Part I DNA: "He was a very remarkable fellow. Even more odd then, than later"; "DNA, you know, is Midas' gold. Everyone who touches it goes mad"; "Then they ask you, 'What is the significance of DNA for mankind, Dr Watson?'"; on T.H. Morgan's deviation and the secret of life. Part II RNA: "The number of the beast"; "My mind was, that a dogma was an idea for which there was no reasonable evidence! You see?"; "The gene was something in the minds of people as inaccessible as the material of the galaxies"; "He wasn't a member of the club". Part III Protein: "As always, I was driven on by wild expectations"; "I have discovered the second secret of life"; "Always the same impasse".
"A historian has mused that the memory of man is too frail a thread
on which to hang history; Judson's achievement, in drawing out the
memories of so many participants in the epic of molecular biology
and weaving them into a single robust skein, is magisterial. His
work fittingly commemorates a golden age which already seems as
remote as that of Darwin and Huxley."
--Nature"This reissue of a pioneering history of molecular biology,
for some years out of print, is essentially a reprint of the first
edition of 1979. Horace Judson has corrected a few minor errors
(remarkably few for such a fact-filled book), given a sharper
emphasis to Frederick Sangers' work on protein sequencing to
reflect his (Judson's) conviction of its central importance, and
added some personal details to a biographical sketch of Rosalind
Franklin. Finally, an epilogue touches very briefly on developments
in the 1970s that were the foundations for the subsequent vast
expansion of molecular biology.... This epilogue obviously is not
meant to bring Judson's original story up to the present--that
would take another large book--but only to point readers to topics
that Judson leaves for other historians to explore. The Eighth Day
of Creation has aged well, like a good vintage, and its very good
to have it available again."
--ISIS"The revelations of modern biology make a remarkable human
and scientific story, and it has never been told better than in
Horace Freeland Judson's The Eighth Day of Creation.... What is
especially fortunate is that he is a graceful writer with a keen
sense of the human as well as the scientific drama.... I finished
the book with a great sense of elation and a deepened sense of
admiration for what the human family, at its best, can accomplish."
(Review of the First Edition)
--JEREMY BERNSTEIN, New York Times Book Review"In his massive,
marvelous history of molecular biology... Judson introduces us to
many fiendishly clever experiments, some fiercely competitive
rivalries, and some of the greatest scientific minds ever to ponder
the mysteries of biology.... He has talked with nearly everyone
involved, and The Eighth Day of Creation is a unique oral history
of a scientific revolution; to my knowledge there has been nothing
else like it." (Review of the First Edition)
--LEON GUSSOW, Chicago Tribune
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