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The book is brimming with fascinating stories of ingenious and daring experiments that destroyed contemporary theories and raised new shocking and perplexing questions

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Dolnick deftly manages to steer us through labs morgues churches royal fens and rabbit holes as the leading scientists of the centuries fumble and stumble to win the x prize of human inception

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In that year a german scientist named oscar hertwig dropped some sea urchin semen near an egg and watched through his microscope while the semen penetrated through to the egg’s interior

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It reinforces how smart these people were and how much they accomplished pushing against the limits of the technology and frame of thinking

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Their experimental approach went against learning from the ancients went against the idea of how a man made to gods image couldnt come from ugly wiggly worms in sperm against the belief that man superior to woman god made woman from adams rib not the other way around couldnt possibly not be the driver of reproduction

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They were profoundly religious and tried to make it all fit

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Science writer edward dolnick skillfully recounts the drama of this quest to understand the association between sex and the issue of new life

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The researchers eventually learn from their mistakes