The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology by Lily E. Kay

Abstract

TECHNOLOGYAND CULTURE Book Reviews 883 embedded in both federal science policy and legal interpretation as a crucial incentive to innovation. SheilaJasanoff’s study of risk assessment at the Environmental Protection Agency—what she too efifacingly calls “a modest exemplar of the way to study ‘science after ’40’ ”—demon­ strates how much political scientists can teach us about interpreting the regulatory structure so central in the postwar state. As those of us working in the field know all too well, the documentary sources for the history of recent science present some unique chal­ lenges. Beyond the more or less straightforward problems of classified and proprietary material, electronic technologies that do not leave paper trails, and the massive quantities of material, there are more subtle issues about how our sources may be shaping our histories. In a thoughtful analysis of the cold fusion episode, Bruce Lewenstein shows how media coverage “framed” its meaning for the public and the scientific community alike, in ways that future historians will have to consider. Joan Wamow-Blewett surveys the efforts to preserve the record of recent science and technology and provides an invaluable guide to disciplinary history centers, archival projects, and publications. As might be expected, corporations and government agencies are saving the records and funding the research. Reading through the list with Lewenstein’s critique in mind raises some troubling questions about the sources of our sources and how they may be framing the meaning of recent science in ways we have not even really begun to consider. Stuart W. Leslie Dr. Leslie teaches the history ofscience and technology atJohns Hopkins University and recendy published The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford. The Molecular Vision ofLife: Caltech, the RockefellerFoundation, and the Rise of the New Biology. By Lily E. Kay. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. x+304; illustrations, notes, index. $49.95. It can reasonably be claimed that molecular biology is one of the defining sciences of the late 20th century. Not only is it an intellectual enterprise with remarkable scholarly fruits, it is also widely seen to underpin biotechnology in a manner that seemingly exemplifies the relationships between science and high technology. The early histories such as the 1966 Festschrift for Max Delbruck, Phage and the Origins of MolecularBiology, portrayed a straightforward historical progression seen through the lens of one key school. As professional historians took over, however, developments seemed to become more complex. Even the phrase “molecular biology” proved to have been problematic: its most significant early use in the 1930s was by Warren Weaver, not an intellectual giant but an officer of the Rockefeller Foundation. His work has attracted studies of the foundation’s proactive strategies, which have 884 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGYAND CULTURE proved to be among the liveliest and most dynamic aspects of the history of science as a whole. Major contributors have included Pnina Abir-Am and Robert Kohler in their studies focused on molecular biology and the Rockefeller, respectively. In a series of papers and in his recent book Partners in Science, Kohler showed the complex factors underlying the motivations of foundation officers such as Warren Weaver and their clients, including such luminaries as Linus Pauling. From the work of Abir-Am, we are now aware that there were many institutional traditions underpinning modern molecular biology. Cambridge, England, is one site that is attracting much attention; Paris’s Pasteur Institute, home of Jacob and Monod, was also crucial. Many other key developments, whether associated with Morgan, Beadle, or Delbruck, took place at Caltech, whose own history has in its turn been recounted by Judith Goodstein. Now Lily Kay has brought together much of the existing work to give us a coherent account ofthe evolution ofmolecular biology in Pasadena. Although this work would not have been lessened by a greater acknowledgment of the contribution ofothers, it does go beyond existing literature in the strength of its claims about the way in which goals of social control in the vision of key players—as patrons in the Pasadena area, sponsors at the Rockefeller, and researchers at the university— underpinned the endeavor of molecular biology. In the era of the seamless web, complex...