Lily E. Kay's Books

The Molecular Vision of Life

Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology

By: Lily E. Kay

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The Molecular Vision of Life

Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology

By: Lily E. Kay

This fascinating study examines the rise of American molecular biology to disciplinary dominance, focusing on the period between 1930 and the elucidation of DNA structure in the mid 1950s. Research undertaken during this period, with its focus on genetic structure and function, endowed scientists with then unprecedented power over life. By viewing the new biology as both a scientific and cultural enterprise, Lily E. Kay shows that the growth of molecular biology was a result of systematic efforts by key scientists and their sponsors to direct the development of biological research toward a shared vision of science and society. She analyzes the motivations and mechanisms empowering this vision by focusing on two key institutions: Caltech and its sponsor, the Rockefeller Foundation. Her study explores a number of vital, sometimes controversial topics, among them the role of private power centers in shaping scientific agenda, and the political dimensions of "pure" research. It also advances a sobering argument: the cognitive and social groundwork for genetic engineering and human genome projects was laid by the American architects of molecular biology during these early decades of the project. This book will be of interest to molecular biologists, historians, sociologists, and the general reader alike.

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Page Count

315

Publisher

Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195111435

ISBN 13

9780195111439

Who Wrote the Book of Life?

A History of the Genetic Code

By: Lily E. Kay

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Who Wrote the Book of Life?

A History of the Genetic Code

By: Lily E. Kay

This is a detailed history of one of the most important and dramatic episodes in modern science, recounted from the novel vantage point of the dawn of the information age and its impact on representations of nature, heredity, and society. Drawing on archives, published sources, and interviews, the author situates work on the genetic code (1953-70) within the history of life science, the rise of communication technosciences (cybernetics, information theory, and computers), the intersection of molecular biology with cryptanalysis and linguistics, and the social history of postwar Europe and the United States. Kay draws out the historical specificity in the process by which the central biological problem of DNA-based protein synthesis came to be metaphorically represented as an information code and a writing technologyand consequently as a book of life. This molecular writing and reading is part of the cultural production of the Nuclear Age, its power amplified by the centuries-old theistic resonance of the book of life metaphor. Yet, as the author points out, these are just metaphors: analogies, not ontologies. Necessary and productive as they have been, they have their epistemological limitations. Deploying analyses of language, cryptology, and information theory, the author persuasively argues that, technically speaking, the genetic code is not a code, DNA is not a language, and the genome is not an information system (objections voiced by experts as early as the 1950s). Thus her historical reconstruction and analyses also serve as a critique of the new genomic biopower. Genomic textuality has become a fact of life, a metaphor literalized, she claims, as human genome projects promise new levels of control over life through the meta-level of information: control of the word (the DNA sequences) and its editing and rewriting. But the author shows how the humbling limits of these scriptural metaphors also pose a challenge to the textual and material mastery of the genomic book of life.

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Page Count

476

Publisher

Stanford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0804734178

ISBN 13

9780804734172

The Molecular Vision of Life

Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology

By: Lily E. Kay

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The Molecular Vision of Life

Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology

By: Lily E. Kay

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

315

Publisher

Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195111435

ISBN 13

9780195111439

Who Wrote the Book of Life?

A History of the Genetic Code

By: Lily E. Kay

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Who Wrote the Book of Life?

A History of the Genetic Code

By: Lily E. Kay

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

476

Publisher

Stanford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0804734178

ISBN 13

9780804734172

Book's by Lily E. Kay

The Molecular Vision of Life

The Molecular Vision of Life

Who Wrote the Book of Life?

Who Wrote the Book of Life?

The Molecular Vision of Life

The Molecular Vision of Life

Who Wrote the Book of Life?

Who Wrote the Book of Life?

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