Décryptez les mécanismes cellulaires qui fondent l’hérédité et le développement des êtres vivants. The Cellular Basis of Heredity and Development revisite les idées reçues sur la transmission des caractères et éclaire, avec rigueur scientifique.

The observations of men in all ages have established the fact that in general "like produces like," and that, in spite of many exceptions, children are in their main characteristics like their parents. And yet offspring are never exactly like their parents, and this has led to the saying that "like does not produce like but only somewhat like." What is meant is that there are general resemblances but particular differences between parents and offspring... Heredity was, as Balzac said, "a maze in which science loses itself." Much still remains to be discovered about inheritance, but the principles of Mendel have served as an Ariadne thread to guide science through this maze of apparent contradictions and exceptions in which it was formerly lost.

One of the greatest results of the doctrine of organic evolution has been the determination of man's place in nature. For many centuries it has been known that in bodily structures man is an animal-that he is born, nourished and developed, that he matures, reproduces and dies just as does the humblest animal or plant... One of the greatest and most far-reaching themes which has ever occupied the minds of men is the problem of development... The fact of development is everywhere apparent; its principal steps or stages are known for thousands of animals and plants; even the precise manner of development and its factors or causes are being successfully explored. Let us review some of the principal events in the development of animals, and particularly of man, and then consider some of the chief factors and processes of development.