Rating: 
Summary: Clearest account of the nature vs. nurture debate.
Review: I very much enjoyed and learned from this new and innovative book, Birth of the Mind by Dr. Gary Marcus. Still, before I could write my own review I came across a professional review in one of Britain's most distinguished journals, Nature Neuroscience. I present it instead:"About half of the estimated 30,000-odd genes in the human genome are expressed in the brain. Among these genes is hidden the explanation for our unique human cognitive abilities, and for many of the differences between individual people. Developmental neurobiology is the essential bridge for connecting genome to behavior, but despite its obvious importance, there has not yet been a popular book devoted to this subject. "The Birth of the Mind is an ambitious attempt to fill this gap. The author, Gary Marcus, is a cognitive scientist, but he has learned a lot about developmental neurobiology and has written a concise and very readable introduction to the field. By drawing on related disciplines such as genetics, cognitive science and evolution, he provides an overview of how the interaction between genome and environment gives rise to the human brain and by extension the human mind. "Marcus gives as clear an account as I have ever seen of the nature versus nurture 'debate' In fact, most biologists no longer regard this as a debate (genes and environment are both important), and the fact that it is still perceived as such by the public may reflect the lack of clear popular account, which this book now provides. "He also dispels a more recent myth, namely that there is a ~gene shortage™ that precludes genes from encoding complex behaviors. It is admittedly surprising that we have only 30,000 genes but 100 billion neurons, particularly given that the nematode C. elegans has nearly as many genes yet only 302 neurons. But as Marcus makes clear, genes are complex individually and give rise to even greater complexity by acting in combination; moreover, the truth is that we have no basis for surprise, absent a theory to explain how many genes are needed for a given degree of biological complexity" "Einstein famously advised that everything should be made as simple as
possible, but no simpler. Marcus takes this to heart, and his book contains
many simplifications but few misrepresentations. "... enjoyable to read [and written] with a light touch .... I have no
hesitation recommending it to students, scientists from other disciplines, or lay readers wanting to learn something about this fascinating and fast-developing field." [Nature Neuroscience, April 2004, at p. 117, by Charles Jennings, Executive
Editor of the Nature Research Journals.]
Rating:
Summary: Clearest account of the nature vs. nurture debate.
Review: I very much enjoyed and learned from this new and innovative book, Birth of the Mind by Dr. Gary Marcus. Still, before I could write my own review I came across a professional review in one of Britain's most distinguished journals, Nature Neuroscience. I present it instead: "About half of the estimated 30,000-odd genes in the human genome are expressed in the brain. Among these genes is hidden the explanation for our unique human cognitive abilities, and for many of the differences between individual people. Developmental neurobiology is the essential bridge for connecting genome to behavior, but despite its obvious importance, there has not yet been a popular book devoted to this subject. "The Birth of the Mind is an ambitious attempt to fill this gap. The author, Gary Marcus, is a cognitive scientist, but he has learned a lot about developmental neurobiology and has written a concise and very readable introduction to the field. By drawing on related disciplines such as genetics, cognitive science and evolution, he provides an overview of how the interaction between genome and environment gives rise to the human brain and by extension the human mind. "Marcus gives as clear an account as I have ever seen of the nature versus nurture 'debate' In fact, most biologists no longer regard this as a debate (genes and environment are both important), and the fact that it is still perceived as such by the public may reflect the lack of clear popular account, which this book now provides. "He also dispels a more recent myth, namely that there is a ˜gene shortage™ that precludes genes from encoding complex behaviors. It is admittedly surprising that we have only 30,000 genes but 100 billion neurons, particularly given that the nematode C. elegans has nearly as many genes yet only 302 neurons. But as Marcus makes clear, genes are complex individually and give rise to even greater complexity by acting in combination; moreover, the truth is that we have no basis for surprise, absent a theory to explain how many genes are needed for a given degree of biological complexity" "Einstein famously advised that everything should be made as simple as
possible, but no simpler. Marcus takes this to heart, and his book contains
many simplifications but few misrepresentations. "... enjoyable to read [and written] with a light touch .... I have no
hesitation recommending it to students, scientists from other disciplines, or lay readers wanting to learn something about this fascinating and fast-developing field." [Nature Neuroscience, April 2004, at p. 117, by Charles Jennings, Executive
Editor of the Nature Research Journals.]
