This is a difficult book to read but if you're into genetics or not it's still really fascinating. Who'd of thought that men could go extinct and leave all us ladies behind !!!

I've read each of Bryan Sykes books as they've been published. He has an engaging way of writing that puts the reader in the front seat of the discussion at hand. Although the subject wasn't as fascinating as THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF EVE or SAXONS, VIKINGS AND CELTS, I enjoyed reading about the issues currently being studied in genetics and world genealogy.

I imagine some of the author's conclusions are considered dodgy or speculative by other geneticists, but you can't argue with his background and expertise. Another amazingly readable book based on genetic research -- fascinating to learn about the ins and outs of mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomal oddities.

"A world without men!".
In this book, Dr. Bryan reveals new discoveries of his own about our genes and our way of evolving.
The reason why I gave it only 3 stars even though it was a great benefit for me, is because unlike the writer, I don't agree with Darwinism, which it was clear from his statement that he agrees with.
I do agree with the principal called "Natural Selection" however, that doesn't mean I agree with the theory.

This book made for an extremely interesting read. The theories proposed by the author are mind-boggling and yet make you wonder why you didn't question them before. Quite an un-put-down-able book by a scientist although I normally am very skeptical about their ability to narrate well.

I actually wrote a book report for this. Here's a summary of it with some of my ideas about it.



Throughout the history of the world, every event has lead to the collective knowledge of humanity. Since the early tribes, knowledge has been regarded as something useful yet equally something to fear. For it is the fear of every person to discover things that will lead to leave that enclosed cave of thought. Everyone is feeling warm and cozy inside it and whatever the cost may be, they don’t want to come out to discover what is truly real. Some take advantage of this to enrich themselves. While a very small community is trying to get people out of their fantasy and make them face the facts. Dr. Brian Sykes is one of them. Although we differ in opinions, the purpose is the same. To discover what is real and prepare for it. Now, I shall lead you through one of his books. It is a book entitled: Adam’s Curse.





The story begins with a simple quest. Dr. Brian Sykes was to investigate whether the owner of Glaxo Wellcome. Mr. Richard Sykes was related to him or not. He takes his blood sample and finds out that both their Y-Chromosomes (Y-C’s) match perfectly. But why? Enthralled to learn more about this matter, he begins searching for the past history of the Sykes family tree and finds detailed information about how names came to be in England. With the help of a friend, he then finds the place where the original Mr. Sykes lived. His name was Henri del Sike. His house had been constructed between two sykes.





Nowadays everyone knows the basics of Y for men and X for woman. But back in the day. Scientists took a long journey to discover what made a man a man and a woman a woman. First, there was an experiment with fruit flies. I will not go into details but the whole experiment ended with the wrong assumption that what determined sex on the flies, also determined sex on humans. After many other errors, a Chinese student discovering how to put chromosomes in order, Murray Barr discovering the Barr body and many notices of more chromosomes than there should be in humans. Pat Jacobs and John Strong made the final contribution and it was finally stated that if you have a Y-C you are male. If you don’t, you’re a female. To tip that, within the Y-C there is a “master switch”. Which is the one that detours the body of a female, to take the road of a man. That switch is a gene called SRY.





On the natural world there are many species that have quite a different approach to sex than humans do. But the idea is all the same. Men are there for their sperm and in some cases protection of the females. Also on many reptiles the way of determining sex is decided while they are still inside the egg. Basically if the temperature is cold a male will be born. If it is hot, a female will be born. But the animal I see as most fascinating is the honey bee, which has an extremely matriarchal society. There are about twenty males only producing sperm. The queen controls the sex of the egg. Thus the colony is basically females. In sexual or asexual reproduction, there is one truth. Asexual reproduction will have the advantage of speed but the disadvantage of no genetic variation. Sexual reproduction will have the disadvantage of being slow but the advantage of much genetic variation. This means that if a virus finds out how to kill one asexual organism, it can wipe out the complete species. However, in a sexual organism the virus would just kill a small part of the population.





