Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters

Genome is somewhat out of date by now, published back in 1999. Bearing that in mind, it was a pretty good read; sometimes, the themes Ridley chose for a particular chapter weren’t all that closely tied to the chromosome he chose, and issues like that, but that’s the problem with our chromosomes. The information isn’t distributed neatly across our chromosomes: in fact, those of us with a Y chromosome have one that does almost nothing overall, despite the fact that it affects carriers’ phenotypes so markedly.

It’s mostly informative and tries hard to avoid reinforcing certain misconceptions — like the idea that a gene codes for a disease, or that things are as simple as a single gene coding for a single trait. A lot of the anecdotes are familiar to me from previous reading, but it’s still interesting to see them presented in this way. It’s pretty modern-human-centric: I mean, if you’re going to look at our autobiography of a species, then I think at least a little time needs to be given to the past of our species. People so often want to know how closely we’re related to Neanderthals.

I think Ridley’s tone is a little dry, though; given that and the fact that the book is a little out of date now, I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone looking for a quick and up to date whip around of what we know of genetics. If you have a more general, patient interest, though, why not?

Originally posted here.

It's scary that this book rife with transphobia and misogyny disguised as "real science" is so critically acclaimed.

Ridley has written an engaging and fascinating account of the human genome with the frame of writing one chapter focusing on a particular gene on each of the 23 chromosomes, and in this grand tour gives us a picture of the history and major issues of modern genetics research. He wisely does not confine himself too narrowly to this premise, which could quickly turn into a gimmicky straight jacket for his narrative. Instead, it becomes a basis for considering a range of phenomena of human importance including neurological development, sexuality, death, and free will in the light of the human genome and its functions.

He paints a vivid portrait of human life as a burbling cauldron of catalyzed chemical reactions governed by a gargantuan genetic blueprint saturated with history, incorporating errors, fragments of ancient viruses, and endless redundancy, yet still elegantly guiding an undifferentiated blob of protoplasm through its merry journey of development into fantastically complex mammals.

Written in the days of heady optimism over the human genome project, Ridley's work still holds up rather well, or so I'm told by colleagues with a deeper knowledge of biology than I can claim. To this layperson, "Genome" was a fascinating a illuminating tour into contemporary biochemistry and into our own information essence.

كتاب مبهر، كتابة علمية دقيقة تجمع بين تاريخ تطور العلوم والفلسفة والسياسية، وأسلوب سلس وساخر,, نظرة معمقة على تاريخ تطور الحياة لا الجنس البشري فقط
دار كلمات الحقيقية مستمرة في تقديم ترجمات علمية مبهرة وعظيمة

I wish I could give this book 6 stars! It's really fantastic, and I want to recommend it to EVERYONE, but in my heart I know the tone would bore some of my friends... I suggest thinking of the author/narrator as a cool guy you'd be friends with telling you all this information, instead of a nerdy/haughty *scientist* ...He's not a scientist, he's a writer & former editor, & this isn't a textbook, but it could be--he's done his research & includes all his references. Just slightly out-of-date (published in 1999) since genetics is such a fast-progressing area of knowledge but overall not "dated" or off-base.

As for the content, WOW! Changed the way I think about evolution & heredity (duh), human biology, history, & psychology, disease, medicine, food, sexuality, instinct, intelligence, personality, behavior, EVERYTHING. Eye-opening in a way that encourages wonder rather than only prescribing answers.

If you can't stomach the whole book, browse the Table of Contents &/or the Index & pick out a chapter or two--they're fairly self-contained so you can get away with skipping around, and I guarantee you will learn something cool.

I made it to page 45 and decided the 49 page rule could go to hell because I had too many other good things to read to slug through this. I did skim the rest to see if maybe it offered me any good argument for continuing. Nope.

1. Dated. My fault. I should have looked at the publication date.
2. Contrived -- as if he came up with the agenda, then looked for research to support his POV.
3. Couldn't tolerate the author's writing style: pedantic, condescending, annoying, sexist. He writes as if he's infatuated with how clever he thinks he is. I'm reminded of the bore at a cocktail party who insists on telling everyone how brilliant he is. Yawn.

Too bad. This is a subject I'm interested in, and I really wanted to like this book.

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Note: Usually I don't affix a star rating to books on my DNF/abandoned list. That said, I make exceptions if A) I've gotten more than 1/3 of the way through the book before giving up, and/or B) I thought the book especially inane, insufferable or just plain old awful.
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So, what are you?

A complicated biological machine beset by innate programming and external conditions bent both on keeping you alive and eventually killing you?

Or are you the creation of a supreme being, both soul and body, possessed of a free will?

