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Summary: Fascinating Implications
Review: The Seven Daughters of Eve is the story of Bryan Sykes' study of mitochondrial DNA and its implications for our sense of ourselves and our place in the world. Mitochondrial DNA passes virtually intact from mother to child through countless generations. Sykes has studied the Ice Man and Cheddar Man and was, incredibly, able to identify lineal descendants living in our own time. Sykes' researches led him to conclude that everyone of European Caucasian ancestry can be traced to one of seven women who lived thousands of years ago. The book contains short but intriguing biographies of each of these seven women. The book is written in a lively, non-scientist-friendly style (but not dumbed-down in any sense. This book fascinated me because I am not only a historian but a genealogist. I have a photograph of my maternal line great-great-great-grandmother dating from about 1841 which I love because she bears a strong resemblance to my grandmother and others of her descendants whom I have known. Now the knowledge that I have her mitochondrial DNA makes me recognize that there is a strong link between us, even though she died nearly 100 years before I was born. I plan to have my own DNA tested so that I can learn which of the seven Eves was my own distant grandmother
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Summary: Wot no bibliography????
Review: I agree that Brian Sykes writes well, but the lack of any bibliography is an unbelievable oversight which largely undermines the value of his work.
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Summary: What an inflated ego, indeed. Goodyear blimp!
Review: The poster who claimed the SDOE book was an ego trip was dead on the money. And so weak in parts. We don't give a rat's tail about Sykes's boyhood fascination with hamsters. It's weaker than it even sounds. Realize Sykes, just cause (some of) your work may be slightly important doesn't mean you are at all!
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Summary: Th Seven Daughters of Eve
Review: The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science that Reveals our Genetic Ancestry written by Bryan Sykes is a fascinating book about our ancestors, but in a way only science can do. Finding out about our history via our mitochondrial DNA an almost indestructible strand of DNa passed down nearly unchanged from your mother. As this is a very compelling story, science now works to untangle our lives, making a most exciting book about the developments in genetics. The title of the book comes from the statement that all Americans with a European ancestor all come from one of seven clans, thus the seven daughters of Eve. The seven daughters names are Tara, Helena, Katrine, Xenia, Jasmine, Velda, and Ursula. Ursula is the oldest of the clans, some 45,000 years old, Helena clan is the most prodigious, and Katrine Clan is the youngest of the daughters at 15,000. mDNA or mitochondrial DNA only changes about once in 10,000 years therefore, you can trace where your daughter clan comes from via this testing of DNA samples. This makes for a very compelling and engaging story about human evolution. What I found to be most exciting was how the author found out whether the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon ever could have interbred. In that case, mDNA would be an excellent reporter of these encounters, since while the offspring would have an equal mixture of nuclear DNA from both parents, their mDNA would come from their mother. The problem with this is that we don't know how many chromosomes the Neanderthal had, if they had forty-eight and Cro-Magnon forty-six, same as Homo Sapiens. You'd get via the mating only forty-seven chromosomes, healthy offspring but sterile. This makes me wonder if we keep doing genetic engineering on the human genome could we make a generation that could be as different as Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon and could no cross breed with Homo sapiens. Only time will ber witness to what man will do in the future. Another interesting story within this book is how the author proved that the population of the Pacific Ocean islands started from China and the population worked its way away from China... this counters Thor Heyerdahl's claim the the population came from South America. I remember reading about Heyerdahl's adventure on Kon-Tiki and he almost lost Kon-Tiki to an over friendly Whale Shark. This is an easily readable book that makes good logical scientific sense. I found this book to be interestingly engaging making yu want to read till the end.
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Summary: Lousy book. The Journey of Man is better.
Review: Spencer Wells wrote The Journey of Man book and Wells doesn't spend page after page of it dwelling on his own life story as Sykes does in his crummy Seven Daughters of Eve. Unlike SDOE, JOM is about the Y-chromosome studies of man rather than the mitoichondrial DNA studies of women! More interesting facts are in JOM than this dreck!
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Summary: Totally awful book!
Review: Sykes is an egomaniac all the way. Nothing more I can add about that that hasn't been written.
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Summary: Worse science book ever
Review: The poster who posted that the book is hard to relate to with stone age historical fiction was correct. The poster who said that Sykes has a Goodyear blimp inflated ego was making an understatement. Sykes has an ego the size of the Hindenburg dirigible before it went down in flames. The poster who claimed the book is weak with Sykes's discussion of hamsters was as right as rain. And lastly though catching crooks with DNA clues or proving paternity and or maternity accusations and finding disease genes are great reasons for studying DNA what possible good are finding out who are our ancestors were 10,000 years ago or more? It's worthless. Who cares whose related to who back 10,000 years ago or more? Trivial, stupid and worthless is what this book is. Case closed!
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Summary: So, from which daughter of Eve am I decended from?
Review: I loved this book. I have always been interested in man's origins. This book traces persons of European decent to 7 women. Even for someone such as myself that has only a passing knowledge of genetics this was an easy informative read. This book was written for a broad audience. This is a great easy read for anyone who has an interest in evolution, genetics, or human history.
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Summary: Only need to read first half of this Book
Review: I read this book approximately 6 months ago. It was a very entertaining read. Provides a good background in the science of mitochandrial DNA and its applications in revealing our past. I felt that the author indulged himself in the second half of the book. It is pure fiction and perhapst he's trying his hand at being a future novelist. For this reason I only gave it 3 stars. I recommend this book, but skip the second half where he tries to provide a fictional account of the lives of seven women who passed their unique mitochandrial DNA to today's Europeans.
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Summary: Eye-opening adventure
Review: The Seven Daughters of Eve, by Bryan Sykes was an eye-opening adventure to the field of human genetic ancestry. It took us to a place thousands of years ago to a world without cars, skyscrapers, and airplanes to a world of hunters, cavement, and wild animals. Bryan Syke is a pure genius. Him and his team of expert scientists found a way of knowing exactly who we descended from. His team found 26 other clans comparable to the Seven Daugters, around the globe. This novel portrayed the stories of seven woman and how Europeans are related to one of these women. These women were referred to as the Seven Daugters of Eve; their names being Ursula, Xenia, Helena, Velda, Tara, Katrine, and Jasmine. They lived from 45,000 years ago to the most recent, which was 10,000 years ago. The main concept of this novel is that our mitochondrial DNA is the one thing that us humans can compare to find our ancestors.
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