This missing science of heredity, this unworked mine of knowledge on the borderland of biology and anthropology, which for all practical purposes is as unworked now as it was in the days of Plato, is, in simple truth, ten times more important to humanity than all the chemistry and physics, all the technical and industrial science that ever has been or ever will be discovered.

—Herbert G. Wells, Mankind in the Making

JACK: Yes, but you said yourself that a severe chill was not hereditary.

ALGERNON: It usen’t to be, I know—but I daresay it is now. Science is always making wonderful improvements in things.

—Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest