I think that genetics does play an important role in people's lives. Its role can be favorable or limiting. Yet I also believe that when it seems as if your genetics are going to be a limitation, you shouldn't just accept that. You should find out how to overcome those limits or compensate for them.
The Violinist's Thumb by Sam Kean is a book dealing with DNA and evolution that I purchased from the sale cart in front of the local library's bookstore. I didn't read The Disappearing Spoon by this author though I am interested in it. I decided to put it on hold at the library. So I may be reviewing that earlier title in the forseeable future.
I learned from this book that the famous pioneering geneticist Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) was embroiled in a disagreement with his fellow liberals who prevailed on the authorities to revoke the tax exempt status of monasteries in 1874 because of that disagreement. At the time he was the abbot of an Augustinian monastery. Augustinians are an order of monks whose founding document is The Rule of Saint Augustine which was written circa 400 C.E. Mendel fought for tax exemption but didn't succeed. This made him infamous and his papers were burned. This must mean that we only know his work from secondhand sources because the originals don't exist.
Another important figure in the history of genetics, Hermann Muller, was considered a subversive who was placed under FBI surveillance. When he established an institute in Germany, the Nazis vandalized it. He joined the Communist side in the Spanish Civil War, but the Communists lost.
I'm sensing a pattern here. The best known geneticists have been dissidents. I am reminded of the Scopes Trial that centered on the theory of evolution which is scientifically accepted, but remains controversial in some American communities. I first found out about this trial by watching the movie about it, Inherit The Wind, as a teenager.
Kean discusses knots in physics which were first proposed by Lord Kelvin , a 19th century mathemetician, physicist and engineer. Lewis Carroll, which was the pseudonym of Charles Dodgson , might have read Lord Kelvin's work at university. Carroll published A Tangled Tale ,in which each chapter was called a knot, in 1880. Knotted DNA wasn't discovered until 1976.
Getting back to the history of genetics, Nobel Prize winning geneticist Barbara McClintock, fought with her mother who wanted her do more feminine things rather than science and sports such as ice skating.
It's interesting that back in the 1920's ice skating was considered a masculine sport. Now figure skating is often considered a feminine sport although there are certainly many male figure skaters. Most of the fans of figure skating are women.
So a Russian biologist named Ilya Ivanov was working on creating human/chimp hybrids that Kean calls humanzees. The Ku Klux Klan sent Ivanov irate letters warning that he was doing satanic work. He had to go as far as the Congo to find a physician who would work with him on using a chimp to impregnate human women. When a governor in the Congo told Ivanov that he couldn't do his experiments in a Congolese hospital, Ivanov went back to Russia to work in a Soviet primate station. The Soviet police arrested Ivanov for "counter-revolutionary" activities and exiled him. He was cleared of being a counter-revolutionary in 1932, but died of a brain hemorrhage soon afterward.
You know, I might have called a scientist who had such a tough time finding a place to do his work, a victim of persecution. Yet I am actually delighted that ethics triumphed in this case. While I wouldn't call Ivanov satanic like the Ku Klux Klan, I definitely consider his work horrific and utterly repulsive. The U.S. would not allow a patent to be taken out on humanzees on the grounds that the process of creating them would have violated the 13th amendment against slavery.
I had heard of The Year Without A Summer which happened as a result of a volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 1815. That was the summer when Lord Byron got together with Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and Clare Claremont in Switzerland which resulted in the novel Frankenstein. See my review of Claire's Last Secret by Marty Ambrose, which deals more centrally with this event, here. That volcano eruption caused the sun to be dimmer for six years.
There is a reference in The Violinist's Thumb to the violinist and composer Niccolo Paganini having practiced on his violin while in prison. I considered it dubious. I couldn't imagine a musician being allowed to keep a violin in a prison cell.
On the other hand, I found a website called Music For The Future which holds concerts and teaches courses in prison. There is a video from that website which is dated two years ago in which professional musicians played music written by a formerly imprisoned composer. The musicians were wearing masks. So it's definitely a Covid pandemic era video.
There is a discussion of a genetic condition called Marfan's Syndrome in this book. Lincoln may have had it, but his DNA was never tested because there was too much interest in commercial exploitation of it. If Lincoln did have Marfan's Syndrome, he might not have lived much longer even if he hadn't been assassinated.
The Violinist's Thumb has portions that were very enlightening. So I do recommend it for people who are interested in genetics.
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