Rating:
Summary: Building plans and specifications for your mind?
Review: If you are among those still arguing the "nature versus nurture" debate has been resolved, visit an English Lit class. The humanities continue skirting the notion that genes play a role in our mental life. It challenges our ideal of "free will". Marcus, in this matchless survey, argues that "what's good for the body is good for the mind". And few dispute that genes build bodies. The mind, like the body, has deep evolutionary roots. Even the simple organisms inhabiting the planet with us today show how brains develop. Increased complexity of body is reflected in brain structure. And the mind, he reminds us, resides in the brain. Marcus explains his notion with a wealth of research, most of it very recent. He explains how similar our brain structure is to that of other animals and what that implies for behaviour. The mechanism of building brains is common to all animal life, even when the final product varies. Genes transmit signals - "recipes" - of structure and function for all parts of the body. Brains, he continually reminds us, are not that different from livers. Neurons proceed from points of origin, finding appropriate areas to reside and assume functional duties. From origin to operation they show flexibility and adaptability. In this, Marcus argues, it's clear the brain is no different than any other organ. It is our brain's interaction with the rest of the body that sets us somewhat apart from the other animals. Language, the element we hold so dear in protecting our unique status, is given a thorough examination in this book. There are no "language genes", Marcus stresses, but there are identified genes, notably FOXP2, known to impact speech ability. He explains that looking for "genes for" something is futile. Genes interact in too convoluted a manner to expect simple associations between a few nucleotides and something as complicated as speech. Marcus offers a novel term to counter those railing against the strawman "genetic determinism". Having explained how evolution has led to building brains, he declares them "prewired" but not "hardwired". "Prewired" means that basic functions are spelled out biologically, but don't limit our interaction with our environments. All brains permit flexibility by neurons interacting with each other as conditions vary. We can learn because we are prewired to learn. However, we've only begun the research where our brains are concerned. Marcus presents this trove of information with amazing clarity. His topics aren't simple mechanisms or ideas, yet he conveys it all with graceful logic. He avoids "dumbing down" the science, yet nothing is lost in his presentation. His theme and supporting examples, buttressed by a glossary and extensive bibliography, are expressed in delightfully accessible prose. Some explanatory graphics depict various elements and mechanisms in furthering the reader's understanding. The underlying concept is "universality" and it's easy to see how his ideas apply to all animal life. This is a valuable book, easily absorbed by students, professionals in many fields, including, in the final chapter, lawyers. The general public should be the primary market for this book since Marcus makes clear what has been learned may be applied in various ways, from "gene therapy" to "designer children". He doesn't avoid the hard issues in showing how recent science has closed off many myths while opening as many new options. Further research is needed, he argues, to avoid foolish mistakes. Those failing to read this book may make or allow those errors. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Rating:
Summary: Good, but lacks Pinker's adaptationist edge
Review: Interesting and very well-written, one of the clearest existing explanations of how genes utilize the environment to structure learning and behavior. Far better than most psychology or social science you will read. If you are someone who thinks in terms of "nature vs. nurture," or if you think of the human mind as a blank slate that is wholly environmentally determined, you could enlighten yourself by reading this book. However, I have two complaints: (1) Too short, only 177 pages of text! (2) Where's the evolutionary psychology? There's not even a reference to Tooby and Cosmides, who are doing some of the best work in integrating cognitive psychology, evolutionary biology, and social science. Marcus's mentor Pinker (How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate), and Matt Ridley (Nature via Nurture) for that matter, do better jobs of discussing genes and behavior in terms of evolutionary biology/psychology, the evolved function of cognitive mechanisms, and human nature.
