Rating: 
Summary: A Smart Writer But Not One That Knows How To Entertain
Review: A great writer that is smart but he doesn't keep you reading;so if you get bored easily you will abondone this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Weird, witty and wise
Review: Armand Marie Leroi's MUTANTS is a delightful mixture of historical anecdote, philosophy, artistic allusions and serious science, all served up with a first-person narrative voice that is both sympathetic and learned. Despite the bizarre and often gruesome subject matter used to illustrate scientific principles governing the formation of the human body, we are guided through the spectrum of human abnormality with a respectful hand. Although at times Leroi is amusing, he never ridicules the mutant humans he discusses - if anything, it is the scientists, anthropologists and historians who have misunderstood or abused their odd subjects that receive the well-timed onslaught of his wit. And yet even some of these jibes are sympathetic: the wise men of old were fumbling around in the dark and did not have the benefit of our knowledge or modern morals, so Leroi is gracious enough at times to excuse them, when other authors might be stern and judgmental. Even the horrific spectre of the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele is portrayed in a multi-faceted light; Leroi does not condone or excuse his acts, but he does attempt to understand his motivations. It is a delicate balancing act that the author pulls off beautifully in most cases.If you want to learn something about the genetics of human development, the explanations are clear and logical, with enough analogies and examples to help you along. The reference section is vast, so you know where to turn for more gory (so to speak) details. If, however, you'd rather just sit back and enjoy the historical anecdotes, the structure of the book makes it easy for you to skim through the scientific stuff - which does not ramble on too long - and the section headings help you pick and choose your area of interest. Although the information about deformities is certainly engaging, I found myself most captivated by the final chapter on race and beauty (don't be fooled into skipping it because it's called an 'epilogue' in the table of contents). Leroi makes a good case for the importance of studying the genetics of race, a topic that is not only politically incorrect, but potentially explosive. Why, he asks, should scientists know in excruciating detail the genetic underpinnings of snail shell colour variation yet have absolutely no clue why the Chinese have curved eyelids or the Eskimos, high cheekbones? In answer to the usual rebuttal, that studying race leads to discrimination, Leroi argues, quite successfully, that it is in fact our residual ignorance that gives would-be racists a welcome loophole. And as for his thoughts on beauty, the ideas are fascinating and should be of interest to us all. It's worth reading the book for the last paragraph alone.
Rating:
Summary: Are Redheads Mutants?
Review: Despite being the repository of many of my family's variant genes, I can't complain - I am a fully functional human being. That said, the fact that I am the first known case of inherited intermittent vertical nystagmus [at least that's what the doctors said at the time of my birth] has given me an above average interest in the genetics of human beings. Armand Marie Leroi's Mutants is an excellent introduction to genetic variety in human beings. Mutants could have been turned into a freak show by a lesser writer or one with the desire to titillate, but Leroi handles the subject directly and with the right level of sensitivity. In the introduction, Leroi demystifies the word mutant and concludes the chapter by saying We are all mutants. But some of us are more mutant than others. I especially enjoyed the fact that I was finally able to understand the genetics of my aunt's 6th toe and the fact that Leroi uses redheads to explore the boundary between mutation and polymorphism [I'm okay with the fact that being a redhead makes me a mutant]. Despite the way Leroi handles the material, this is not a book for the squeamish. The black and white illustrations may be disturbing to some readers. I think the perfect reader for this book would be a person with the background from a 9th grade biology class and an interest in learning more about human genetics. People with an interest in history and the process of doing science should also find much of interest in Mutants.
Rating:
Summary: Are Redheads Mutants?
Review: Despite being the repository of many of my family's variant genes, I can't complain - I am a fully functional human being. That said, the fact that I am the first known case of inherited intermittent vertical nystagmus [at least that's what the doctors said at the time of my birth] has given me an above average interest in the genetics of human beings. Armand Marie Leroi's Mutants is an excellent introduction to genetic variety in human beings. Mutants could have been turned into a freak show by a lesser writer or one with the desire to titillate, but Leroi handles the subject directly and with the right level of sensitivity. In the introduction, Leroi demystifies the word mutant and concludes the chapter by saying We are all mutants. But some of us are more mutant than others. I especially enjoyed the fact that I was finally able to understand the genetics of my aunt's 6th toe and the fact that Leroi uses redheads to explore the boundary between mutation and polymorphism [I'm okay with the fact that being a redhead makes me a mutant]. Despite the way Leroi handles the material, this is not a book for the squeamish. The black and white illustrations may be disturbing to some readers. I think the perfect reader for this book would be a person with the background from a 9th grade biology class and an interest in learning more about human genetics. People with an interest in history and the process of doing science should also find much of interest in Mutants.
