Rating: 
Summary: A lot of matrix but does have a few gems
Review: The jist of this book is that our behaviour are maybe half determined by our genes, that environment (nurture) influences which genes are expressed and how.
Mr. Ridley gives very occasional (too seldom) references to specific proteins that act on specific DNA sequences on specific genes on specific chromasomes that are correlated to specific behaviours or diseases. But these are far too diluted by the Old English School Style of writing, namely discursive with literary quotes, references, parallels, attempts at irony, humour... Alas, this pandering to the mass audience comprise more than half the book.
But, to be fair, I wanted a text book and Ridley is primarily a journalist. And I have to be grateful to someone who triggered my thinking about Human Endogenous Retro Virus (HERV) -- a really fascinating avenue of genomics and evolution.
Another 40 or so percent of this book is standard research survey: "so and so et al.'s study, 'Such and Such,' would indicate blah blah blah..."
But the remaining less than 10% of content is worth mining for.
Rating: 
Summary: Readable science writing
Review: There has been a knowledge explosion in the biological sciences. So much has been discovered so quickly that it is hard to see how it all ties together. Matt Ridley manages to make sense of it. He has a storyteller's skill, throwing in just enough biographical details to bring the scientists to life, but not so much that it gets in the way of the science. He clearly knows his subject from both a scientific and a historical perspective. He does not over-simplify nor does he fall back on using jargon.The thesis he puts forward, that nature and nurture are intextricably interwoven is undoubted. I believe he stops short of making the argument even more strongly. From a human standpoint, we can differentiate between "nature" and "nurture" but from the standpoint of the germ cell nature and nurture blend together. Is mitochondrial DNA nature or is it nurture? Surely we overstate the importance of the genetic "code" in the DNA. It can only be expressed because of all the other cellular components. So the distinction between code and non-code, and the individual and its environment is a lot blurrier than we suppose. Matt Ridley has penned some of the best books on evolutionary science ever written. Nature via Nurture is at least as good, perhaps better than the best of his others, Genome and The Red Queen.
Rating: 
Summary: It's in the genes, just not in the way we thought.
Review: There is a review from Richard Dawkins on the back of this book; it starts with, "I would never have expected a book about 'nature or nurture' to be even miidly interesting let alone a real page-turner." In a way, I was sort of with Dawkins on this one. I'm not sure how much gene/environment polarization there is within the science community. Still, I got the book for two reasons. First, I've read Ridley (Origins of Virture, Genome) before. Second, and as Ridley points out in his book, even if there is a lack of gene/environment extremism in science, the laity is still quite polarized when they should not be. Ridley starts by envisiioning photograph of the twelve great men Ridley feels have influenced study on human behavior. They are Charles Darwin (evolution), Francis Galton (first heritability theories), William James (instincts as a part of psychology), DeVries and Mendel (shared discovery of genes), Ivan Pavlov (conditioning theorist), John Watson (behaviorism), Emile Kraeplin (personality as history), Freud (psychoanalysis), Emile Durkheim (founder of sociology), Franz Boaz (studied relations of cultures to one-another), Jean Piaget (studied how children learn) and Konrad Lorenz (discovered the phenomenon of 'imprinting' in instincts). Each chapter loosely starts with discussion of one of these thinkers. Basically, Ridley thinks that within all of these thinkers, there is something like a correct answer. Of course, each thinker got as much wrong as they did right so through tasty anecdotes, statistics and modern research results, Ridley shows us what he thinks each got right and wrong. The only problem I had with this book is that the chapters hop from one to another idea without adequately tying them together. Even the last chapter "a budget of paradoxical morals" extrapolates conclusions that didn't quite seem to represent what I'd read in the book. Each chapter by itself was interesting, but taken as a whole, the book is muddled. Still, not bad for Matt Ridley.
Rating:
Summary: It's in the genes, just not in the way we thought.
