书籍介绍
A fascinating history--. Literate and authoritative--.Marvelously exciting. -- The New York Times Book Review
Jonathan Weiner, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Beak of the Finch , brings his brilliant reporting skills to the story of Seymour Benzer, the Brooklyn-born maverick scientist whose study of genetics and experiments with fruit fly genes has helped revolutionize or knowledge of the connections between DNA and behavior both animal and human.
How much of our fate is decided before we are born? Which of our characteristics is inscribed in our DNA? Weiner brings us into Benzer's Fly Rooms at the California Institute of Technology, where Benzer, and his asssociates are in the process of finding answers, often astonishing ones, to these questions. Part biography, part thrilling scientific detective story, Time, Love, Memory forcefully demonstrates how Benzer's studies are changing our world view--and even our lives.
精彩摘录
- "Benzer hated the new crowds too. His laboratory's work on the growth of fly embryos, fly nerves, and in particular fly eyes had made the fly eye one of the hottest fields in neurobiology. "And there was enormous competition between Seymour's lab and Gerry Rubin's lab in Berkeley," recalls Michael As"
- "There is also an unspoken corollary that might be called Occam's Castle: Faced with several competing places to build a new science, prefer the simplest one. Pick the place that requires the least preparation, the least digging, hauling out, pouring in, and shoring up. In real estate the rule is loc"
- "So Benzer tried it. He went back to a standard gadget from physics and chemistry, a spectrophotometer. The centerpiece of a spectrophotometer is a little glass square-sided cylinder called a cuvette. When physicists or chemists have a mystery substance to identify, they pour a few drops of it into t"
- "Even with the wandering of science, there is play in the system. Science blunders along, like every sort of behavior. Max Delbruck knew that science is always improvisatory: "The grand edifice of science, built through the centuries by the efforts of many people in many nations, gives you the illusi"
- "The word 'religion' comes from the Latin 'religare', to bind loose things together."
- "At Caltech, Delbruck used to play chess with the mathematician Solomon Golomb. Delbruck spent sixty minutes to Golomb's one minute and still couldn't win. Delbruck's friends asked him why he kept losing when he gave so much thoughts to each move. Delbruck said, "I think, but he knows.""
- "Lewis himself felt his isolation painfully. "Drosophila went into almost total eclipse," he says. "Delbruck would pound the table: 'Genetics is dead! Genetics is dead! Genetics is dead!'" Over and over, Delbruck said it in so many words: Molecular biology is the only biology. (Many years later, arou"
- "他們探索生命機制時，不得不保持距離，設計各種神聖的實驗，作出種種假想、推論，像理論物理學家一樣，穿越心中重重迷霧。"能以思想跨越生命機制和觀察之間的橋樑，當然非常有趣。""
用户评论
Benzer大帅哥 ><
All time favorite！
In science, as in the rest of life, the paths are paths only in retrospect.
非常不错，虽然像是介绍Symour Benzer的一生，但更深刻的还是感受到那种科学的思索与科学的趣味
是作者所说的 关于atomic theory of the behavior的历史。所以要回到遗传学的最初，另一方面Benzor正式确立了果蝇作为神经科学模式生物的地位，所以对摩尔根的部分也有着重介绍。还有就是徳布吕克、Benzor 以及Crick都是物理学家而在基因研究中有重要甚至突破性的贡献。尤其漂亮的是，基因在染色质上的相对位置与在噬菌体上确认基因是有一定长度两个实验的对照。本书还穿插了许多实验室的故事，尤其是展现了科学界对新思潮是有从争论怀疑到逐渐接受的过程，不同科学家的观点时常有针锋相对或者存在竞争，还有就是公共舆论对生物学研究也有影响。结尾点回自由意志以及人为改造基因的伦理问题。
非常抓人的基因研究进程、多样有趣的人物和故事，再加上作者流畅的文笔，确实是一本很出色的科学史与传记的合体。不过我又是看热闹故事的兴趣高于看研究进程与一些方法描述，于是知识并没有因为读完本书而增加多少，对基因研究倒是多了几分敬畏！书里也有很多哲学层面的探讨，还能看到不同科学家的一些研究方向的选择、人情世故、性格性情。总的来说还是很棒的！相信有背景的读者会有更多收获。
Unprecedentedly well-written biography.
不愧是記者，John Weiner的文筆太好讀了，把Benzer的故事和幾個遺傳學最重要的人的故事串在一起，每個人都寫得躍然紙上，這種採訪式傳記跟Eric Kandel那本自傳完全不是一個風格的，感覺更生動，特別喜歡。但科學方面還是有點biased，但也沒辦法，畢竟是講Benzer的書，總要把基因的故事往大了說，雖然大家都知道基因不可能像早期遺傳學家想的那麼重要。這本和Sapolsky那本Behavior放在一起，似乎是個很好的組合。
在douban标注的第600本书呀。 购入日期居然是14年4月，隔了这么多年才看。仿佛有种注定的惊喜感。 超想做该书的译者呀！ 万一哪天要出中译本，请编辑找我！
一段神奇的历史，Seymour Benzer不愧是scientists’ scientist
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