Genome

Rating:
Summary: fascinating, stimulating, encyclopedic writer
Review: The book introduced me to a world that I knew nothing about--far above the typical college introductory course. The writer is amazing, encyclopedic, and freely admits to taking the ideas from the leading people in the field. But he is masterful, and, I repeat, encyclopedic. His other book, "The Red Queen" is similar--encyclopedic and stimulating

Rating:
Summary: the look of DNA
Review: Great book. The cover illustration of DNA shows a left-handed double helix, but we shouldn't get bent out of shape over this. The usual (A and B) forms of DNA are right-twisted, but genomic DNA can also exist as single strands (in small viruses like M13) or in the left-twisted "Z" form. Read Jim Watson's text.

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Summary: 45 years after Champollion
Review: A survey of ancient Egyptian literature deciphered and commented upon, written forty-five years after the decipherment of hieroglyphics, would have contained precious little. Ridley's book is a review of texts written in DNA that have, up to now, been deciphered and written about. The first few chapters bring his lay readers up to speed with a brief but incisive history of the decipherment and its implications for the life-sciences. Until 1955 we had mere gross analysis of the texts of life; biologist were, up to that point, like librarians who were studying the books in an archive without the help of a linguist who could understand the writings inscribed on their myriad pages. The books were very well catalogued on the basis of outward appearances; it was found that the books made copies of themselves that, while not identical, followed certain rules discernable from visible qualities. Some lines of books ceased to reproduced as they no longer fit in the niches where they were to be stored. This much and more was known just as, before Champollion, Egyptian texts had been classified into fuzzy categories based on context and appearance. Biology became a hard science when, in 1955, Watson and Crick laid the keystone into the architectonics of the DNA molecule. Naturally, the new biology is a science still in its infancy just as chemistry was fifty years after Avogadro. The genome project, whose activities inspired Ridley's book, is like Mendeleyev's first fumblings with the periodic table. There is much to learn; what we know is largely based on deleterious effects of faulty genes as Ridley makes clear but cannot avoid capitalizing on; but much is known that, under Ridley's masterful narratization, becomes a can't-put-it-down fascination for all of us who can read English (you will be taught basic DNA) and have enough sense to be curious about the plans for our own construction. This book is a must for those who would update their high-school or college biology course in one entertaining read. Prepare, however, to have some of your dearest stereotypes and dogmas extirpated.

Whatever minor faults there are in the book (the most annoying to me was an ill-concealed British jingoism) can be let pass in a gush of enthusiasm for a brilliant job of public education bestowed on us by this book and its author and publisher.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing book but not quite perfect
Review: Mr. Ridley's book explores an incredibly important yet neglected area of science in a mostly brilliant fashion. He discusses most of the difficult issues raised by discoveries in this area and generally deals with them in an open, honest fashion. This is an extremely important book which I have strongly recommended to everyone I know. Reading it exposes you to a great deal of knowledge about humanity which I personally didn't know. It's the kind of book where when people who have read the book see you reading it, they approach you in the subway and say what a great book it was.

Even so, it doesn't rise to the intellectual rigor of books like "Phantoms of the Brain" mainly because the author can't resist stating as "scientific proofs" things which are still very unknown right now. There is a danger that people will finish this book and go around spouting as "truths" everything Ridley says when this is an very new area of science.

There are several examples of this, for example, he describes a test where people smell each other and then say how attracted they are to them -- turns out, people are more attracted by the smell of people who are genetically different from them. Does this prove anything? Seems to me like it's just some very minor evidence. Also, it seems to me that because science hasn't yet discovered "how" these protiens actually "cause" things to happen in the body, there's a big gap here in the science and therefore in much of what Ridley says.

Anyway, get this book and read it, but keep an open mind. Remember that a good 10% to 20% of what Ridley says is going to be completely wrong. It might even be more, he could be a Copernicus here, describing reality based on what he currently sees, but the truth being infinitely more subtle, interesting and beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: I can't believe how interesting this book is. This book will not remind you of the science class that you hated all those years ago. In fact some of the things you were taught back then may have not been completely correct now that gene mapping has started revealing new knowledge!

Get this book! You probably will need to be educated about this stuff in the VERY near future.

Rating:
Summary: Not a scientist?
Review: Ridley is not actually a scientist, but he sure likes to act like he is."

