This biographical study illuminates one of the most important yet misunderstood figures in the history of science. Barbara Mc Clintock (1902-1992), a geneticist who integrated classical genetics with microscopic observations of the behavior of chromosomes, was regarded as a genius and as an unorthodox, nearly incomprehensible thinker. In 1946, she discovered mobile genetic elements, which she called ‘controlling elements.’ Thirty-seven years later, she won a Nobel Prize for this work, becoming the third woman to receive an unshared Nobel in science. Since then, Mc Clintock has become an emblem of feminine scientific thinking and the tragedy of narrow-mindedness and bias in science.
Using Mc Clintock”s research notes, newly available correspondence, and dozens of interviews with Mc Clintock and others, Comfort argues that Mc Clintock”s work was neither ignored in the 1950s nor wholly accepted two decades later. Nor was Mc Clintock marginalized by scientists; throughout the decades of her alleged rejection, she remained a distinguished figure in her field. Comfort replaces the ‘Mc Clintock myth’ with a new story, rich with implications for our understanding of women in science and scientific creativity.
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