DNA: The secret of life by James D. Watson with Adrian Berry, Knopf/Heinemann, $39.95/£18.99, ISBN 0375415467 Reviewed by Michael Le Page
ON A visit to southern Africa in the 1850s, the young Francis Galton was struck by the “bounteous” buttocks of a Nama (Hottentot) woman, big bottoms then being all the rage in London. He was desperate to get her measurements, but felt unable to ask his missionary host to convey this request. Then the solution came to him – he seized his sextant and worked out her dimensions by triangulation.
Galton later applied his zest for measurement to heredity.…
