Volume 24, Number 12 · July 14, 1977
That's Life
By J.Z. Young
The Life Science: Current Ideas of Biology
by P.B. Medawar, by J.S. Medawar
Harper and Row, 196 pp., $8.95
It is a curious anomaly of history that men made a careful study of the nonliving world before they seriously examined themselves. For three centuries, the study of physics has been regarded as the very prototype of exact inquiry. Even today it holds pride of place and gets the lion's share of the money that governments devote to research. Out of the physical sciences grew the technology of the industrial revolution, giving us the many good and bad tools that dominate our life today. Biology, by comparison, has been considered as a very weak form of science and is still looked down on by many physicists and chemists. Yet the discoveries of biology and medical science have produced, in less than fifty years, changes far greater than those of the industrial revolution. They have added immensely to the health and happiness of mankind and have given us not only the problems of explosive population increase but also the knowledge that can allow the multitudes to be fed.
Review, 2305 words
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