Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

The key to understanding how we pass down our traits from one
generation to the next was to be found in the genes. But how do
genes work? Because the community was focused on mapping, it
made the physical architecture of the genes the primary factor. It
was a mechanistic picture. There must be something in the structure
of the genes that is the determining factor.
Max Delbrück and Linus Pauling were two scientists who held
the reductionist view that biology is just a complex application of
physics. Thus, they began the search for the molecular processes
world was split between those who thought that proteins were the
responsible agents and those who thought that deoxyribonucleic
acid (DNA) was the active molecule.
Pauling and Delbrück were convinced that it was DNA and set out
it was built, the processes of heredity would reveal themselves. If
only we knew the architecture of DNA, we would be able to reduce
the most important property of life to a purely physical basis.
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