Review: There is a review from Richard Dawkins on the back of this book; it starts with, "I would never have expected a book about 'nature or nurture' to be even miidly interesting let alone a real page-turner." In a way, I was sort of with Dawkins on this one. I'm not sure how much gene/environment polarization there is within the science community. Still, I got the book for two reasons. First, I've read Ridley (Origins of Virture, Genome) before. Second, and as Ridley points out in his book, even if there is a lack of gene/environment extremism in science, the laity is still quite polarized when they should not be. Ridley starts by envisiioning photograph of the twelve great men Ridley feels have influenced study on human behavior. They are Charles Darwin (evolution), Francis Galton (first heritability theories), William James (instincts as a part of psychology), DeVries and Mendel (shared discovery of genes), Ivan Pavlov (conditioning theorist), John Watson (behaviorism), Emile Kraeplin (personality as history), Freud (psychoanalysis), Emile Durkheim (founder of sociology), Franz Boaz (studied relations of cultures to one-another), Jean Piaget (studied how children learn) and Konrad Lorenz (discovered the phenomenon of 'imprinting' in instincts). Each chapter loosely starts with discussion of one of these thinkers. Basically, Ridley thinks that within all of these thinkers, there is something like a correct answer. Of course, each thinker got as much wrong as they did right so through tasty anecdotes, statistics and modern research results, Ridley shows us what he thinks each got right and wrong. The only problem I had with this book is that the chapters hop from one to another idea without adequately tying them together. Even the last chapter "a budget of paradoxical morals" extrapolates conclusions that didn't quite seem to represent what I'd read in the book. Each chapter by itself was interesting, but taken as a whole, the book is muddled. Still, not bad for Matt Ridley.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting read and compelling arguments
Review: This book addresses the dichotomy between the thesis of nature and the antithesis of nurture by presenting convincing but not overwhelming arguments for their synthesis as the right approach. The author presents evidence which link traits to a biological basis, yet which show variation due to environmental influence. But it remains unclear if a meaningful nature/nurture delineation can be inferred anymore, which would still be helpful. The prose and presentation is lucid. Not very heavy on the technical details. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A balanced account of a complex question
Review: Until last week, when I started reading this book during the Christmas holidays, I had a low opinion of Sigmund Freud and Burrhus Skinner, founders of psycho-analysis and behaviourism respectively. I knew that what Freud considered "successful therapy" was misleading and up to a point criminal. I also took the view that no person with common sense can possibly believe that "the organism is a black box that need not be opened", as Skinner argued. What makes reading "Nature via nurture" all the more so fascinating, therefore, is that the author allows those "great men", together with others such as Galton, De Vries, Pavlov and Durkheim, their moment of glory. Grant Freud the idea that there is a role for early experience in shaping the psyche. Grant Pavlov "the power of learning to reshape adult mind"; grant Durkheim the autonomous power of culture and society. Ridley places all these authors in their context, and sheds proper light on their findings. In the process, he proves that he is a balanced scientist who is not out for cheap publicity. I have read quite a few of the most recent works in the field of nature versus nurture - I particularly enjoyed reading Dawkins and Pinker - but "Nature via nurture" is a must-read for anyone like me with a keen interest in this field without a background in biology (I studied economics). Ridley is a former columnist for The Economist, which goes to show that his English style is extremely accessible. Post scriptum - As an "outsider", I find it mind-boggling to read that the struggle between naturists and nurturists was so intense. Ridley's theory, that there is no such thing as an "either nature or nurture" and that there are plenty of feedback loops between the environment and the genes, is so common-sensical, that I deplore the fact that I did not study biology and be the first to "invent" this idea.
Rating:
Summary: Well Done
Review: What's good here is great. For instance, the chapter on schizophrenia is a brilliant mixture of science, history, and philosopy. If the book doesn't quite hang together -- if its thesis isn't as engaging as one would hope for -- it nevertheless makes for engaging and informative reading.
