A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock Summary
Evelyn Fox Keller

A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock Summary

A Feeling for the Organism is the story of the rise, marginalization and rediscovery of Barbara McClintock and her crucially important work in cytology and genetics, which ultimately led to a revolution in the understanding of the human genome. The author of the book, Evelyn Keller, is a geneticist herself who learned of McClintock's pivotal work as she passed through graduate school. She decided to explore the life of this unusual woman and scientist, telling McClintock's story in her own words and the words of those who knew her.

The book begins with a historical overview of the culture of the genetics community and related sciences from the 1920s through the 1980s, the vast stretch of time over which McClintock's work took place. We discover that early in the 1920s, genetics was a kind of standalone science. It was only rediscovered after Mendel in 1900, two years before McClintock was... View more of the A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock Summary