Rating:
Summary: The real triumph of interactionism in biology
Review: It's a great pleasure to be able to highly recommend this book. I was suspicious of it because of the hype sent from the publisher, and the extremely broad topic covered for a science book, but it turns out that this is really good science writing. Gary Marcus certainly knows his stuff and has a distinctive talent for making complex things crystal clear. More, he has an infectious positive enthusiasm for scientific exploration. With most popular science books about the human mind, the author tends to allow the material to be organized by their political and moral thinking. By that I mean the way the author thinks about human reason, autonomy, free will, and the essential nature of humans in general. So we most often have authors interpreting scientific data to show how the mind is: hardwired (or flexibly changing during our lives); highly specialized (or a general purpose problem-solver), built from adapted computational modules (or is essentially a useful artifact or "spandrel"). Each of these different ways of selecting and interpreting the data reveals a different way of thinking about ourselves. A hardwired, specialized, modular brain gives a very different way of thinking about ourselves than does an autonomous reasoning agent, and the implications for morality and for politics are profound. While cognitive science and biology are our greatest allies in the physical understanding of the world, when we try to rely on science to understand ourselves, we have been forced to speculate and extrapolate from them heavily in trying to get an accurate picture of humanity. I bring this up to illustrate why Gary Marcus' "Birth of the Mind" is such a notable book. Somehow he manages to steer a course between the jagged rocks of innateness, the whirlpools of environmental determinism, and even the usual awkward compromises. Marcus celebrates the triumph of interactionism (genes plus environments) not by simply claming it to be true but by explaining exactly what it means and what it tells us. This is not a speculation about how genes and minds might be related; it is a carefully built skeleton of the conceptual bridge between the two. "Nature and Nurture" are not waved away here but deeply engaged. "Nature" here is not a collection of guesses about how we acted in the stone age and the challenges we faced in our evolutionary history, but an exposition of cellular biology and the way genes guide the construction of minds as a direct consequence of how they construct bodies. This is a wonderful change from the polemics we find too often in books discussing research in genetics, evolution, and human behavior. Marcus isn't entering into one side of the technical debates on human nature here as we find in much of the popular sociobiology literature and popular behavior genetics literature. He isn't arguing about whether the mind is modular or whether it is a product of evolution. Nor does he argue about whether we have a soul or free will. As his title implies he is rightly more concerned about specifically HOW the mind arises, and this in itself hints at useful answers to the thornier questions. The tone of this book is simply that of shedding much needed light on the entrance to a long path to growing scientific knowledge of ourselves. Marcus appreciates both what we know and what we don't yet know about the mind, and that's an extremely valuable quality for writing about such a complex topic. The spirit here is similar to that of Matt Ridley's recent book on nature and nurture. It is based on the emerging technical consensus that genes are central players in virtually all processes in living things, yet that genomes are not blueprints but self-regulating recipes. A relatively tiny number of genes is able to guide the development of brains consisting of an enormous number of neurons, and miniscule changes in the genome can produce dramatic changes in the outcome. Yet people with the identical genome have neither identical brains nor identical minds. The solution to this dilemma is the centerpiece of the book, and it is answered by the way the genes work. They act as recipes, but as self-regulating recipes. This, Marcus explains, is the answer to the two great paradoxes of the mind: (1) a relatively small number of genes can reliably guide the self-construction of such complex multi-cellular organisms, and (2) the body is elaborately structured by genetic information yet still so flexible to environmental influences during development. These are important and difficult questions that have great implications for our lives, so it is admirable that Marcus has addressed them without any obvious political axe to grind regarding human nature. The book starts off introducing the hard questions: the surprising ratio of genes to cells, and the confusing mixture of stable and flexible developmental outcomes. It then describes how we come out of the womb not with empty or fully formed minds, but as well-prepared learning machines with amazing and previously mostly unsuspected talents for observing and remembering in particular ways. The distinction between a brain that is "hardwired" and one that is "prewired" is the next topic. The brain has a definite structure, but one that is built for flexible change. Even identical twins, who share exactly the same genes, have different brain structure. When the crucial concept of the self-regulating genetic recipe is introduced, we see how the brain is built in exactly the same way as the rest of the body. Next we see how genes guide the way neuronal connections are laid down: both how the brain is wired and how its structure is revised over time. There is a single chapter focusing on human evolution, particularly on our capacity for language. Language has long been the classic example of a "modular" ability, but Marcus takes a different slant here, genetic rather than sociobiological. The evolutionary origin of language is used to show specifically how a small number of genes can have huge evolutionary consequences.
