Assimilation of Scientific Change: The Introduction of Molecular Genetics into Biology Textbooks

This paper analyzes the diffusion of the molecular revolution in biology to the level of general undergraduate texts, by focusing on five influential titles which went through multiple editions between 1950 and 1970. Such an analysis reveals that, during this period, textbooks were transformed, not only by the molecular revolution, but by complex social and economic trends. These include the reform of science curricula, and the maturation of the textbook industry. The textbooks also reveal three interesting features about the nature of the biological revolution in the 1950s and 1960s: the continued influence of the concept of `living protoplasm'; the lack of theory reduction between molecular and classical genetics; and the gradual, non-Kuhnian character of the paradigm switch from protein to nucleic acid.