959) – Pardee, Jacob, Monod “PaJaMo” experiment that unraveled the nature of gene repression and expression through the lac operon, with a cameo appearance from Leo Szilard to help with interpretation and theorizing;
• (1960) – Brenner, Jacob, and Meselson (with theoretical help from Monod) confirm unstable mRNA as the mediator between DNA and expression, not protein-specific ribosomes;
• (1960) – Crick and Brenner identify insertion / deletion mutations, an important step in understanding and verifying the triplet RNA code;
• (1961) – Nirenberg and Matthei’s work on poly-UUU and poly-AAA translation is exhibited in Moscow, allowing Crick to publish on the code and complete his picture of the Central Dogma.
This doesn’t even come close to describing all the critical scientists and experiments – from Lippman’s discovery of ATP, Ochoa’s 1955 identification of some RNA polymerase, or Andre Lwoff’s 1949 paper on lysogeny. The period from 1949 to 1962 was a scientific fugue, not a flowing, orderly symphony.
*NB – I see the formulation of the Central Dogma and the invention of molecular biology as one in the same. Molecular biology to me is the study of organic processes derived from the framework the Central Dogma proposes.
Judson is an excellent storyteller and did well to bring the characters to life and explain the key experiments in a way that was detailed enough to grasp, but abstracted away enough gory details to make reading a pleasure rather than a chore. I do think there is room for more diagrams and mathematics here, particularly around X-ray crystallography, Fourier synthesis and Patterson mapping. I also felt from time to time that giving readers a roadmap to orient in the story would be helpful, since the 50s really ping pong us across the world and different threads of inquisition before being synthesized in the early 60s.
This book was a joy for me to read, and I came away with a more developed sense of what a scientific golden age looks like and its key features. Building on observations from Bell Labs and Making of the Atomic Bomb:
Polymath Scientists
Many of the early molecular biologists are physicists by training: Delbruck, Perutz, Crick, Szilard, Pauling, and more. Chargaff is a chemist. Jacques Monod is a renaissance man who very nearly became an orchestra conductor instead of a scientist. Max Perutz had to be convinced by Bragg not to go off and study glaciers when the going got tough on hemoglobin. Crick studied munitions during the war, as did Bernal. Monod and Jacob both were involved with French resistance during WW2. There is an intellectual breadth and a certain naivete of all the men who brought about the revolution in molecular biology; no man was narrowly focused on a specific problem or experimental technique, and no man was deeply rooted in the status quo of biological science.
It is strange to me that we don't have these sorts of polymaths anymore.
Investigators In The Lab, Not The Office
There is not a single character in the story who sits down and spends all their time writing grants, except for the major lab administrators – Bragg at Cavendish, Watson at Cold Spring Harbor, Monod at Institut Pasteur.
It’s remarkable that all the great names in the timeline above conduct their own experiments! Perhaps with the help of 1 or 2 assistants or students, but the names you see above are largely the names who were moving the pipettes and shooting the crystals.
The Bohr Model of Collaboration
Niels Bohr served as unofficial tastemaker for the nuclear physicists of the 20s, 30s, and 40s – drawing together Fermi, Szilard, Chadwick, Teller, Bethe, Heisenberg, Hahn and more to coordinate the study of the atom – guiding research, killing bad ideas, promoting good ones, and facilitating a forum for earnest and collaborative discussion within a small group.
In molecular biology, Max Delbruck and Salvador Luria of the Phage Group play this role in summer gatherings at Cold Spring Harbor through the 40s, and Crick gradually plays a similar role in the 50s to unravel the mysteries of transcription and translation. The RNA Tie Club founded by Gamow runs in parallel, although Gamow plays less of a faciliatator role and more of an entropic force or a “chaotic good” character, tossing out controversial ideas that spur conversation.
Each great scientific moment appears to be facilitated by a Bohr-like leader who has created an informal community that promotes collaboration, respect, sets standards of excellence, and guides scientists to the most fruitful areas of research.
Pairs, Not Teams
It’s remarkable how many fruitful lines of experimentation come from a duo of two scientists with complimentary skills collaborating (this in addition to PIs being in the lab vs office). Watson and Crick, but also Monod and Jacob, Meselson and Stahl, Perutz and Kendrew, Nirenberg and Matthei, Zamecnik and Hoaglund, and more.