Rating:
Summary: State of the Art Picture
Review: The Birth of the Mind is a really excellent book. Gary Marcus has unified data from more than 500 papers into the state of the art picture of the interactions of the genome and the brain. Well organized and clearly written, Birth leaves no doubt that genes play a crucial role in programming the development of the brain, and paints a Vermeer-like picture of the nature of the influence. In doing so he addresses head on the two main objections to this view. He explains how only 30000 genes can encode a huge and complex brain by showing how genes can have multiple roles and act in groups to perform complex functions. And he resolves the conflict between nature and nurture by showing that the genes code flexible circuits that continue to adapt in response to the environment. Readers interested in The Birth of the Mind will also enjoy What is Thought?. What is Thought? looks not so much at how the brain wires up, but at the computations mind performs, seeing the genome as source code and the brain as an executable. Recent results in computer science then suggests answers to big "why" questions. What is Thought? suggests fundamental computational principles why the genome being so compact is integral to the computations the brain performs being meaningful, and why learning requires the genome to encode meaningful information into circuits that adapt, as well as why the genome encodes consciousness which has the qualities we experience.
Rating: 
Summary: Old News, A Broken Record
Review: The last thing we need now is another fanciful book on how the mind works. Those of us who believe the mind is of 'spirit' will continue to believe that way. Those of us who believe that the brain/mind has a biological genetic basis will gain nothing from this book. The fact that there does not exist a one to one relationship between genes and physical maladies is old news and was recognized immediately after it was determined that the human genome project would not meet our expectations of unraveling the hidden etiologies of human disease. The complexity of genes and cytogenetics was well expressed in an article in a major magazine about two and a half years ago. ( It could have been Time magazine but I am not sure.) To sum up, there is nothing in Gary Marcus's Book that wasn't gleaned from the works of others and already known. There are numerous frameworks that can be used to present pre-established concepts resulting in the concept superficialy appearing as strategically different and original. The author's false claim to originality is based upon presenting a well-established concept using a slightly modified framework of little consequence. The Book overall is of little consequence.
Rating: 
Summary: The 'gosh, golly' guide to genes, brains and minds.
Review: This book is reasonably enjoyable and informative. The topic is a difficult one, and I think the author is successful in providing a comprehensible overview of a large, complex, and incompletely understood scientific project. My main criticism is that the author seems to be uncertain about the audience for whom he is writing. At times he is glib and humorous, using colloquialisms and expressions which will quickly date. At other times, understanding the text requires expert knowledge. For example you might quess in Figure 5.3 that Pcx and Ncx stand for Paleocortex and Neocortex, but can you be confident in Figure 7.2 that the orthogonal axes labelled 'M' and 'R' are actually medial and rostral? Having decided to copy illustrations from other sources, the author should have edited them fully, or left the explanatory codes untouched.
Rating:
Summary: Good read for those new to popular neuroscience
Review: This book's subtitle is misleading, although its main title isn't. This book is not about the how the genes actually allow complex thought, only that it's possible to reconcile a brain developed by genes alongwith a complex functioning mind. The author also addresses the apparent dichotomous ways in which the mind could learn and develop i.e. the nature/nurture dichotomy. He tackles it similarly to how Matt Ridley does, in Nature via Nurture. The narrative of the book starts with a general explanation of what genes do and how they go about doing it; examines the concept of learning and reconciles prewiring of the brain with subsequent flexibility; how genes guide brain structural development and the flexibility they possess in doing so, in particular, how limited number of genes help develop an enormously populated and complex brain. Now, if you have already read a few popular books on neuroscience or genes, this book has little new themes to offer. It's the same paradigm that most recent similar books reveal. This book is primarily useful to those who are reading their first or second work concerned with the biological treatment of the brain. In fact, if you are almost completely new to reading popular neuroscience, I suggest starting with Steven Johnson's Mind Wide Open. All in all, this is a well-written read.
Rating:
Summary: Science writing at its best!
Review: This is an extraordinary book. It brings the reader up to speed on the fascinating and important research that is uncovering how genes and the environment conspire to build brains of extraordinary complexity. The writing is crystal clear, the style is engaging, and Marcus makes the cutting edge science he's discussing accessible to any intelligent reader. This is science writing at its best. If you enjoy reading other great science writers like Pinker and Dawkins, you'll find this a great read!
| 
