Genetics is the newest of all sciences. Nothing useful was known about inheritance until just over a century ago, and what Mendel learned was used to justify eugenics and racism. Now genetics is exploding, and before the end of the 20th century we may have the complete code, written in 3,000,000,000 letters of DNA, of what it takes to make a human being. This book goes from Mendel to the human gene map and the treatment of inborn disease, and with the help of Borin Van Loon's illustrations, it shows how DNA was discovered and how some genes may act in their own interests as much as of those who carry them. Many of us will have to make moral decisions in which genetics plays a part. This book gives the information needed to do so.