One could argue that the single thing that most held Rosalind Franklin back was that she didn’t have a partner, and her notebook is filled with pages of notes showing she was on the right track but couldn’t quite overcome a few hurdles that a friend might have helped with. One can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Wilkins and Franklin had gotten along. While I don’t think Franklin (and certainly not Wilkins!) should have gotten the Nobel Prize (should have just been Watson and Crick), Franklin is a tragic case of lost potential.
In any event – these pairs show up everywhere and Judson takes care to note the staunch differences in personality and approach between many of these hyper-productive duos. But note their difference from how we conduct science today. There are none of these 12 author papers with 4 or 5 who just sniffed at a draft without doing much. The experimenter and the PI and the authors are one in the same.
In 2020, progress in biology seems to me at a standstill. The human genome really didn’t end up giving us much, the brain is still a big mystery, monozygotic twin studies with low concordance are still underexplained, and despite billions and billions of dollars of investment, we have gone from perhaps 50% 5 yr survival to 65% 5 yr survival for cancer [I think largely on the back of earlier detection versus new therapeutics]. There have been some exciting developments for certain – gene therapy, and some targeted drugs, but of 72 cancer drugs approved between ’02 and ’14, we average only 2 months more survival. This is shameful. Anyone who tells you we should be proud of our progress in immunoncology or CAR-T or otherwise has low standards.
I think we ought to examine what’s different between the world of Francis Collins and the world of Francis Crick. The structure of teams, the training of scientists, and the fundamental level of ambition in biology is a world apart.
The same old navel gazing that brought us useless and expensive Foundation Medicine tests isn’t going to give us the nature of the mind, a cure for cancer, and radical life extension. If we want these things, it is time for a new Central Dogma.
The cell is a busy, messy place. The cartoon idea that an enzyme will find its substrate, that expression is neatly linked to the presence of a promoter, that post translational enzyme modifications are trivial, that we don’t have to think about chaperones and heat shock proteins, that we can JUST IGNORE INTRATUMOR HETEROGENEITY IN SOLID TUMORS LIKE IT’S NOTHING – the fruits of earlier labor have made us lazy, and it’s time to think on our own two feet again.
The Central Dogma* does not emerge from a single, continuous line of experimentation. Rather, it is a theory that Francis Crick (largely) devises by synthesizing the results from several different groups at Cavendish, Caltech, MGH/Harvard, and Institut Pasteur working in loose collaboration through periodic meetings at Cold Spring Harbor, chaired by Max Delbrück and Crick (Delbruck and Crick : molecular biology :: Niels Bohr : nuclear physics). A timeline of key experiments is as follows:
• (1944) – Oswald Avery determines DNA, not protein, is the “transforming principle”, the specific molecule responsible for heredity;
• (1949) – Linus Pauling discovers the alpha-helix structure of insulin, a common motif in many proteins and pioneers physical model-building in structural biology;
• (1953) – Watson and Crick with help from Donohoe, Rosalind Franklin, and Edwin Chargaff solve the double helix structure of DNA;
• (1954) – Gamow’s theory on the genetic code and formation of the “RNA tie club”;
• (1953-6) – Zamecnik and Hoagland discover the nature of the ribosome and tRNA through in vitro protein synthesis;
• (1958) – Meselson and Stahl prove semiconservative replication of DNA;
• (1959) – Max Perutz publishes the structure of hemoglobin after a dogged, multi-decade-long pursuit;
• (1959) – Pardee, Jacob, Monod “PaJaMo” experiment that unraveled the nature of gene repression and expression through the lac operon, with a cameo appearance from Leo Szilard to help with interpretation and theorizing;
• (1960) – Brenner, Jacob, and Meselson (with theoretical help from Monod) confirm unstable mRNA as the mediator between DNA and expression, not protein-specific ribosomes;
• (1960) – Crick and Brenner identify insertion / deletion mutations, an important step in understanding and verifying the triplet RNA code;
• (1961) – Nirenberg and Matthei’s work on poly-UUU and poly-AAA translation is exhibited in Moscow, allowing Crick to publish on the code and complete his picture of the Central Dogma.
This doesn’t even come close to describing all the critical scientists and experiments – from Lippman’s discovery of ATP, Ochoa’s 1955 identification of some RNA polymerase, or Andre Lwoff’s 1949 paper on lysogeny. The period from 1949 to 1962 was a scientific fugue, not a flowing, orderly symphony.
