Volume 16, Number 9 · May 20, 1971
The Volubility of DNA
By P.B. Medawar
Genetics of the Evolutionary Process
by Theodosius Dobzhansky
Columbia, 505 pp., $10.95
The Evolution of Man and Society
by C.D. Darlington
Simon & Schuster, 752 pp., $12.95
Scientists usually make their opinions and their findings known to each other through 'papers'—contributions to learned societies or learned journals—by papers, that is to say, rather than by books. Every now and again there is a notable exception. One was Dobzhansky's Genetics and the Origin of Species; a second was E. Mayr's Systematics and the Origin of Species; a third, Simpson's Tempo and Mode in Evolution. All three were published by the Columbia University Press: surely among the really notable publishing achievements of the twentieth century. The appearance of a new book by Dobzhansky prompted me to browse again in an older edition (1941) to see if I could recapture the excitement of reading a work which did more than any other to mark the distinction between the older evolution theory and the new.
Review, 1795 words
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