The Molecular Vision of Life Caltech, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology

About this book

Molecular biology as a distinct scientific discipline had its origins in chemistry and physical biochemistry, gradually emerging in the period between 1930 and the elucidation of DNA in the mid-1950s. Today, this field has risen to a dominant position, and with its focus on deciphering genetic structure, it has endowed scientists with unprecedented power over life. In this fascinating study, however, Lily Kay argues that molecular biology did not "evolve" in a random fashion but, rather, was the result of systematic efforts by key scientists and their supporting foundations to direct the development of biological research toward a preconceived vision of science and society. The author traces and analyses the conceptual roots of molecular biology and the social matrix in which it was developed, focusing on the role of leading researchers headquartered at Caltech, and on the Rockefeller Foundation's sponsorship of the new science. The study thus explores a number of vital, sometimes controversial topics, among them the role of private power centres in shaping the scientific agenda, the political aspects of "pure" research, and how genetic engineering was envisioned by some as a potential tool for social intervention. This book will be of special interest to all molecular biologists, as well as historians and sociologists of science. However, the story told has broad significance, and it is written in an accessible, nontechnical manner, fully understandable to general readers.

Contents

1. "Social Control:" the Rockefeller Foundation's Agenda in the Human Sciences, 1913-1933
2. The Technological Frontier: Southern California and the Emergence of Life Science at Caltech
3. Visions and Realitites: The Biology Division in the Morgan Era
Interlude 1 — The Protein Paradigm
4. From Flies to Molecules: Physiological Genetics in the Morgan Era
5. A Convergence of Goals: From Physical Chemistry to Bio-Organic Chemistry
6. The Spoils of War: Immunochemistry and Serological Genetics, 1940-1945
7. Microorganisms and Macromanagement: Beadle's Return to Caltech
8. The Molecular Empire

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