*NB – I see the formulation of the Central Dogma and the invention of molecular biology as one in the same. Molecular biology to me is the study of organic processes derived from the framework the Central Dogma proposes.
Judson is an excellent storyteller and did well to bring the characters to life and explain the key experiments in a way that was detailed enough to grasp, but abstracted away enough gory details to make reading a pleasure rather than a chore. I do think there is room for more diagrams and mathematics here, particularly around X-ray crystallography, Fourier synthesis and Patterson mapping. I also felt from time to time that giving readers a roadmap to orient in the story would be helpful, since the 50s really ping pong us across the world and different threads of inquisition before being synthesized in the early 60s.
This book was a joy for me to read, and I came away with a more developed sense of what a scientific golden age looks like and its key features. Building on observations from Bell Labs and Making of the Atomic Bomb:
Polymath Scientists
Many of the early molecular biologists are physicists by training: Delbruck, Perutz, Crick, Szilard, Pauling, and more. Chargaff is a chemist. Jacques Monod is a renaissance man who very nearly became an orchestra conductor instead of a scientist. Max Perutz had to be convinced by Bragg not to go off and study glaciers when the going got tough on hemoglobin. Crick studied munitions during the war, as did Bernal. Monod and Jacob both were involved with French resistance during WW2. There is an intellectual breadth and a certain naivete of all the men who brought about the revolution in molecular biology; no man was narrowly focused on a specific problem or experimental technique, and no man was deeply rooted in the status quo of biological science.
It is strange to me that we don't have these sorts of polymaths anymore.
Investigators In The Lab, Not The Office
There is not a single character in the story who sits down and spends all their time writing grants, except for the major lab administrators – Bragg at Cavendish, Watson at Cold Spring Harbor, Monod at Institut Pasteur.
It’s remarkable that all the great names in the timeline above conduct their own experiments! Perhaps with the help of 1 or 2 assistants or students, but the names you see above are largely the names who were moving the pipettes and shooting the crystals.
The Bohr Model of Collaboration
Niels Bohr served as unofficial tastemaker for the nuclear physicists of the 20s, 30s, and 40s – drawing together Fermi, Szilard, Chadwick, Teller, Bethe, Heisenberg, Hahn and more to coordinate the study of the atom – guiding research, killing bad ideas, promoting good ones, and facilitating a forum for earnest and collaborative discussion within a small group.
In molecular biology, Max Delbruck and Salvador Luria of the Phage Group play this role in summer gatherings at Cold Spring Harbor through the 40s, and Crick gradually plays a similar role in the 50s to unravel the mysteries of transcription and translation. The RNA Tie Club founded by Gamow runs in parallel, although Gamow plays less of a faciliatator role and more of an entropic force or a “chaotic good” character, tossing out controversial ideas that spur conversation.
Each great scientific moment appears to be facilitated by a Bohr-like leader who has created an informal community that promotes collaboration, respect, sets standards of excellence, and guides scientists to the most fruitful areas of research.
Pairs, Not Teams
It’s remarkable how many fruitful lines of experimentation come from a duo of two scientists with complimentary skills collaborating (this in addition to PIs being in the lab vs office). Watson and Crick, but also Monod and Jacob, Meselson and Stahl, Perutz and Kendrew, Nirenberg and Matthei, Zamecnik and Hoaglund, and more.
One could argue that the single thing that most held Rosalind Franklin back was that she didn’t have a partner, and her notebook is filled with pages of notes showing she was on the right track but couldn’t quite overcome a few hurdles that a friend might have helped with. One can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Wilkins and Franklin had gotten along. While I don’t think Franklin (and certainly not Wilkins!) should have gotten the Nobel Prize (should have just been Watson and Crick), Franklin is a tragic case of lost potential.
In any event – these pairs show up everywhere and Judson takes care to note the staunch differences in personality and approach between many of these hyper-productive duos. But note their difference from how we conduct science today. There are none of these 12 author papers with 4 or 5 who just sniffed at a draft without doing much. The experimenter and the PI and the authors are one in the same.
In 2020, progress in biology seems to me at a standstill. The human genome really didn’t end up giving us much, the brain is still a big mystery, monozygotic twin studies with low concordance are still underexplained, and despite billions and billions of dollars of investment, we have gone from perhaps 50% 5 yr survival to 65% 5 yr survival for cancer [I think largely on the back of earlier detection versus new therapeutics]. There have been some exciting developments for certain – gene therapy, and some targeted drugs, but of 72 cancer drugs approved between ’02 and ’14, we average only 2 months more survival. This is shameful. Anyone who tells you we should be proud of our progress in immunoncology or CAR-T or otherwise has low standards.
