The Seeds of Life
From Aristotle to da Vinci, from Sharks' Teeth to Frogs' Pants, the Long and Strange Quest to Discover Where Babies Come From
Published on 6. June 2017
320 pages
978-0-465-09496-7 (ISBN)
Description
Why cracking the code of human conception took centuries of wild theories, misogynist blunders, and ludicrous mistakes
Throughout most of human history, babies were surprises. People knew the basics: men and women had sex, and sometimes babies followed. But beyond that the origins of life were a colossal mystery. The Seeds of Life is the remarkable and rollicking story of how a series of blundering geniuses and brilliant amateurs struggled for two centuries to discover where, exactly, babies come from.
Taking a page from investigative thrillers, acclaimed science writer Edward Dolnick looks to these early scientists as if they were detectives hot on the trail of a bedeviling and urgent mystery. These strange searchers included an Italian surgeon using shark teeth to prove that female reproductive organs were not 'failed' male genitalia, and a Catholic priest who designed ingenious miniature pants to prove that frogs required semen to fertilize their eggs.
A witty and rousing history of science, The Seeds of Life presents our greatest scientists struggling-against their perceptions, their religious beliefs, and their deep-seated prejudices-to uncover how and where we come from.
Throughout most of human history, babies were surprises. People knew the basics: men and women had sex, and sometimes babies followed. But beyond that the origins of life were a colossal mystery. The Seeds of Life is the remarkable and rollicking story of how a series of blundering geniuses and brilliant amateurs struggled for two centuries to discover where, exactly, babies come from.
Taking a page from investigative thrillers, acclaimed science writer Edward Dolnick looks to these early scientists as if they were detectives hot on the trail of a bedeviling and urgent mystery. These strange searchers included an Italian surgeon using shark teeth to prove that female reproductive organs were not 'failed' male genitalia, and a Catholic priest who designed ingenious miniature pants to prove that frogs required semen to fertilize their eggs.
A witty and rousing history of science, The Seeds of Life presents our greatest scientists struggling-against their perceptions, their religious beliefs, and their deep-seated prejudices-to uncover how and where we come from.
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Edward Dolnick
The Seeds of Life
From Aristotle to Da Vinci, from Sharks' Teeth to Frogs' Pants, the Long and Strange Quest to Discover Where Babies Co
Book
06/2017
Basic Books
€38.50
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Person
Edward Dolnick is the author of The Forger's Spell, Down the Great Unknown and the Edgar Award-winning The Rescue Artist. A former chief science writer at the Boston Globe, he has written for the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine, and many other publications. There are over 130,000 copies of his books in print. He lives with his wife near Washington, D.C.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Table of Contents
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Time Line
- PROLOGUE England in the Early 1630s
- PART ONE: PEERING INTO THE BODY
- ONE Onward to Glory
- TWO Hidden in Deep Night
- THREE Swallowing Stones and Drinking Dew
- FOUR Unmoored in Time
- FIVE "Double, Double Toil and Trouble"
- SIX Door A or Door B?
- PART TWO: THE SEARCH FOR THE EGG
- SEVEN Missing: One Universe (Reward to Finder)
- EIGHT Sharks' Teeth and Cows' Eggs
- NINE The Egg, At Last
- TEN A World in a Drop of Water
- ELEVEN "Animals of the Semen"
- PART THREE: RUSSIAN DOLLS
- TWELVE Dolls Within Dolls
- THIRTEEN The Message in God's Fine Print
- FOURTEEN Sea of Troubles
- FIFTEEN The Rabbit Woman of Godliman
- SIXTEEN "All in Pieces, All Coherence Gone"
- SEVENTEEN The Cathedral That Built Itself
- EIGHTEEN A Vase in Silhouette
- PART FOUR: THE CLOCKWORK TOPPLES AND A NEW THEORY RISES
- NINETEEN Frogs in Silk Pants
- TWENTY A Drop of Venom
- TWENTY-ONE The Craze of the Century
- TWENTY-TWO "I Saw the Dull Yellow Eye of the Creature Open"
- TWENTY-THREE The Nose of the Sphinx
- TWENTY-FOUR "The Game Is Afoot"
- TWENTY-FIVE Caught!
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Illustration Credits
- Bibliography
- Notes
- Index
