Why do cats give birth to kittens, lions to lion-cubs, and rabbits to baby rabbits? Why do human children, too, not only outwardly look like their parents, but also resemble them in character and disposition? Why are twins as like as two peas or quite different? Why are some babies born monsters? Can man remake animals and plants to order? Questions like those are the field of this book. It describes the quests that led to major discoveries in genetics, and the obstacles encountered by researches, and tells about the scientists who study heredity, and how to change it. The author, a prominent biologist himself, takes the reader to research laboratories, farm fields, and hospitals, opening up before him the whole broad field of modern genetics. Why I'm Like Dad received the award of the USSR Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge (Znaniye) for the best popular science writing in 1967.ContentsContents PROLOGUE 7 The Professor v the Canon 7POSTHUMOUS FAME 13The Great Mystery 13 Vesicles and Cells 15 The Academy Sponsors a Contest 19 Academies and Science 24 Johann Becomes Gregor 27 Laws of Nature 31 The Game of Dice 35 A Mad Hypothesis 39 The Abbot of St. Thomas' Monastery 44 Sixteen Years On 48FLIES AND ELEPHANTS 52Like in a Film 52 The Dance of the Chromosomes 55 The Halving Process 57 Hypothesis Becomes Theory 59 The Vinegar Fly 62 The Map of Heredity 66 Show Me a Gene 70 How Does It Happen? 77THE LAWS OF VARIETY 81The Story of a Suicide 81 An Engineer Challenges a Scientist 87 New But Long Forgotten 91 Geneticists Get to Work 94 The Fate of a White Crow 101 The Great Synthesis 105 A New Lease of Life 111 Creators of Abundance 116GENES UNDER FIRE 118A Fortress Surrenders 118 Insidious Rays 125 Atomic Firing Range 127 The Birth of a Science 133 A Riddle Answered 138 From Iodine to Yperite 142 Revival of Cell 148 Danger Retreats 153 For the Good of Man 159MOLECULES THAT REPRODUCE THEMSELVESAn Unexpected Toast 165 Leo Tolstoy and the 'Things' 170 Azimov's Law 174 Form and Substance 179 Self-replicating Molecules? 181 Suspicion Falls on Nucleic Acid 186 Evidence Piles Up 190CINDERELLA BECOMES A PRINCESS 198Molecules Duplicate Themselves 198 Checking the Hypothesis 204 The Theoreticians Take Over 210 Man-made Nucleic Acids 216 Nirenberg's Triumph 222THE ABC OF HEREDITY 226After the Ball 226 A Sensation 232 I Look For a Pattern 235 Further Difficulties 237 The Three Roads 241WHY I'M LIKE DAD, AFTER ALL? 250 Three Effective Principles 250 Knight's Move 253 Wiser Than Solomon 259 Genes and Man 262