Rating:
Summary: We Are All Mutants
Review: Don't expect this book to be a freak show featuring people with deformities and abnormalities. Instead, this is a rather unique genetics text that Leroi constructs from a contrarian perspective. Here Leroi utilizes the concept of mutation in order to illustrate what genes and chromosomes are supposed to do, as mutations illustrate either damaging or benign alterations. For example, early in the book he uses the example of a deformity that causes some people to be born without arms. This does not prove the existence of a gene that causes a lack of arms, but rather an error in the gene that is supposed to give us arms. Note that some knowledge of genetics and biology would be an asset as you read this book, though it is well presented for the informed general reader. There is a good deal of coverage of documented birth defects, with many types of "mutants" from conjoined twins to albinos being covered in great (and sometimes gruesome) detail. However, Leroi also includes changes to the genome, either sharp mutations or more gradual polymorphisms, that lead to all sorts of human variety from tallness to crooked teeth to red hair. (I have the first two of those myself.) The book ends with some speculations from Leroi on how genetic mutations are the cause of aging and even beauty - arguments that are disputable and inconclusive but offer great food for thought. Never before have mutants looked so normal. [~doomsdayer520~]
Rating: 
Summary: Thorough, but not quite thorough enough.
Review: I have an above-basic understanding of biology and, more specifically, genetics, but I felt the book was somewhat lacking in more scientific illustration. In talking about something like apical ridges and zones of polarizing activity, it would be helpful to have accompanying illustrations. Otherwise it's a bit difficult to try to visualize molecular levels of detail unless you have a very keen understanding of the subject already. However, it's a very good book, humanely and thoroughly written, which doesn't treat its subject matter salaciously. I'll look forward to future works by the author.
Rating:
Summary: Weird, witty and wise
Review: I have to admit to a little voyeurism when it comes to the odd, and Armand Marie LeRoi's book Mutants does have a bit of a side show aspect to it. What it really intends is to show how science discovers how things work--or in this case fail to work--in human anatomy-physiology. Now that the human genome project has crunched out the raw data on what our DNA code is, it has become the far more daunting task of biologists to figure out what it says and how it works. The best way to do that would be to screw up specific sites on the gene and see what happens. This is how they learn what the DNA of lower orders does, but humans aren't like fruit flies; we don't live our lives in a matter of days. Nor are we like amoeba or worms; our genetics are much more complicated and the interactions among them probably orders of magnitude greater than those for the "simpler" animals. Most important, screwing up the genetics of a human subject is not exactly, ethically or morally speaking, a good place to go! That leaves us with natural genetic failures, those individuals who have suffered genetic misprints that can lead to clues about what normal DNA does. This is what chapter one explains in some detail. The remaining chapters illustrate what is learned from specific mutations: twinning, how and from what parts of the body arise, how things grow, how gender develops, how skin differences occurs, and why aging happens. Since many of the mutant individuals discussed are historic figures, some of the bibliographic entries are quite old. While there are some books, most of the entries are those of modern scientific journals: American Journal of Medicine, Annals of Human Biology, Developmental Biology, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, etc. Most of these are very current, many from the late 1990s. For the interested follower of the subject, some of these might be difficult to find unless there is a university library at your disposal. FOR THOSE WRITING PAPERS: IN SCIENCE OR IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE: The book might illustrate how scientists can approach a problem without offending the ethics of the society of which it is a part. One might also check some of the old texts to find material that would illustrate other types of genetic problems and describe how this might be of help to geneticists. One might describe the current issues regarding cloning using this book as a reference. One might write a paper that showed how the efforts of scientists and medical doctors of the past to publish new information in their times have helped scientists decades, even centuries later. IN THE ARTS, HISTORY, ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY: One might show how art has captured information that is pertinent to scientific work today, or discuss how the mutant individual fit into his/her particular society. (Please note that James Merrick is one of those discussed and that there are several biographies and a play based on his life.) An interesting book on a clever approach to genetics.