I think we ought to examine what’s different between the world of Francis Collins and the world of Francis Crick. The structure of teams, the training of scientists, and the fundamental level of ambition in biology is a world apart.
The same old navel gazing that brought us useless and expensive Foundation Medicine tests isn’t going to give us the nature of the mind, a cure for cancer, and radical life extension. If we want these things, it is time for a new Central Dogma.
The cell is a busy, messy place. The cartoon idea that an enzyme will find its substrate, that expression is neatly linked to the presence of a promoter, that post translational enzyme modifications are trivial, that we don’t have to think about chaperones and heat shock proteins, that we can JUST IGNORE INTRATUMOR HETEROGENEITY IN SOLID TUMORS LIKE IT’S NOTHING – the fruits of earlier labor have made us lazy, and it’s time to think on our own two feet again.
December 19, 2008
First published in 1979, I first read EDoC when I was in high school (and lent my original copy to my step daughter, Rae). I am currently re-reading the 1996 republished, expanded edition from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. Many advances in molecular biology have been made since this early journalistic story, but EDoC captures the exciting interplay of insights, theory, data, false starts, and ultimate successes that drove the early stages of the field. Judson provides balance by including interviews of many of the scientists associated with the discovery of the structure of DNA, the subsequent elucidation of the genetic code, and mechanisms of gene regulation including Watson, Crick, Wilkins, Chargaff, Perutz, Pauling, Donahue, Brenner, Jacob, Messelson, and Monod. Franklin was not interviewed since she died in 1958, but much documentary evidence of her contributions including lab notebook entries, interim research reports, and accounts are included.
April 11, 2007
I read this book as a senior in high school to prepare myself for college. It's now outdated, but still gives an excellent picture of the early days of molecular biology.
March 5, 2022
Just read the author's obituary in the NYTs. Was reminded how much I was enthralled by this book when I read it in 1992 or so.
June 10, 2020
What a remarkable achievement this book is. Most popular science books are written by journalists/professional writers, who, for economic reasons, have a limited amount of time to learn their subject, or by practicing scientists who know their stuff but may or may not be strong writers. And then there’s this one, where a world-class writer has dedicated a full decade of his life to the task of understanding the science and history of molecular biology, including multiple interviews over many years with most of the key players (Crick, Pauling, Monod, Watson, Jacob, and dozens more).
“The Eighth Day” covers three major topics, and focuses primarily on the decade or so after 1950 when major advances were made in these areas:
1. The discovery that DNA is the “transforming substance” that carries genetic information, and solving the structure of DNA and determining how it replicated (made famous in James Watson’s “The Double Helix”)
2. Developing the central dogma of DNA->RNA->protein, and cracking the genetic code of how DNA codes for specific proteins
3. The structure of protein molecules and how they contribute to protein function, focusing on the hemoglobin molecule
I think you need some level of scientific background to appreciate this book, probably at least the equivalent of introductory university biology. The more you already know, the more you will be able to appreciate. For a popular book, it is a demanding read. Judson takes the time to describe in detail the scientific experiments, so the reader can understand what we can (and cannot) deduce from their results. The book follows the winding roads that the scientists themselves travelled on: many patches of fog and travels down blind alleys, but advancing ever so slowly in the right direction, punctuated by occasional eurekas and beacons of light.
“The Eighth Day” covers three major topics, and focuses primarily on the decade or so after 1950 when major advances were made in these areas:
1. The discovery that DNA is the “transforming substance” that carries genetic information, and solving the structure of DNA and determining how it replicated (made famous in James Watson’s “The Double Helix”)
2. Developing the central dogma of DNA->RNA->protein, and cracking the genetic code of how DNA codes for specific proteins
3. The structure of protein molecules and how they contribute to protein function, focusing on the hemoglobin molecule
I think you need some level of scientific background to appreciate this book, probably at least the equivalent of introductory university biology. The more you already know, the more you will be able to appreciate. For a popular book, it is a demanding read. Judson takes the time to describe in detail the scientific experiments, so the reader can understand what we can (and cannot) deduce from their results. The book follows the winding roads that the scientists themselves travelled on: many patches of fog and travels down blind alleys, but advancing ever so slowly in the right direction, punctuated by occasional eurekas and beacons of light.
