The Geneticist Who Played Hoops With My DNA
William Morrow, 2005 273 pp. hardcover, $25.95 ISBN 0060537388 | ISBN: 0-060-53738-8
What is one to make of a book constructed around interviews with eight prominent scientists, in which each is given an alias taken from the Bible, Shakespeare's works or mythology? More than a few readers will find this sort of thing rather frivolous, and there is the danger that complicated individuals will be caricatured. If you forgive the ridiculous title, however, David Ewing Duncan's book, The Geneticist Who Played Hoops With My DNA, is worth reading. This is in part because the author is not entirely serious about the nicknames, but mostly because he's adept at mapping out the areas where personality and science intersect. No doubt there is a danger to this as well, as some would argue that the focus should be on the work itself, rather than on the practitioners. Fear not. Duncan doesn't bother pretending. He baldly states that the personalities of the scientists are precisely what he wants to know about: “The science emanates from their minds, and from their personal stories, but also from who they are: their hopes and fears; their humility, their arrogance, and the ambition that drive them forward into discoveries and dictates how they react to the possibility of miracles, and of disasters.” The author mentions in passing that, of course, the circumstances of the age are also important to understand, but obviously he wants to take the measure of these individuals to find out if we can trust the people who are tinkering with the stuff of life. In the end, whether you buy this approach or not, the raw data are interesting.
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