The Eighth Day of Creation

Judson wrote the definitive history of molecular biology, based on extensive interviews with the participants conducted while most were still alive, covering the period from the 1930s through the early 1970s.

The narrative runs through three problems. The structure of DNA, covering Avery's demonstration that DNA carries heredity, the work at King's College by Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, Pauling's incorrect model, and the Watson and Crick solution. The genetic code, covering how the sequence of bases specifies proteins, the work of Crick, Brenner, Nirenberg and others, and the experiments that cracked it. And the regulation of gene expression, covering Jacob and Monod's operon model, which explained how a cell with identical DNA in every cell produces different behaviour in different tissues.

Judson's method is to reconstruct the reasoning as the participants experienced it, including the wrong turns, the misinterpreted data and the disputes over priority, which makes it a study of how scientific discovery actually proceeds rather than a chronology of results. His treatment of Rosalind Franklin's contribution and of how her data reached Watson and Crick is careful and predates most of the subsequent argument.

The book is long and demanding, and the science requires attention. It is regarded as among the best histories of science written and its interview material is irreplaceable. It ends in the early 1970s and covers nothing of recombinant DNA, sequencing or the subsequent biotechnology industry.