September 29, 2019
My reading tends to reside in three tiers. The first, books like "Recursion" by Blake Crouch, or Tina Fey's "Bossypants, are consumed in hours or at most a day or two. The second, things like Siddhartha Mukherjee's "The Gene - An Intimate History", Dan Jones "The War of the Roses" that are measured in day or weeks, and sometimes longer. Then we have the third tier - for example, any of Jonathan Israel's "Enlightenment" volumes. These are long, dense works that require months, and yes, up to a year or more to finish. Judson's "The Eighth Day of Creation:Makers of the Revolution in Biology" is one of the latter. But, oh my goodness - what an extraordinary read this was! To discover the science, the dedication, the sheer tediousness of the experimental work, but also the creativity and flashes of insight to design those experiments. This is a work to savor, to take your time with - to understand the structure and function of DNA, RNA, Hemoglobin, proteins, and protein synthesis, gene expression, and regulation. In light of today's CRISPR-Cas9, and other advanced technologies, this is the story of its foundations and beginnings.
March 26, 2024
One of the most amazing books I have ever read - fiction or non-fiction. I well know that books can change your life, this one did mine. I am now, at 72, embarking on my own project to discover and understand more about not only molecular biology, but the evolution of it. How did hemoglobin evolve? As extensively shown in the 3rd part of the book (Proteins), it is unbelievably complex and yet evolved surely as our eyes and every other remarkable characteristic of our bodies.
I think it requires at least an undergraduate course in chemistry and biology - it is written at the level of a Scientific American article (even better, of course - but hopefully that analogy makes sense). It is incredible not only for the science it explicates, but also for the stories and anecdotes he includes that give us such a human view into this transformative science. The best.
I think it requires at least an undergraduate course in chemistry and biology - it is written at the level of a Scientific American article (even better, of course - but hopefully that analogy makes sense). It is incredible not only for the science it explicates, but also for the stories and anecdotes he includes that give us such a human view into this transformative science. The best.
April 19, 2023
A thorough review of the field of structural molecular biology, covering the 1940s to the 1990s (1996 edition). Immense effort clearly went into writing this book. Author refers to himself as "absurdly bright" (pg. 639). Too technical to be a relaxing read, unless that's how you relax. Judson's most captivating writing is when he's relaying his conversations with the key scientists of that era, and describing their habitat and manner. Can't say I'd recommend Eighth Day to anyone, but the exhaustiveness of empirical detail and the author's combination of passion and right-time-right-place deserve a 4/5 rating.
August 2, 2025
Incredibly well written and researched but semi-impenetrably dense. Works in all the required concepts that culminate in the technical denouement of each of the scientific endeavors it covers, (a key part of what was missing in _The Double Helix_) but there are times where the concepts are just introduced out of the blue, and you just have to go along with it. But all in all fantastic: answers questions you didn’t even know you had
January 8, 2022
A keeper of a book. As a scientist, or someone who is interested in understanding the revolutions in molecular biology that has led to the successful therapies was based on the deciphering of the genetic code; and this book reports from it. If you had to read ONE book on this topic, this is the one
Want to read
October 31, 2019How to get rich without getting lucky from Naval.
This is a foundational book, by that it means its a original book in a given field that are very scientific in their nature.
Instead of reading a book on biotech which more advanced pick up this book.
This is a foundational book, by that it means its a original book in a given field that are very scientific in their nature.
Instead of reading a book on biotech which more advanced pick up this book.
June 18, 2019
Extraordinary details, fascinating anecdotes, and varied context. The author shines a deep perspective on why Francis Crick was one of the first and most prolific theoretical biologists.
November 12, 2019
The best of molecular biologist, what an inspiring enterprise!
Want to read
August 24, 2020recommendation: [34: Zev Weinstein - On Parenting, Boys & Generation Z - The Portal Wiki](https://theportal.wiki/wiki/34:_Zev_W...)