The view of evolution has changed much since Darwin. The original natural selection (survival of the fittest) has been supplanted by group selection (survival of the group) and then afterwards a great man called William Hamilton changed completely the view of selection to that of survival of the genes, concluding that the point of sex as a whole is to pass on the genes. To complement this idea there is a whole explanation of how it could have been that the structure of the cell formed by the nucleus imprisoning the mitochondria in the beginning of the planet. Dr. Bryan Sykes starts playing with words and makes the reader start thinking of the nucleus as “evil” because it supposedly enslaved the mitochondria. If the mitochondria is there, it is because it got into contact with everything around it and fit perfectly with it. There is not any want in these things; there is no desire or possession of anything because there is no conscience. Our own conscience is the one that makes us start personalizing things without personality and makes our point of view err. Supposedly, to evade war within the cell the nucleus divided the cell into two sexes to prolong its own survival. Within men the Y-C is passed on to their sons and within woman the mtDNA is passed on to their daughters. Supposedly the Y-C wants this to keep on going and thus rule above all else but the mtDNA wants this to stop because it does not gain anything from it. Apparently even though this is going on, females seem to have fun with men. Through the concept called sexual selection. It is seen quite well in all species. It works like this: Both sexes wish to reproduce. A man will reproduce with the first female that steps in front of him. However, females are very picky with this and will only want to reproduce with the male that impresses her. The most popular example is that of the peacock where the male who has the most beautiful fail will spread it, do a little dance and hopefully if everything goes well. He will be able to spread his seed. There is another side to this. The constant demand for a more beautiful and bigger tail in males will lead to the species’ males to evolve bigger tails, until they are so big that the male will not be able to stand or will be too slow to run away from predators. Something similar happens with elephant seals. The demand for bigger males is so big that they end up stepping on their own offspring. This is the result of letting sexual selection take control of evolution.





While analyzing mtDNA Dr. Sykes had discovered that all Europeans came from 7 “clan” mothers. They have been the ones that have survived for thousands of years through mtDNA. The oldest clan mother is called “eve” with about 140,000 years of age. However, when analyzing male Y-C he found out that the oldest genetic ancestor was about 49,000 years ago. After this there is a series of experiments done by Dr. Sykes himself. He first discovers that a small percentage of rarotonga men in the pacific islands had a European ancestor. Then the desperate attempt of the Vikings to pass on their Y-C. Afterwards, it is discovered that the Y-C of Somerled, a great Irish warrior of the days of yore, was able to create half a million copies of itself in just 900 years. Which is a huge achievement for a Y-C. But why? Perhaps because of the wealth Somerled left his descendants. The same thing happened with Genghis Khan. The influence his family had on Y-C’s is deduced today to 16 million copies. So, if a man has much wealth then there is a high chance his Y-C will be passed on with more frequency. Thus, property is the key to immortality, at least on the genetic level. In the figure shown in the book of Y-C frequency there were remnants of other Y-C’s but there had lost their battles and perished because of their weakness.





What else is a factor in Y-C survival? What if the Y-C somehow discovered a way to shift the balance and have more chance of his offspring getting to be a male than a female? Or what if the mtDNA found another way to do the opposite? Apparently there are families with a tendency to have more males than females and vice-versa. However in men the probabilities of having more men than females is raised by the quantity of testosterone. Thus just demonstrates that there is a war going on between Y-C and mitochondria (mt).





Before this got so clear, humanity was basically moving with nature until we acquired the concept of property. This changed everything and unlocked Adam’s curse. Property now was a tool the Y-C had to battle his proclaimed “enemy” the mt. This was a double edged sword so to speak, it brought many problems to humans. Thanks to this we are destroying our own planet and ourselves in the process. Property triggered a train that today is going too fast to stop and may eventually kill us all. Men are the pilots of this train sure, but they are not entirely at fault. Men did all this on the account that woman will like it with the purpose of mating they will do whatever it is asked from them. Where eve goes, Adam is bound to follow.





Females have also the ability to fight back against males. It is shown in some insects and there has been one family in humans that had 78 daughters and not one son. Apparently some mt have the ability to influence the fertility of their sons. It is speculated that perhaps a homosexual son, is a way to benefit the female’s daughters.





After this point there is mainly much speculation. I criticize the fact that he attempts to make the reader see the Y-C as “evil”, undesirable and useless. It is the Y-C who dropped the end of WWII and if one quotes history there are innumerable events that prove that men have caused much suffering to the planet and to itself. But it is exactly this that has gotten to us where we are now. For if we didn’t have this greed and ambition we would probably be just another species in a planet without intelligence. Life is about trial and error and through our existence in this planet humans have had to make ALL the errors so we might properly learn. Thus, we are how we are today, we still make errors yet we don’t err so often. True, 80% of females in third world countries have had the clitoris’ cut at birth and I can add countless deeds of this kind to our black book. But most men won’t kill a man for the same petty reasons we would have done so 2000 years ago. There is still a high percentage of murder in the world but I can confidently say we have gotten better at organizing ourselves. There is still hope in men.





