Book Reviews

The 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth is a good time to review Jim Endersby’s book A Guinea Pig’s History of Biology.This well-written book is a series of short articles about major events in the development of genetics. Endersby’s heroes in the stories are the experimental subjects of observation or experiment, as well as the observer/experimenter.This includes such unexpected heroes as the Quagga, a now extinct zebra, the evening primrose, and corn, as well as the betterknown orchids and Mendel’s peas, and the more recent choice of experimental subjects—Drosophila, Arabidopsis, zebrafish, and mice.Woven into the story is the struggle to make sense of biological variation and the 18thand 19th-century skills in animal and plant breeding, and to reconcile it all with orthodox religious belief in divine creation. Endersby also explores the basis for our modern effort to understand the role of sex in evolution. The most important message to send to prospective readers of this book is that it is well written and enjoyable.The individual episodes are somewhat in the style of mystery stories, with real suspense that draws the reader on and on.The book is to be read for pleasure, as well as insight into the struggles of remarkable scientists and their fascinating experimental subjects.A subtext is the growth of science from casual to systematic observation, and then to organized experiment.