Trong vòng hai mươi năm qua đã có một cuộc cách mạng trong sinh học: lần đầu tiên chúng tôi bắt đầu để hiểu làm thế nào sinh vật làm cho mình. Các cơ chế mà theo đó một trứng thụ tinh phát triển thành người lớn bây giờ có thể được nắm bắt một cách không thể tưởng tượng một vài thập kỷ trước đây. | The Art of Genes How Organisms Make Themselves Enrico Coen John Innes Centre Norwich OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Made by yixuan@ Preface Over the past twenty years there has been a revolution in biology for the first time we have begun to understand how organisms make themselves. The mechanisms by which a fertilised egg develops into an adult can now be grasped in a way that was unimaginable a few decades ago. Yet this revolution has been a curiously silent one. Our new picture of how organisms develop has been inaccessible to all but a small community of biologists. This is largely because the jargon and technical complexities have prevented many of the new and exciting findings from being communicated to a wider audience. Moreover as scientists have concentrated on unravelling the details of the story many of the broader implications of our new found knowledge have remained unvoiced. In my view this is particularly unfortunate because the study of development provides one of the most fertile meeting grounds for science art and philosophy. This book is an attempt to redress this situation. I have tried to give a broadly accessible picture of our current knowledge of how organisms develop and the implications of these findings for how we view ourselves. The book is aimed at a wide audience from the general reader with a curiosity about science to the experienced biologist who may not have had time to follow many of the latest results or to consider their various ramifications. In trying to accomplish this task I have used a few key metaphors to convey the gist of what is going on as an organism develops while at the same time providing detailed explanations of the basic mechanisms involved. At first sight it may seem that little is to be gained by using these metaphors but I would ask the reader to be patient as their true merit will start to become apparent later in the book Chapter 7 onwards . They will then allow many of the latest and most complex ideas