Rating:
Summary: A clever approach to genetics
Review: I have to admit to a little voyeurism when it comes to the odd, and Armand Marie LeRoi's book Mutants does have a bit of a side show aspect to it. What it really intends is to show how science discovers how things work--or in this case fail to work--in human anatomy-physiology. Now that the human genome project has crunched out the raw data on what our DNA code is, it has become the far more daunting task of biologists to figure out what it says and how it works. The best way to do that would be to screw up specific sites on the gene and see what happens. This is how they learn what the DNA of lower orders does, but humans aren't like fruit flies; we don't live our lives in a matter of days. Nor are we like amoeba or worms; our genetics are much more complicated and the interactions among them probably orders of magnitude greater than those for the "simpler" animals. Most important, screwing up the genetics of a human subject is not exactly, ethically or morally speaking, a good place to go! That leaves us with natural genetic failures, those individuals who have suffered genetic misprints that can lead to clues about what normal DNA does. This is what chapter one explains in some detail. The remaining chapters illustrate what is learned from specific mutations: twinning, how and from what parts of the body arise, how things grow, how gender develops, how skin differences occurs, and why aging happens. Since many of the mutant individuals discussed are historic figures, some of the bibliographic entries are quite old. While there are some books, most of the entries are those of modern scientific journals: American Journal of Medicine, Annals of Human Biology, Developmental Biology, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, etc. Most of these are very current, many from the late 1990s. For the interested follower of the subject, some of these might be difficult to find unless there is a university library at your disposal. FOR THOSE WRITING PAPERS: IN SCIENCE OR IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE: The book might illustrate how scientists can approach a problem without offending the ethics of the society of which it is a part. One might also check some of the old texts to find material that would illustrate other types of genetic problems and describe how this might be of help to geneticists. One might describe the current issues regarding cloning using this book as a reference. One might write a paper that showed how the efforts of scientists and medical doctors of the past to publish new information in their times have helped scientists decades, even centuries later. IN THE ARTS, HISTORY, ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY: One might show how art has captured information that is pertinent to scientific work today, or discuss how the mutant individual fit into his/her particular society. (Please note that James Merrick is one of those discussed and that there are several biographies and a play based on his life.) An interesting book on a clever approach to genetics.
Rating:
Summary: ...
Review: Science in highschool was always a blur for me. Don't ask me how I managed to not fail Biology. It wasn't until I bought "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene that I realized that perhaps I could wrap my head around this science stuff after all. Since then I've been on a hunt for any science book that strikes my fancy (yet looks like it would make sense to the lay reader such as myself).
"Mutants" by Leroi caught my eye due to the freak show element of the topic. The cover is a good catch: a man with a regular head and torso, but no arms or legs... but hands and feet attached to the torso. I read the first chapter or so in the bookstore and decided that Leroi's writing was interesting and clear enough that someone like myself would be able to read it without getting bogged down in long, technical descriptions.
As perhaps expected, there were parts I didn't quite understand... but that's ok. Leroi's writing is good enough to still keep the book moving. After all, I didn't remember anything from my biology class, so without even a brief crash course in genetics I did a lot of learning on the fly.
The most interesting parts were when Leroi digged into the lives of people who lived with a mutation (or a less severe part of genetic variety). These stories gave the conditions a face (or faces) and feelings.
One of the things that influenced me to buy the book was that I noticed in the index that Leroi touched upon progeria, a condition where people physically age at an acellerated rate. I've been facinated with progeria and the people with it ever since I read "Otherworld: City of Gold" by Tad Williams where one of the main characters suffers from it. Unfortunately, once I got to that part in the book there was nothing more than a paragraph mention without any attempt to dig into it further. So that was disappointing and sad. It should have justified at least a couple of pages.
My big complaint with the book is how the end notes were handled. Most books place something in the text to alert you that there is an end note, usually a number, however "Mutants" gave no mention of the end notes in the text so it wasn't until I got to the end that I realized there WERE end notes. Future editions would be well advised to place markers in the book its self for the reader's ease.
But all in all it was a good introduction to genetics for someone who has no background in the subject.
Rating:
Summary: I recommend it.
Review: This book covers topics I am interested in, in a way that doesn't bore. And when I say doesn't bore, I mean it seems to cover both sides of my interest. It takes a biologistic approach and melds it with a non-scientistic inquisitive mind. It comes off well informed, but not so heavy handed that it turns away people who are already interested in the subject. Not for a biologist, but more for an artist or interested mind that wants the hard info in a soft pill.
|
