Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (P.S.) Reviews
August 18, 2010 by biotechcheck.com
Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (P.S.)
The genome’s been mapped.
But what does it mean?
Arguably the most significant scientific discovery of the new century, the mapping of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes that make up the human genome raises almost as many questions as it answers. Questions that will profoundly impact the way we think about disease, about longevity, and about free will. Questions that will affect the rest of your life.
Genome offers extraordinary insight into the ramifications of this incredible breakthrough. By picking one newly discovered gene from each pair of chromosomes and telling its story, Matt Ridley recounts the history of our species and its ancestors from the dawn of life to the brink of future medicine. From Huntington’s disease to cancer, from the applications of gene therapy to the horrors of eugenics, Matt Ridley probes the scientific, philosophical, and moral issues arising as a result of the mapping of the genome. It will help you understand what this scientific milestone means for you, for your children, and for humankind.
Science writer Matt Ridley has found a way to tell someone else’s story without being accused of plagiarism. Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters delves deep within your body (and, to be fair, Ridley’s too) looking for dirt dug up by the Human Genome Project. Each chapter pries one gene out of its chromosome and focuses on its role in our development and adult life, but also goes further, exploring the implications of genetic research and our quickly changing social attitudes toward this information. Genome shies away from the “tedious biochemical middle managers” that only a nerd could love and instead goes for the A-material: genes associated with cancer, intelligence, sex (of course), and more.
Readers unfamiliar with the jargon of genetic research needn’t fear; Ridley provides a quick, clear guide to the few words and concepts he must use to translate hard science into English. His writing is informal, relaxed, and playful, guiding the reader so effortlessly through our 23 chromosomes that by the end we wish we had more. He believes that the Human Genome Project will be as world-changing as the splitting of the atom; if so, he is helping us prepare for exciting times–the hope of a cure for cancer contrasts starkly with the horrors of newly empowered eugenicists. Anyone interested in the future of the body should get a head start with the clever, engrossing Genome. –Rob Lightner
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(out of 188 reviews)
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Review by Durand Sinclair for Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (P.S.)
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I’m not sure whether to give this book four or five stars… FIVE STARS – because of how interesting the subject matter is. DNA, it seems, isn’t a brilliant piece of software to make bodies. It’s more a committee of chemicals each trying to propogate themselves, and often at odds with the other chemicals in DNA (97% of which don’t actually do anything!) And this is the stuff that to a large extent makes us US!FIVE STARS – because of how well written some sections are. Chapter 4, for instance, which talks about the researcher who not only can tell you IF you’re going to get Huntington’s chorea, but can tell you what age you’ll get it, simply by counting the number of times a particular gene sequence repeats. I was left haunted by the question, if I had a high risk for H.C., would I get the test done, simply to know when the symptoms would start?FIVE STARS – Because of the research. This is the most up to date book on the subject available at the moment. He cites research done as close as 1998.BUT FOUR STARS – because although some parts were absolutely mind-blowingly interesting and could be considered _classic_ bits of writing, the prose in other parts seemed to get a bit heavy and tedious, and I had to put it down. I was surprised by my own reaction, having been so thoroughly entertained a few short chapters before. But it means I can’t give it five stars, because that rating is for out and out classics. (Which this book nearly is. Damn.)
Review by Marc Cenedella for Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (P.S.)
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This is the book that I wish Steven Pinker’s “How the Mind Works” was. Matt Ridley unfolds the human genome for us in a crisply written and precise “Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters.” OK, I don’t know what the Hades that means, but this guy is a good writer, a smart scientist, and a friendly teacher of what is a really cool, but intimidating, branch of learning.Ridley’s got a little shtick, which he openly mocks himself, where his 23 chapters each represent one of the 23 human chromosomes. It’s kind of an interesting little angle, you want to like this guy, anyway, so the shtick mostly works, although I don’t really have a sense that each of our 23 chromosomes is a particular type of chromosome at the end of it.Genome is a lot of good science explained with a clear, well-constructed hand. In an excellent seven-page introduction, Ridley answered for me all sorts of questions that my scientifically-literate yet communication-challenged science friends have been unable to answer, to wit: “Imagine that the genome is a book.There are twenty-three chapters, called Chromosomes.
Each chapter contains several thousand stories, called Genes.
Each story is made up of paragraphs, called Exons, which are interrupted by advertisements called Introns.
Each paragraph is made up of words, called Codons.
Each word is written in letters called Bases.”Very nicely done, brings it to an understandable level for the literate layperson, and establishes a very solid foundation from which he is able to unfold the rest of this story.He handles the basic science very well, and mostly shys away from the “Believe It or Not!” school of science reporting, though the occasional oddity does pop up. One thing I found fascinating is the existence of “chimeras.” Which is one creature ( a human, a mouse, anything) that has two different genomes in it: “Think of them as the opposite of identical twins: two different genomes in one body, instead of two different bodies with the same genome.” This means that you could be the single body of two different people that had accidentally fused in the womb. Really weird thought experiment, no?He places humans and our development in the context of our nearest genetic cousins – the chimpanzees and the gorillas and so forth. And elucidates a number of compare and contrast thoughts: “What it means is that the mating system of the species was changing. The promiscuity of the chimp, with its short sexual liaisons, and the harem polygamy of the gorilla, were being replaced with something much more monogamous: a declining ratio of sexual dimorphism is unambiguous evidence for that.”Ridley’s wordcraft is superior. Enjoy all the learning, implications, and human foibles he packs into this one sentence on language acquisition:”Thus, although no other primate can learn grammatical language at all – and we are indebted to many diligent, sometimes gullible and certainly wishful trainers of chimpanzees and gorillas for thoroughly exhausting all possibilities to the contrary – language is intimately connected with sound production and processing.” It is really just masterful. Even more enjoyable if you read it in an English accent on account of Ridley’s living there according to the dust jacket.In sum, if you are looking for an introduction to genetics, DNA, and our genome, and are the omnivore type of reader with a decent head on your shoulders, this book is for you. I enjoyed it tremendously and it’s given me a very good grounding for my further reading into evolutionary psychology.Enjoy strongly!
