The Century of the Gene (review)

Evelyn Fox Keller. The Century of the Gene. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2000. 186 pp., illus. $22.95.

Those who have read books by Evelyn Fox Keller may have already noticed her engagement with the issue of the interrelationships between language and science. These interrelationships have formed the context for her discussions of a wide variety of topics, including scientific biography, the role of gender in science, evolution, and molecular biology. In The Century of the Gene she turns to language once again, this time to analyze the meaning of the word “gene” through the twentieth century, not only to explain key concepts but also to illuminate important problems in the field of genetics and molecular biology.

Timed to appear shortly after the publication of the first draft of the Human Genome Project, Keller’s stated aim in this book is to “celebrate the surprising effects that the successes of the [genome] project have had on biological thought” (p. 5). Simultaneously a history and a critical analysis of a discipline, the book tackles the main issues in modern genetics and genomics, looking at such fundamental questions as the form and function of genes and their relationship to building an organism. Concluding with a section entitled, “What are genes for?” Keller examines the future of genetics in the context of the revelations of the genome project. As she rightly points out, genetics and the gene have undergone a powerful transformation in the course of the century, from 1909, when the term “gene” was a relatively obscure term coined to represent a unit of heredity, until the present, when the word pervades the popular press and where, with the sequence of the genome in hand, scientists are realizing that our knowledge about the information we store and how it plays itself out during our lifetimes is far from complete. In light of these developments, Keller contends that the word “gene” is limited in its explanatory power and argues for the development of a new language and vocabulary which will enable us to better deal with the complexity of biological information, organization, and development.

As with her other books, this one is quite brief, and as always, its brevity should not mislead readers. In science, as in fashion, elegance lies in understatement, a weapon that Keller wields with great facility. The price paid for such sophistication is accessibility; this book is not for the casual layperson or even a novice student hoping for a quick course in genetics. The Century of the Gene serves as an important signal to biologists in all spheres of investigation to start thinking�and thinking hard�about the implications of their discoveries and the language in which they describe it, but it is a warning that only insiders would recognize. Unless one has a basic notion (albeit in Keller’s estimation a flawed and incomplete notion) of what a gene is, it is difficult to grasp the power and subtleties of her arguments for revamping the concept or providing genetics with a new vocabulary.

It should be noted also that, for all her arguments about the inadequacies of the word and its connotations, not once does Keller offer an alternative. This is perhaps not necessary, or even desirable, in a book like this because Keller is examining the problem as a historian and philosopher and not as a bench scientist, but the fact is worth noting because it reveals the inherent difficulties in executing a proposal such as hers. Without the basic working definition of the gene as we understand it today�as a structural and functional unit of heredity�there is nothing for us to hold on to, as we try to make sense of the information that we uncovered through the Human Genome Project. As fuzzy and shape changing as the word “gene” is, it is still an essential ingredient to understanding biology, heredity, and...