Chapter 12, A Feeling for the Organism Summary and Analysis

McClintock's story illustrates the fallibility of science, and its reliance on ordinary, flawed humanity. But it shows that science can overcome the weaknesses of its members over time. It can adjust and adapt. Evelyn asks what enabled McClintock to break out of 'the box' before others did. She believed that you had to be patient, to "hear what the material has to say to you." You must proceed partly intuitively and acquire "a feeling for the organism." One must come to know an organism like one knows one's own home or body, intuitively, non-propositionally, intimately. Her method isolated her, but it nonetheless produced good science. McClintock not only embraced reason but processes partly beyond it. She is always pleased by scientific surprises. McClintock had a kind of 'reverence' for nature, a...