The Gene: An Intimate History

by Siddhartha Mukherjee

“The answer was clearly . . . [that] the best fitted [variants] live. . . . In this way every part of an animal’s organization could be modified exactly as required.”

small thoughts, Mendel knew, often bloomed into large principles.

the gene had transformed from an abstract concept in a botanical experiment to a powerful instrument of social control. As Buck v. Bell was being argued in the Supreme Court in 1927,

genotype + environment + triggers + chance = phenotype

There is no such thing as perfection, only the relentless, thirsty matching of an organism to its environment. That is the engine that drives evolution.