The Y-C will disappear in 125,000 years. Until then men can repent for what they did to woman, to gaia and to themselves. Do men deserve a second chance? That is not for me to decide, that is for the people living in that era to choose. I, however can just give my opinion and through actions persuade people to change. So instead of men ruling a society of destruction. Both male and woman can rule a society of peace.

Pretty interesting stuff. In Sykes' view, the human male's chromosome has been the major factor in human evolution and cultural development. Not only determining gender, it acts through a feedback loop. More powerful, aggressive males tend to reinforce their role in selecting mates and propagating traits in offspring.

Today the planet is carpeted with humanity, the result of a society dominated by the Y-chromosome. When hunter-gatherer societies took up agriculture, it "chained women" to "serial pregnancies", depriving them of the "relaxation of a sedentary existence" while producing additional farm workers. The resulting population explosion ultimately drove the creation of our industrialized, polluting society. This condition, in Sykes' view, is now leading to a depletion of the Y-chromosome's prowess. Ultimately, he argues, human males will be replaced by a society of women. Whether men will be kept as breeding stock he doesn't predict.

رااااااائع جدًا
لن تستطيع وصف الكتاب بأنه كتاب في البيولوجيا فقط
إنه كتابٌ فلسفيّ
يمكنك قراءته كمهتمّ بالفلسفة
أو إن شئت أدرجه ضمن تخصّصه الأصلي وهو البيولوجيا
يمكن أن أيضًا ضمّه إلى فئة العلوم الشعبية المبسّطة
فإن كان مؤلفه من أكبر الباحثين لعلم الوراثة ورسم خريطة الجينوم إلا أنه حرص على تقديم الكتاب للقارئ البسيط الذي يريد التثقف في هذا المجال
لولا النزعة الفلسفية الواضحة فيه لكان من الممكن أن يدرس ككتاب مدرسي إلا أنّ موضوع الكتاب الرئيس وهو "لعنة الكروموسوم y" ستربك الطلبة فيما لو درسوه
من الممكن جدًا أن يحوّل هذا الكتاب إلى برنامج وثائقي تلفزيوني
أتمنى أن يتاح لي الوقت والإمكانيات الفنية لتحويله في يوم ما إلى برنامج على يوتيوب على الأقل

This reads like a novel and contains so much information your brain swells. Very good

When I started reading it I was worried it was going to have a misogynistic slant to it. A lot of the early part of the book is the Oxford geneticist author tracking down his family tree using mouth swabs. Thankfully I couldn't be more wrong.

I really appreciated the book walking thru all the mistakes scientists made in understanding gender determination and for giving the reader a good understanding that a lot of what people believe is wrong.

The core concept that a species needs male and female to promote diversity and that as a species you either evolve into something new or go extinct. Learning that there are XX males in the world and that XY is doomed in 140k generations was a huge eye opener!

The last couple of chapters are worth their weight in gold.

خلط بريان سايكس علوم البيولوجي والأنثروبولوجيا والتاريخ بسلاسة وسهولة لغير المتخصصين. كما غلف كل النظريات والتجارب المطروحة بقصص شيقة تجعلك تتابع النتائج دون ملل. بعض الفصول مدهشة فيما تحويه من معلومات والبعض الاخر يحتاج تركيز تام ومتابعة للرسوم التوضيحية للوصول الى الصورة كاملة.

العيب الوحيد بالكتاب يرجع للمترجم في موضعين برأيي أولها في الأمثلة التي المحتوي على اسماء كثيرة والتي كان من الممكن عرضها بطرية أفضل للقارئ العربي، وثانيها استخدام وصفي الخلاعة والرجال الخلعاء كناية عن صفة الشذوذ الجنسي وهو ما يتعارض مع الطبيعة العلمية للكتاب ويقحم رأي المترجم به بغير وججه حق.

One of the most interesting books I’ve read on genetics although it’s final conclusion is evidently flawed.