About the book: 2000 / Based on unconventional approaches in the history of science, a number of paradoxes in the dramatic age-old history of genetics are analyzed, starting with the fate of Mendel’s laws and ending long non-recognition of the ideas of the discoverer of moving elements, Barbara McClintock. Delays or a lag period of 25–30 years in the recognition of new ideas are interpreted as a normal phenomenon in science, immanently associated with the nature of scientific creativity itself and the behavior of the scientific community. It is shown that in the complex interaction of genetics with Darwin's theory of evolution, each major step in the development of genetics led to the limitation of the postulates of selectogenesis (Darwinism) and the recognition of the importance of the nomogenetic component. The dramatic changes in the system of views on genome organization and forms of hereditary variability, caused by a series of unpredictable discoveries in the 70s and 80s, are analyzed in detail. The important role of the obligate-facultative principle in the structure and function of the genome and various forms of non-canonical (non-mutational) hereditary variability is shown. For the first time, the postulates of classical and modern genetics have been compared, leading to a revision of a number of long-standing and firmly established positions, for example, about the non-inheritance of traits that arose during ontogenesis. A special chapter is devoted to the significance of phenomena in the field of non-canonical hereditary variability for the theory and practice of medicine. Reviewers: Doctor of Biological Sciences Ya. M. Gall, Doctor of Biological Sciences A. L. Yudin