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Genetics, like all scientific disciplines, is a human endeavor.
Thus, the lives of geneticists - their friendships, colleagues and
associations - play an important role in the historical development
of the science. This book summarizes the history of genetics by
reviewing the lives of the prominent and influential researchers
beginning with the earliest and simplest branches of genetics
(studies of inheritance and mutation) and ending with the human
genome project - the pinnacle of genetics research of the 20th
century. Key selling features: Summarizes the lives of important
genetics researchers Reviews the development of important
foundational concepts Highlights the way new technologies and
methods have advanced the study of genetics Explores the influence
of genetics in other biomedical fields Avoids simplistic
chronological summary of genetics
Genetics, like all scientific disciplines, is a human endeavor.
Thus, the lives of geneticists - their friendships, colleagues and
associations - play an important role in the historical development
of the science. This book summarizes the history of genetics by
reviewing the lives of the prominent and influential researchers
beginning with the earliest and simplest branches of genetics
(studies of inheritance and mutation) and ending with the human
genome project - the pinnacle of genetics research of the 20th
century. Key selling features: Summarizes the lives of important
genetics researchers Reviews the development of important
foundational concepts Highlights the way new technologies and
methods have advanced the study of genetics Explores the influence
of genetics in other biomedical fields Avoids simplistic
chronological summary of genetics
Haldane, Mayr, and Beanbag Genetics presents a summary of the
classic exchange between two great biologists - J.B.S. Haldane and
Ernst Mayr - regarding the value of the contributions of the
mathematical school represented by J.B.S. Haldane, R.A. Fisher and
S. Wright to the theory of evolution. Their pioneering
contributions from 1918 to the 1960s dominated and shaped the field
of population genetics, unique in the annals of science. In 1959,
Mayr questioned what he regarded as the beanbag genetic approach of
these pioneers to evolutionary theory, "an input or output of
genes, as the adding of certain beans to a beanbag and the
withdrawing of others." In 1964, Mayr's contention was refuted by
Haldane in a remarkably witty, vigorous and pungent essay, "A
defense of beanbag genetics" which compared the mathematical theory
to a scaffolding within which a reasonably secure theory
expressible in words may be built up. Correspondence between
Haldane and Mayr is included.
Beanbag genetics has come a long way since 1964. Mayr's (1959)
critique of simple uncomplicated population genetics is no longer
valid. Population genetics today includes much more than Mayr's
beanbag genetics. Population genetics models now include multiple
factors, linkage, dominance and epistasis. These may be regarded as
the advanced beanbag models. Furthermore, population genetics and
developmental genetics have become interdependent. Contemporary
beanbag genetics includes molecular clocks, nucleotide diversity,
coalescence and DNA-based phylogenetic trees, along with the four
major holdovers from classical genetics, mutation, selection,
migration and random drift. Molecular genetics has made it possible
to study evolution rates at the nucleotide level. It is also
possible today to compare DNA similarities and divergence in
diverse species of animals and plants, which were not previously
crossable.
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