This study provides an exposition of living organisms not as objects, but as process and of hereditary as a blending of potential and plasticity with imitation and specificity. Using a number of examples, the author shows how genes (DNA) alone cannot determine traits, much less organisms, because their effects are always qualified by the contexts within which the organisms live. He thus offers an antidote to the current mechanistic thinking about genes as causes of health, disease and behaviour. The author also discusses how scientists' way of conceptualizing organisms and manipulating them and their parts are the heart of the formulations they offer about how organisms and their molecules function.