Chapter 10 Summary and Analysis

In Chapter 10, called "Life's Own Code (The Organism Is Written in the Egg)," Gleick explains how information theory came to play a role in the modern understanding of genetics. The existence of the "gene" as a basic element of genetics had been theorized before the mechanics of genetic reproduction was fully understood, Gleick writes. It had long been noted that physical traits were inheritable and that they had something to do with the chromosomes, which had been examined. Schrodinger and others theorized that genes were a kind of code for constructing an organism and went looking for insight into how many there might be and how they might actually work.

In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick published their now famous paper in which they describe their discovery of the role of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, a substance that was found within...