Volume 22, Number 18 · November 13, 1975
The Corridors of DNA
By C.P. Snow
Rosalind Franklin and DNA
by Anne Sayre
Norton, 221 pp., $8.95
As a story, the discovery of the structure of DNA has just about everything. To begin with, it is one of the great discoveries in the history of science. At least one scientist of high distinction has described it as the very greatest. That depends on whether one's view is centered on life in our corner of the cosmos. To take the most understated view, the discovery is certainly the conclusive half of Darwinism. We now know how, from the primordial soup to ourselves, hereditary information has been transmitted, without which life could not have emerged. This second half of Darwinism is intellectually more final than the first, and will have more effect on how human beings think of their condition and themselves. In scientific terms, it is beautifully simple, almost ludicrously so. As one devout unbeliever cried out: 'Why has God such a remarkable predilection for rather dull nucleic acids?'
Review, 2338 words
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