Customer Reviews

George Beadle, An Uncommon Farmer (History)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

High marks for telling an interesting story well. George Beadle was a old-fashioned, principled country boy from Nebraska. But he and a cast of brilliant colleagues revolutionized how biology is done, and that is the highlight of the book. It is best when showing how Beadle got where he did scientifically. George Beadle was a driven, brilliant workaholic who kept his emotions tightly bottled, like his flies, except fpr short, well-directed bursts of anger directed at lab workers for sloppiness. His wonderful institutional personality contrasts sharply with more infamous, disagreeable sorts, like Delbruck and Watson, who appear later in the book. The book moves along smartly and efficiently, but lapses in a couple areas. I recognize this is a book about biology, but it's also a biography, and so Beadle's personal life is fair game, besides being inherently as interesting as much of the later administrative info, in which the book becomes bogged down. So, here goes: Frequent references are made to the unpleasant personality of George Beadle's first wife, Marion. But no attempt is made to flesh this out in any effective way. What did she say and do that was so offensive to so many people. What was her problem? She remains too much of a mystery, given that she was an important part of Beadle's life. This lack of info contrasts with the often overly detailed, and somewhat murky explanation of the neurospora life cycle. I had to read it three times to understand what they were talking about and have taught this stuff for 20 years. The authors are scientists, not historians or novelists, and it shows. Still, it's close to a page-turner for the first half.

A page turner on the excitement of uncovering many secrets of life from the rediscovery of Mendel to the threshold of revealing the genetic dictionary and how it is translated into living forms told by two leading biochemical geneticists.