Actually, he has a Phd in Zoology, just like Richard Dawkins!

"Now, I'm sure that he can fully support every statement he makes in the book, but it's a bit annoying that so much in this book reads as if these are all Ridley's ideas."

After reading this, I took a second look at my copy. I must say, you need to look at it again too. It's hard to find a page that DOESN'T contain the name of another scientist in the field, or a reference to research.

"Did anyone else detect a prissy, slightly snobbish tone in this book?"

No. He's very excited about his material, I detected his excitement.

"This is a very interesting, worthwhile book to read. Even if half the stuff turns out to be not true (and should we be surprised, since for most of the "new facts" there's an upended "old fact", and these new facts may one day suffer the same undignified fate as the old facts which preceded them?)"

But that's true of almost all leading-edge scientific work.

Rating:
Summary: Great book, bad cover.
Review: I am in the bioinformatics business, and I loved this book. It should be possible for someone to understand this subject even if they don't have a background in the biological sciences. It is much more fun if you have such a background though.

The DNA double helix on the cover is twisted the wrong way. How many other errors of fact are there in the text?

Rating:
Summary: Too much fluff.
Review: This book is very important. It focuses on one of the most important scientific discoveries of our time. The organization into topical headings, e.g.intelligence and stress is brilliant. However, it is wordy and full of a lot of silly nonsense. Many of the metphors are distracting. I think it could easily be just as readable and interesting in half as many pages.

Rating:
Summary: On the Mark
Review: One hundred trillion cells each with several billion bits of information! What a mind boggling picture Matt Ridley paints of the human genome - its history and its almost predictable future. This book has the potential of changing the world by creating an understanding of genetic matters that the layman can (almost) fathom. Ridley notes that our bodies, just like the body politic, has no need for centralized control.

Of particular interest to those of us who have followed the story of radiation hormesis (the beneficial effect of a toxin in low doses), his reporting of the increased production of the p53 protein when exposed to radiation or chemotherapy agents is pleasantly startling. At last, a preventative/cure for cancer is nearing as we learn to stimulate the body's defenses against rogue cells.

Rating:
Summary: My, how the "facts" change
Review: This is one of those books you find yourself mentioning to your friends. The 23 very readable chapters, one for each chromosome, are a clever presentation of what's been learned (or being learned)about the human genome. If half of what Ridley recounts is true, we truly are living in exciting times, since much of what he talks about is quite new news.

Criticisms: Ridley is not actually a scientist, but he sure likes to act like he is. All through the book, he makes numerous declarations about new discoveries, errors in previous "facts", and the current thinking about what the new discoveries really mean, but doesn't really say what the basis for these declarations are. Now, I'm sure that he can fully support every statement he makes in the book, but it's a bit annoying that so much in this book reads as if these are all Ridley's ideas. No doubt, some are. Most, we hope, must be the ideas and work of someone with real credentials. Yet there's lots of things written that aren't attributed to anyone with credentials. If there weren't so many instances where Ridley tosses out the previous "facts", it might not be such a big deal. But if you're bringing in a new set of facts, the least you can do is mention who it is who's behind the facts. In the end notes you'll notice part of what I'm getting at here: Ridley says (several times) that "The best book on such and such is XYZ". Now, I'm wondering what journalist is qualified to make that judgement.

Ridley knows he's a good writer, and he tries hard to make you know it too, to the point of being intrusive and self-promoting. Like the "junk DNA" that apparently makes up a big chunk of our genes, imbedded in "Genone" is Ridley's screaming "Look at me! Look at me! I'm writing! Don't you wish you could write like me! ".

Did anyone else detect a prissy, slightly snobbish tone in this book? How about what seems like unnecessary promotion of British scientists? I didn't realize that almost all the great findings in this field were by the Brits. For example, in describing Watson and Crick's DNA work, he says that most of the important discoveries were made by Crick (the British half of the pair). Now is this a fact, or just Ridley's opinion.

This is a very interesting, worthwhile book to read. Even if half the stuff turns out to be not true (and should we be surprised, since for most of the "new facts" there's an upended "old fact", and these new facts may one day suffer the same undignified fate as the old facts which preceded them?) it's still an entertaining glimpse of what's going on in this field.