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43rd out of 45 books
—
27 voters
Feeling for the Organism
Barbara McClintock was one of the premier investigators in cytology and classical genetics, but her work was pushed out of the mainstream by the revolution in molecular biology in the middle of this century. Thirty years later, the simple truths sought by research scientists whose training was closer to physics than biology continued to prove elusive, and the discovery of...more
Paperback, 235 pages
Published
February 15th 1984
by W.H. Freeman & Company
(first published July 1983)
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Oct 01, 2010
Ann
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
someone who has at least a little knowledge of biology and genetics
This book is an insightful journey into the life and work of an accomplished scientist, and does a great job of showing the challenges McClintock faced for being a radical thinker—one who explored her subject to a depth and with an intuition unlike that of any of her peers, and who explained her discoveries in such exhaustive detail that others had difficulty following it. McClintock's life and work spanned most of the 20th century. I vaguely recognized her discoveries from my college biology an...more
For Ada Lovelace day this year, I decided to read a book about a female scientist with whom I wasn't familiar. After some searchin--in which I discovered that nearly every book I could find about Maria Mitchell, the first prominent female astronomer was for kids--I settled on Barbara McClintock, a pioneering geneticist and cytologist who worked from the 1920s into the 1980s. Some thoughts:
* Keller does a nice job oscillating between discussion of McClintock's work and summaries of the concepts...more
* Keller does a nice job oscillating between discussion of McClintock's work and summaries of the concepts...more
Quotes I love---
"The word 'understanding' and the particular meaning she attributed to it, is the cornerstone of Barbara McClintock's entire approach to science. For her, the smallest details provided the keys to the larger whole. It was her conviction that the closer her focus, the greater her attention to individual detail, to the unique characteristics of a single plant, of a single kernel, of a single chromosome, the more she could learn about the general principles by which the maize plant...more
"The word 'understanding' and the particular meaning she attributed to it, is the cornerstone of Barbara McClintock's entire approach to science. For her, the smallest details provided the keys to the larger whole. It was her conviction that the closer her focus, the greater her attention to individual detail, to the unique characteristics of a single plant, of a single kernel, of a single chromosome, the more she could learn about the general principles by which the maize plant...more
THE biography of Barbara McClintock, the geneticist who won the Nobel prize in 1983 at the age of 82, forty years after her pioneering chromosomal work on gene transportation, working with maize plants in Cold HArbor Labs, Long Island.
Barbara McClintock was a brilliant female scientist, unwilling to settle for a “woman’s job” teaching when she was clearly cut out for research. Her intelligence and insight eventually put her discoveries so far ahead of the rest of her field that it took decades for her to receive the recognition she deserved. In this biography, we learn about both her struggles as a women in science and the details of her Nobel prize winning research.
Read more here....
Read more here....
Nov 06, 2011
Kelsie
added it
This book is definitely for the scientific mind. It provides a look into the world of science.
...why it doesn't matter what conventional science thinks... you may be decades ahead...
this book literally changed my life. i'm reading it again :)
Great book.
Amazing scientist.
Amazing scientist.
I really like learning about woman who overcome and make a name for themselves. Science is a difficult place for woman and she did a lot for biology!
What an amazing book and woman. Keller's treatment of her life is true to McClintock's science and her personality. Absolutely fabulous.
Will gave me this book for my 19th birthday and now I am a PhD student working in a Drosophila genetics lab.
Will's pretty canny.
Will's pretty canny.
Feb 27, 2008
amanda
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
scientists
Recommended to amanda by:
Dr. Lynn Clark
Fantastic biography of Barbara McClintock, the discoverer of transposons.
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Evelyn Fox Keller (born 1936) is an American physicist, author, and feminist and is currently a Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Keller has also taught at New York University and in the department of rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley.
Keller received her B.A. in physics from Brandeis University in 1957 and continued her st...more
More about Evelyn Fox Keller...
Keller received her B.A. in physics from Brandeis University in 1957 and continued her st...more
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