
The Logic of Life
A History of Heredity
Francois Jacob(Author)
Princeton University Press
Published on 2. August 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
376 pages
978-0-691-18284-1 (ISBN)
Description
"The most remarkable history of biology that has ever been written."-Michel Foucault
Nobel Prize-winning scientist Francois Jacob's The Logic of Life is a landmark book in the history of biology and science. Focusing on heredity, which Jacob considers the fundamental feature of living things, he shows how, since the sixteenth century, the scientific understanding of inherited traits has moved not in a linear, progressive way, from error to truth, but instead through a series of frameworks. He reveals how these successive interpretive approaches-focusing on visible structures, internal structures (especially cells), evolution, genes, and DNA and other molecules-each have their own power but also limitations. Fundamentally challenging how the history of biology is told, much as Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions did for the history of science as a whole, The Logic of Life has greatly influenced the way scientists and historians view the past, present, and future of biology.
Nobel Prize-winning scientist Francois Jacob's The Logic of Life is a landmark book in the history of biology and science. Focusing on heredity, which Jacob considers the fundamental feature of living things, he shows how, since the sixteenth century, the scientific understanding of inherited traits has moved not in a linear, progressive way, from error to truth, but instead through a series of frameworks. He reveals how these successive interpretive approaches-focusing on visible structures, internal structures (especially cells), evolution, genes, and DNA and other molecules-each have their own power but also limitations. Fundamentally challenging how the history of biology is told, much as Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions did for the history of science as a whole, The Logic of Life has greatly influenced the way scientists and historians view the past, present, and future of biology.
Reviews / Votes
"Brilliant. . . . One thing the book reveals to the general reader is the interconnection of the development of biological ideas with the development of the rest of science and technology."---Jeremy Bernstein, New Yorker "[A] lucid account of man's changing ideas about heredity. . . . It seizes and stimulates the imagination."---Arnold W. Ravin, Science "An unusual and illuminating history."---Edward Edelson, Washington Post Book World
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New Jersey
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 212 mm
Width: 142 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
393 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-691-18284-1 (9780691182841)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
07/2022
1st Edition
Princeton University Press
€20.49
Available for download
Persons
Francois Jacob (1920-2013) was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1965 and was one of the world's leading molecular biologists.