Genetics is the newest of all sciences. Nothing useful was known about heredity until just over a century ago, and what Mendel learned then was used to justify eugenics and racism. Now genetics is exploding, and we have discovered the complete sequence of the DNA letters of the 60,000 working genes needed to make a human being.
This book takes us from Mendel to the human gene map and the treatment of inborn disease. It shows how DNA was discovered, and explains how some genes may act in their own interests as much as in the interests of those who carry them. Like it or not, many of us will have to make moral decisions in which genetics plays a part. This book gives us the information needed to do so.