Rating:
Summary: Genes are all: but they aren't what we thought they were
Review: With Nature_Via_Nurture, Matt Ridley affirms his place as one of the most valued and important science writers of our time. Well known for his award-winning _Genome_, Ridley is also the author of several other popularizations of biological science that are even better. In _The_Origins of Virtue_, Ridley demonstrated brilliantly how "economic" factors like division of labor and trade are actually keys to understanding human social behavior, in spite of the fact that we are also the products of a specific biological legacy. This is a deep insight that even many evolutionary biologists sometimes seem to stumble over. As Ridley points out, the ideological question of whether human behavior is more the product of heredity or environment has distinguished not just scientists, but fascists and communists, just as surely as any of their political theories. During the well-known sociobiology debates, technical issues were rarely discussed much less resolved. Rather politics and the question of hidden agendas always raised its head. While virtually all scientists and indeed anyone with a modicum of learning, observational skills, and common sense, have long known that heredity and environment were interacting factors in human nature, that answer truly satsifies almost no one. We still argue over the many implications of being either victims of our genes, victims of our environment, or somehow free of both. We still seek the answer to the technical question of *how* exactly biology and environment interact to produce living things, especially ourselves. And more abstractly, we still want to know what defines us as individuals, and what determines our fate. A lot seems to hinge on the answer, which is why asking the "question of nature and nurture" never fails to bring out strong opinions. In the most common caricature, the hereditarians insist that we have a are products of our biological history and have a specific fixed nature rather than being blank slates formed by our environment. The environmentalists insist that what nature wires up is a flexible general purpose organism capable of above all learning and being shaped by their environment. In early political theory, the difference had serious implications because for example things like "social contract theory" revolved around what human beings were supposed to be like in a "state of nature" without society. Were we gentle, peaceful, noble savages; or brutish, win-at-all-costs warmongers competing over territory and mates? In _Nature_Via_Nurture_, Ridley freely exhibits both his consummate writing skills and his ability to make important scientific points clear without oversimplifying them. His message is crystal clear. Genes are everything. Nothing about us, including our nurture, can be fully understood without appreciating the role that genes play both in constructing us and in providing ongoing biological functions. But wait ... there's a catch. A big one. The hereditarians are right. Our biological legacy is all important. Yet the hereditarians typically understand or at least emphasize only part of the importance of genes. The environmentalists made the serious mistake of fearing the role of genes because they, along with the hereditarians, assumed that genes were little dictators that caused things to happen. "Genetic determinism" is supposedly something no one is silly enough to believe in, yet when the discussion gets heated, it seems to be the default position that nearly everyone takes. In arguing anachronistically about "free will" vs. "determinism," we instinctively place genes into the role of neccessity, regardless of which side we are on. But it turns out that genes didn't cooperate with that characterization as we studied their role more closely. This was also part of the underlying framework of biological science. It was considered a classic mistake, so-called "Lamarckism," to have fallen for the claim that behavior and experience could possibly influence our genes. The influence was one-way, an assumption that was commonly assumed to apply in evolution, in development, and in behavior. But there was an "underground" among biological theorists, long scattered and individually easily dismissed critiques which eventually have coalesced into a single powerful new interactionist framework. Genes are indeed everything, but their influence goes both ways. And this happens at all levels. Not only are the chemical effects of genes influenced by the environment, but development is chanelled in various ways by experience, and the evidence is growing that behavior even has an influence on what happens in evolution. Organisms actively modify, select, and construct their own niches, according to the preferences set largely by their genes, and this is an important factor in reproductive fitness, the selection criteria of biological fate. And so the environmentalists are right also. Experience and behavior do matter in shaping us. Not just through learning and development but even through evolution. And they matter not in spite of our genes, but because of them. Still, this clearly doesn't make us blank slates. Genes respond but they are not infinitely flexible responders. The do set limits in some sense and they do establish reliable trajectories. Yet they are not blueprints for our final form, nor do they compel our behavior. Genes help build dynamic mechanisms capable of responding to the environment in particular ways to make it possible for living things to carve out their own way of life. Here the hereditarians are right as well, having more "instincts" can make us more flexible rather than less flexible. We needn't be a blank slate to be capable of flexible behavior or "free will," we need the capacity to choose and some basis for making and acting on choices. Just as he did for social behavior in _Origins of Virtue_, Matt Ridley sets a sane, clear, modern scientific tone for the next round of the neverending "nature and nurture" debate, and provides a bridge from the anachronistic abstract question of free will and determinism to the modern science that has the potential to address real answers to real questions.
Rating: 
Summary: C'mon now...
Review: You can be reasonably sure that any "scientist" who readily endorses Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist is inappropriately abusing his position to promote his political agenda.
Rating:
Summary: C'mon now...
Review: You can be reasonably sure that any "scientist" who readily endorses Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist is inappropriately abusing his position to promote his political agenda.
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