December 27, 2020
4.5 翻译蛮奇怪的。新的阐述知识的角度。这一切发生还不到七十年。艾弗里对DNA的提取。薛定谔的生物科普书。伽莫夫的错误假说。30岁的雅各布一边表现出对原噬菌体最大的热情，一边索尽枯肠：这是个什么东西；操纵子的诱导和溶源裂解的诱导之间的对应关系。克里克怎么通过吖啶类的诱变剂推断出他的密码三联体假说。佩鲁兹怎么发现波尔效应的意义，血红蛋白与别构效应。
January 11, 2023
This book covers how molecular biologists first discovered DNA.
History of science (or even anything) has been really fasicinating.
History of science (or even anything) has been really fasicinating.
August 15, 2023
I loved this book and thought it was extremely well written. In my opinion though, it was too heavy on the social aspects of science and did not go deeply enough in technical aspects.
July 9, 2025
Super buen recuento sobre la historia de la Biología Molecular en el siglo pasado.
August 18, 2025
A history of molecular biology. A classic.
February 15, 2025
Reads like a fly on the wall experience. Intimate, detailed and exciting. Excellent read!
July 25, 2025
The heroic epic of the twentieth century
In the mid 19th century a monk named Gregor Mendel did a series of experiments on pea plants that revealed the rules of genetic inheritance. The importance of Mendel's work was unappreciated until it was rediscovered in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns, who duplicated Mendel's work, discovered his earlier publication, and generously gave him credit.
Over the course of the twentieth century, a cast of thousands (I say that as notice that from this point on I will stop naming scientists) figured out how inheritance works, to the extent that by 1979, when Horace Freeland Judson published The Eighth Day of Creation, we had a detailed mechanistic understanding of the answer to one of the questions children have been asking for as long as there have been human children: "Why do dogs have puppies and cats kittens? Why, when you caught a cold from Mom, did you also get a cold? Why do kids look like their parents?" (Yes, I know that looks like three questions, but really, it is one.) In the process, they also slew one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse
, as XKCD tells us.
This is not exaggerated -- it is all literally true. And it didn't end in 1980. When Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech made mRNA vaccines for COVID, they were literally building on discoveries of twentieth-century molecular biologists. It's a heroic tale, arguably as exciting as the age of exploration, when European explorers traveled to every corner of the world. Depending on your tastes, you may find it even more inspiring, because the heroes of this story were not swashbuckling men who fought with swords and pistols -- they were smart men and women (far more of the former than the latter, alas -- biology was not an equal-opportunity pursuit) who had truly brilliant ideas.
It is as much a story of greatness as the early twentieth century revolutions in physics. There's a mistaken tendency to think that the intellectual inaccessibility of theoretical physics implies that physicists are smarter than biologists. This error has at times been abetted by physicists themselves.
Judson's The Eighth Day of Creation is the definitive classic story of this heroic epic. Judson does, of course, name the scientists. It's a thrilling story. Of course it's a story about science and scientists, so if you don't find those subjects interesting, it'll be rough sledding.
Blog review.
In the mid 19th century a monk named Gregor Mendel did a series of experiments on pea plants that revealed the rules of genetic inheritance. The importance of Mendel's work was unappreciated until it was rediscovered in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns, who duplicated Mendel's work, discovered his earlier publication, and generously gave him credit.
Over the course of the twentieth century, a cast of thousands (I say that as notice that from this point on I will stop naming scientists) figured out how inheritance works, to the extent that by 1979, when Horace Freeland Judson published The Eighth Day of Creation, we had a detailed mechanistic understanding of the answer to one of the questions children have been asking for as long as there have been human children: "Why do dogs have puppies and cats kittens? Why, when you caught a cold from Mom, did you also get a cold? Why do kids look like their parents?" (Yes, I know that looks like three questions, but really, it is one.) In the process, they also slew one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse
, as XKCD tells us.This is not exaggerated -- it is all literally true. And it didn't end in 1980. When Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech made mRNA vaccines for COVID, they were literally building on discoveries of twentieth-century molecular biologists. It's a heroic tale, arguably as exciting as the age of exploration, when European explorers traveled to every corner of the world. Depending on your tastes, you may find it even more inspiring, because the heroes of this story were not swashbuckling men who fought with swords and pistols -- they were smart men and women (far more of the former than the latter, alas -- biology was not an equal-opportunity pursuit) who had truly brilliant ideas.
It is as much a story of greatness as the early twentieth century revolutions in physics. There's a mistaken tendency to think that the intellectual inaccessibility of theoretical physics implies that physicists are smarter than biologists. This error has at times been abetted by physicists themselves.
