Rating: 
Summary: the secret of life
Review: This is an outstanding book, perfect for the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA, that reviews the history of genetics and the many advances that have been made in genetic research. It is a very readable book for a layperson with a huge wealth of information about who discovered what and when. The book is thus written for a non-biomajor who wants to understand the history of genetics and gain a broad appreciation for the many discoveries. The book provides insight into the personalities of geneticists and the inner squabbles and politics of genetic research. As packed with information as the book is, every chapter could easily be expanded into a separate book as readable, lucid, and stimulating as the original book. What great reading that would be!
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Science Writing
Review: When I picked up James D. Watson's "DNA: THE SECRET OF LIFE" it
didn't seem an entirely promising read. It looked like it might be
just another uninspired "rehash" survey of the subject of genetics
(and genomics and so on), an impression reinforced by Watson's
comments in the foreword that it was partly derived from a TV series
commemorating the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the DNA double
helix by Watson and his colleague, Francis Crick, which won the two
the Nobel Prize.On reading into "DNA", I quickly realized that this was no mere
rehash, but a very cleanly written and highly readable survey of
genetics. Watson, who has the advantage of a central viewpoint
in the field, neatly weaves together a history of the field, a
technical explanation of it, an exploration of its business and
politics, and something like a professional autobiography. The writing is outstandingly clear and even witty -- Watson comments
in an understated but clearly pleased fashion how another genetics
researcher named his Siamese cats "Watson" and "Crick". An educated
layperson, clearly the target audience for this book, could hardly
hope for a better introduction to the field, and a nonprofessional
would hardly need to know much more than it provides. However, this is not saying this is an effortless read. Although by
no means resembling a textbook, "DNA" covers an enormous amount of
ground and range of concepts, and anybody who would claim that he
could pick it up in one reading from end to end is either a real
genius or, more likely, a fraud. My initial reading went cover to
cover and amounted to no more than a survey, to be followed up later
by an extensive session in note-taking. * Having said all these things, there is a subtler aspect to this
book. In the initial chapters of "DNA", Watson mixed his history of
the early days of modern genetics with a discussion of the "eugenics" movement, an effort to improve the human race by breeding up
desireables and (more to the point) breeding out undesireables.
Eugenics was weak science and strong racism. That story was interesting, but I wondered if Watson had a
politically-correct agenda. Further reading showed this not to be the
case -- Watson sees the left-outfield politically correct crowd and
the right-outfield fundamentalist crowd as both obnoxious influences
in his field, and in fact he hardly sees them as being much different. What emerges is that Watson has an "advocacy agenda". This is not to
say this is the sole focus of this work, it's just that genetics has
certain social and ethical implications that are so unavoidable that
they end up having to be discussed as part of a real survey of the
topic. Fetal genetic screening, for example, has immediate
implications relative to abortion rights, and of course human genetic
engineering is controversial on the face of it. Watson has his views on such matters, laying out skeins of a general
argument about the social and ethical aspects of his work and then
tying them up in the relatively short final chapter. Of course, there
are weaknesses in his arguments -- for example, he blasts the
authorities for making decisions on a political and not a scientific
basis, which seems a bit silly. (A government organization makes
decisions on a political basis?! REALLY?! Gosh! Who knew?!). His
final argument also was the sort of thing that I wouldn't touch
myself, since long experience with Internet forums told me I would get
nothing out of it but a loud, mad, pointless barking contest. I do not mock him, however. This is not really my battle but it is
clearly his, and if he seems to struggle with it, well, that's because
it's troublesome stuff. And I on the same wavelength with him in one
respect. He does not see the issues in terms of liberal and
conservative. He sees a clash of two beliefs. The first belief is that anything that poses any potential public
hazard should be forbidden. The alternative is that people should be
free to do anything that does *not* pose a demonstrable public hazard.
The first belief is that of the control freaks of both left and right.
Watson believes the second and I am in the same camp. He also does his advocacy the right way, stating his views carefully
and embedding them inside a powerful narrative of facts and details,
which lends them far more credibility than hollow assertions of
opinion. In fact, although Watson's views might infuriate extremists,
the book remains outstandingly informative even if his views are
disregarded. The willingness of the author to confront controversy
does not affect the fact that "DNA" is an excellent piece of science
writing. * I did catch the author in an exceedly minor error that I point out
not to nitpick but because it's an amusing detail. In his list of
inherited dog traits, he refers to greyhounds as "twitchy". I used to believe this myself, but there's an "adopt a race dog"
program in my locality, quite a few people around here have
greyhounds as pets -- and all report that the dogs are absolute
couch potatoes who take life easy when not actually chasing
something. On consideration, this is the ideal behavior pattern
for an animal that spends much of its life in a kennel, and an
impressive example of the power of controlled breeding. I think
they just *look* high-strung. And I suppose while I'm at it, I might add another interesting
inherited dog behavior pattern that wasn't mentioned in "DNA" -- how a
Rottweiler will come up alongside you and give you a small but
powerful sideways NUDGE that will literally throw you for a loop if
you're not expecting it. I was surprised by this when I first ran
into it, but it turns out to be an instinctive herding behavior.
Rating: 
Summary: could be better
Review: When Iam interested in a subject iam intensely interested and want to know every bit of information ABOUT THE SUBJECT. In the case of this book there is more history than information about genetics. I know there are many people who like the historical parts of scientific subjects so if your one of them i would reccomend this book. A more accurate title for this book would be "the progression of genetic research". If you want to know more about gentics and dna than the personal history of the author and his colleagues this book will not fulfill your expectations.
| 
