This course offers a look at the people and social context that created the modern science of heredity, from the revolution in agricultural breeding to the promises of genetic engineering. We’ll examine the movement for improving animal breeds and crops in the 1800s, and the theories of Gregor Mendel, Charles Darwin and Francis Galton about the laws of heredity. We will consider the invention of “genetics” in the early 20th century, the rise and fall of its application in eugenics, the origins of molecular biology in the discovery of DNA’s structure and function, and the early days of genetic engineering.

Registration deadline: Oct. 24