Andrew Huxley

摘要

Eugenics, these days, is a dirty word. But read the name "Huxley" and it is hard to believe there is not something to it. In the 19th century Thomas Henry Huxley was Darwin's bulldog, biting the ankles of bishops who dared cleave to the literal truth of Genesis. Thomas's descendants included Aldous, a noted novelist, and Sir Julian, another evolutionary biologist much given to smiting deviants from Darwinism. And that is not to mention Anthony, a botanist, and Francis, an anthropologist. None of them, though, outshone Sir Andrew Huxley, for it was he who solved one of the most important biological mysteries of all-how nerve cells work, and thus, at bottom, how brains do.