New paths in genetics / by J.B.S. Haldane.

  • J.B.S. Haldane
Date:
1941
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: New paths in genetics / by J.B.S. Haldane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    New Paths in Genetics of the omission of a unit process which can so far only be defined on the morphological level (for if I gained nothing else from ten years' work under so great a biochemist as Hopkins I gained the conviction that biochemical explanations are more fundamental than morphological). The morphologist might ask, What happens to a mouse which cannot reabsorb bone once it is formed? The geneticist can tell him. The geneticist can even answer the much more sensational question, What happens to a mouse embryo with no notochord I say embryo because such organisms never become mice in any ordinary sense of that word. In so far as we can answer such questions it is clear that we can supplement the work of*the Spemann school. The goal of this branch of genetics is to give a com¬ plete account of the functions of every gene. As there appear to be several thousand genes in a cell, this goal would involve a fairly complete account of the bio¬ chemistry of the cell, and is some centuries ahead of us. But on the way to this distant end we shall gain a detailed knowledge of biochemistry and develop¬ mental physiology which will be of the utmost value. In the field of individual psychology the geneticist has a similar but even harder task. No sane person doubts that environment has some effect both on character and intellectual achievement. But it is equally sure that in- very similar environments different people behave differ- 24
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