Judson's The Eighth Day of Creation is the definitive classic story of this heroic epic. Judson does, of course, name the scientists. It's a thrilling story. Of course it's a story about science and scientists, so if you don't find those subjects interesting, it'll be rough sledding.
Blog review.
March 30, 2012
This is a fascinating book though it can be a very slow read for the non-scientist reader! For example, it took over a week to complete one particular page as I had to go and read up on the Bohr effect, haemoglobin's structural changes in response to oxygen stimulation, to grasp the significance of the advances in understanding of the protein. There were many more such instances, albeit less extreme.
However, the book's breadth of scope and depth of research made for an comprehensive overview of the birth of molecular biology. The book is divided into three main sections: the discovery of DNA, of RNA and the discovery of the structure of proteins. A short section in the text, together with the two-page appendix, provide the most concise but clear explanation of Fourier analysis I've ever read.
The book's especially interesting because it describes, not only the scientific advances and how they happened, but the personalities behind the names. Judson spent considerable time with every significant character in the story and paints a vivid sketch of their strengths while not ignoring their flaws. However my lingering impression is of the modesty and integrity of the dedicated - okay, probably that should be stubborn - men (mainly men and only a few women, unlike today) doggedly investigating their chosen subjects. Our debt to them, in the advances they made, is enormous.
However, the book's breadth of scope and depth of research made for an comprehensive overview of the birth of molecular biology. The book is divided into three main sections: the discovery of DNA, of RNA and the discovery of the structure of proteins. A short section in the text, together with the two-page appendix, provide the most concise but clear explanation of Fourier analysis I've ever read.
The book's especially interesting because it describes, not only the scientific advances and how they happened, but the personalities behind the names. Judson spent considerable time with every significant character in the story and paints a vivid sketch of their strengths while not ignoring their flaws. However my lingering impression is of the modesty and integrity of the dedicated - okay, probably that should be stubborn - men (mainly men and only a few women, unlike today) doggedly investigating their chosen subjects. Our debt to them, in the advances they made, is enormous.
August 28, 2008
Absolutely fantastic book, and even better journalism, though Judson styles himself an historian, not a journalist. Don't know why, nothing wrong with journalism. The quality of the interviews is terrific, the writing's wonderful (particularly when he's being reasonably straight about it and not indulging a novelist-manquee urge), and I'm enormously impressed by the amount of science teaching he manages to do -- and allow his interviewees to do -- without becoming didactic. Am grateful for the long quotes.
The DNA story's wonderful, the Monod history's un-put-downable, the portrait of Pauling's indelible. First half of the RNA story's a bit endless & shapeless and all Crick. I understand the idea of putting across the sense of bewilderment, loose ends, & the problem's lack of useful handles, but it does go on. Haven't got to the 70s mol bio story yet.
He's got an epilogue on the Rosalind Franklin story, which has unfortunately been allowed to hijack the double-helix story -- not terribly surprising, since it's good drama, but not very good science history. Anyway he weighs the case of sexism at MRC and finds none; I think he missed important subtleties of sexism in labs and antisemitism in England.
Plan to spend a while on it.
The DNA story's wonderful, the Monod history's un-put-downable, the portrait of Pauling's indelible. First half of the RNA story's a bit endless & shapeless and all Crick. I understand the idea of putting across the sense of bewilderment, loose ends, & the problem's lack of useful handles, but it does go on. Haven't got to the 70s mol bio story yet.
He's got an epilogue on the Rosalind Franklin story, which has unfortunately been allowed to hijack the double-helix story -- not terribly surprising, since it's good drama, but not very good science history. Anyway he weighs the case of sexism at MRC and finds none; I think he missed important subtleties of sexism in labs and antisemitism in England.
Plan to spend a while on it.
November 26, 2012
The science itself is fascinating, the description of the scientific process indispensible. For such a great book, it is maddeningly flawed in that, in many spots, the science is sprayed, not explained. Example: "The high-resolution map of oxyhemoglobin showed a weak, diffuse peak for the last amino-acid residue but one, tyrosine 145B, and no sign of histidine 146B. The carboxyl terminals were free to move. The low resolution map of the deoxy form, though, showed a faint loop of density extending from the carboxyl end of the beta chain..." Nowhere near a sufficient foundation was laid for this. Diagrams are far too sparse (1979 ed.). This book deserves a good rewrite and to be reread many years hence.
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