And though Matt Ridley, in his 2000 book “Genome: The Autobiography of A Species in 23 Chapters,” leans to the left in this equation, he still writes an incredibly balanced and above all scientific book about the human genome, what we know about it, how we think it works and how we misunderstand the science that’s delving into figuring out how that double helix of DNA can turn two germ cells into a complicated biological masterpiece.

Ridley, in the footnotes to his book, acknowledges that it was, at its printing, already out of date. Ten years further along, of course, it is certainly even more out of date. But what’s not out of date in this wonderful book is the critical approach Ridley takes to this science. And it’s not critical in any political way, but critical in a scientific way. He reminds the reader constantly that what is known about the human genome is small compared to what is not known, that cause does not necessarily mean effect, that a firm belief in genetic determinism is just as foolish on the left as is a firm belief in free will is on the right. More importantly, he reminds us all that what we have, as far as genetics goes, is some knowledge bolstered by a lot of unsupported belief.

Here’s an example:

We instinctively assume that bodily biochemistry is cause whereas behavior is effect, an assumption we have taken to a ridiculous extent in considering the impact of genes upon our lives. If genes are involved in behavior then it is they that are the cause and they that are deemed immutable. This is a mistake made not just by genetic determinists, but by their vociferous opponents, the people who say behavior is “not in the genes”; the people who deplore the fatalism and predestination implied, they say, by behavior genetics. They give too much ground to their opponents by allowing this assumption to stand, for they tacitly admit that if genes are involved at all, then they area t the top of the hierarchy. They forget that genes need to be switched on, and external events – or free-willed behavior – can switch on genes. Far from us lying at the mercy of our omnipotent genes, it is often our genes that lie at the mercy of us. If you go bungee jumping or take a stressful job, or repeatedly imagine a terrible fear, you will raise your cortisol levels, and the cortisol will dash about the body busy switching on genes. (It is an indisputable fact that you can rigger activity in the “happiness centers” of the brain with a deliberate smile, as surely as you can trigger a smile with happy thoughts. It really does make you feel better to smile. The physical can be at the beck and call of the behavioral.)

Ridley, I believe, successfully finds and holds that middle ground. Our genes certainly influence who we are and what we become. But our behavior can, in turn, influence our genes. We are machines, beautiful, free-willed machines, capable to some extent of reprogramming ourselves.

Here’s a thought I had on the bus this morning: Our genes are like the model tank kit we can buy at the hobby store. We follow the instructions religiously and build that magnificent tank. Everything works. The wheels turn. The gun turrets rotate. The tracks allow the tank to maneuver through any kind of terrain. And then we take that tank not into the battlefield, but gently down a city street, to the park, to the grocery store, trundling along. It is still there in its essence of tankness; everything that makes it a tank is still there. And yet our use of it for domestic purposes does not mean that its innate tankness takes over; we drive it to the grocery store and load it with groceries, we do not drive it to the grocery store to level the building with our tank shells.

So brain and genome, tank and the purpose we put with it, work together. As Ridley writes:

The human brain is a far more impressive machine than the genome. If you like quantitative measure, it has trillions of synapses instead of billions of bases and it weighs kilograms in stead of micrograms. If you prefer geometry, it is an analogue, three-dimensional machine, rather than a digital, one-dimensional one. If you like thermodynamics, it generates large quantities of heat as it works, like a steam engine. For biochemists, it requires many thousands of different proteins, neurotransmitters, and other chemicals, not just the four nucleotides of DNA. For the impatient, it literally changes while you watch, as synapses are altered to create learned memories, whereas the genome changes more slowly than a glacier. For the lover of free will, the pruning of the neural networks in our grains, by the ruthless gardener called experience, is vital to the proper functioning of the organ, whereas genomes play out their messages in a predetermined way with comparatively little flexibility. Yet . . . the dichotomy is a false one. The brain is created by genes. It is only as good as its innate design. The very fact that it is a machine designed to be modified by experience is written in the genes. The mystery of how is one of the greatest challenges of modern biology. But that the human brain is the finest monument to the capacities of genes there is no doubt. It is the mark of a great leader that he knows when to delegate. The genome knew when to delegate.

I think what I enjoyed most about reading this book is that I learned a few things. Genetics is a pretty fascinating field of science, and I think if we all learned about it a bit more, we could have more intelligent discussions on the subject that what we see in political and media circles. Politics tends to get too black and white in this subject, and the media, for the most part, either boils things down too simply or merely presents both sides of the argument without really bothering to explain anything to the layman about what's being discussed. Ridley does a wonderful job explaining to the layman, but keeping it intelligent enough that the curious layman is able to keep exploring and asking questions.

كتاب علمى ممتع ينتقل فيه مات ريدلى من كرموسوم الى الآخر ويحكى قصته
ويختار جين من الجينات المكتشف حديثا على كل زوج من الكرموسومات
ويحكى قصته وعلاقته العلميه والفلسفيه بالامراض