'The living world is a sort of combinatory of a finite number of elements, resembling a giant Meccano. This view indicates a radical change of perspective which occurred in the field of biology during the last few years.
'Scientists navigate between two opposing forces: what is wished for and what is feasible. Without the feasible, wishes remain unrealised dreams. But if there were no wishes, the feasible would be simply boring. It is often difficult to resist a dream, but the process of experimentation helps to contain the imagination. At every step, scientists are exposed to criticism and to experience, in order to limit the dream element in their representation of the world that they are devising. The scientific process consists of constantly confronting what may be with what is.
“The issues addressed here include molecules, reproduction and evolutionary changes. There is also an examination of how biologists work, and of how they view beauty and truth, good and bad'
François Jacob

'François Jacob has the artistry of writing in the clearest of styles about the most complex laws of biology.' Le Monde
'...In this fascinating book in which the most complex problems are made accessible to the general reader, François Jacob tells us about today';s and tomorrow's biology, a science which is both promising and threatening.'Le Figaro Littéraire


François Jacob won the Nobel Prize for Medicine.