Review by Blair W. McNea for Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (P.S.)
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Things have, indeed, changed. This book chronicles the opening of the Genome mystery and the path science has taken to reach today’s level of knowledge. It also includes a far reaching discussion of the current discoveries of DNA and the impact (including a realistic cure for Cancer) that they will have on our lives in the future.This is a far ranging discussion, moving from the genetic impacts on sexuality, personality, disease (or more appropriately resistance to disease), longevity, and other topics. It is an excellent, intriguing book for anyone who reads it. The scientific information can get a little overwhelming, but every turn of the page can reveal a new understanding about who we are and how our exploding genetic knowledge might shape our future.
Review by Roger McEvilly (the guilty bystander) for Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (P.S.)
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This is an excellent overview of current scientific discovery and argument regarding that inheritently common, but innately variable blueprint of 23 pairs of chromosones we all share. Our knowledge of our genes is progressing at a rapid rate, so much so, that by the time I finish writing this sentence, our knowledge of the human genetic code has been updated. If you wish to know what kinds of things are being discovered, this book is a very good place to find it.Matt Ridley devotes each chapter to one of our chromosones-23 in all, and describes some useful dicoveries and speculations regarding each. From such things as the ability to digest lactose, blood groups, cancer suppressors, ‘instinct’,intelligence, ethics, free will, allergies, aspects of language, ageing, sex, cloning, test tube babies, Mad Cow disease etc, he describes in a clever and clear way the discoveries being made in the field. I would give the book 4 1/2 stars,(but there are no halves in these reviews), as no book is ever perfect, but a point to remember is no understanding of our world, or our genes themselves, is ever perfect either. But we can find pieces to the puzzle, useful and uplifting, and that is what this book is about. Ridleys style is clear and clever, my only quibble is that he displays perhaps just a touch of arrogance, and a subtle air of bias. But give the author his due, an author is entitled to his opinions and leanings, what is important is that he generally makes it clear when he does so. The book is highly recommended for both those familiar with the jargon, and those with enthusiastic minds who wish to learn about it.
Review by David J. Huber for Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (P.S.)
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Fascinating stuff, this genetic science, especially now that we have mapped our DNA. This is a very well-written about genetics, in general, and some history surrounding the development of genetics and the human genome project. It is not, however, a history of the human genome project, which I assumed it was (one must be careful when buying a book based only on the title!). I was initially disappointed that it wasn’t the story of the project, but I am very pleased at what I have learned from it. Especially intriguing is that the author talks a lot about what genes do and don’t do, and how even a gene that is linked with a disease, say Huntington’s disease, isn’t really something you can call The Huntington’s Gene. He’s a very good writer. He can be fairly technical at times, but even when he is, he makes sure to also make an analogy, or re-explain in easier to understand terms. This is one of the best science books I have read simply in terms of writing that is lucid, structured, and keeps the reader wanting to read more.One major compelling point to this book is that he does include some history, including the different scientists and who fought with whom, and who continues to fight in the struggle to be the first to discover something new, and also in the struggle scientists have between each other in terms of the philosophical/cultural ramifications of certain genes. Especially interesting is the chapter on intelligence. The author delves into the history of the first, early and completely inappropriate IQ tests developed in the US and Britain, and the horrible fallout from them since they determined that immigrants have low IQ (which is not surprising, later criticizers have said, since the tests were in English, and many immigrants didn’t speak English). But certainly the idea of genetic intelligence is a very touchy one, but the author does bring up a number of studies that show that IQ is, in some ways, genetic; that intelligence is not completely cultural/education-based (but is also not completely genetic, either). Of the chapters in the book, I found this one the most interesting, and especially the valid and well-done studies that have looked into the link between genetics and intelligence (and intelligence meaning and including a variety of intelligences – analytic, kinesthetic, language use, etc.), whatever the culture being studied, in whatever country. Fascinating stuff.Some might be turned off by some of the author’s intentional visibility of self. I greatly enjoyed that instead of merely reporting the facts, he also comments on them from his own view, and also includes contrary views from contrary scientists. While many diseases are linked to certain genes, the rest of the human behavior, while genetic (at least somewhat) is vaguely and very imperfectly known, so it is helpful for me to hear the author’s opinion about what some findings could mean for the future of healthcare, school curricula, racial tensions, etc. I don’t always agree with the author, but I am very glad to have his voice in it. And also very glad that his voice is based more on reason, than any particular ideology – I certainly cannot tell whether he is religious or anti-religion, whether he might be Christian, Buddhist, Jewish or anything else, or whether he is liberal or conservative. It’s welcome to have his voice, and to have his voice be reasonable and even-handed. I found myself thinking much more about certain points simply because he offered an opinion (and/or offered the opinions of scientists who disagree with each other). A great book overall, and a wonderful introduction into what genetics is and isn’t, and how far it has come in the last 5 years. Important reading, and very well-written.