Drawing on his 25 years of experience as the founding editor of Cell, the worlds leading journal in biology, Benjamin Lewin questions the dogma that scientific papers describe how research was actually done, describes the distortions caused by pressure to publish, and considers the effects of changes in the way science is communicated as we move ever further into the digital era. The view that science protects itself by identifying and excluding work that is not reproducible is rigorously examined, as is the prevalence of fraud in science. Lewin argues that the move from research done in small teams to the much larger scale of big science has the potential to change the nature of science itself. He asks if science can continue in its present form or if new methods of evaluation will be needed for science to function in the future.

Lewin brings these general principles to life by considering the history of the genetics revolution, from the discovery of the double helical structure of DNA to the sequencing of the human genome and the possibilities of gene editing today. History shows us that each period of progress in science relied on dogmas that often advanced but sometimes retarded progress, and that views of reality often changed suddenly and dramatically. One example is the current critical reassessment of epigenetics that is raising the possibility that there may be factors in inheritance extraneous to DNA. The book concludes by asking if the reductionist manifesto that has dominated biology for the past half century can continue to hold, and revisits the much-debated question: What is science?