Genome

Starred review from January 31, 2000
HSoon we'll know what's in our genes: next year, the Human Genome Project will have its first-draft map of our 23 chromosomes. Ridley (The Red Queen; The Origins of Virtue) anticipates the genomic news with an inventively constructed, riveting exposition of what we already know about the links between DNA and human life. His inviting prose proposes "to tell the story of the human genome... chromosome by chromosome, by picking a gene from each." That story begins with the basis of life on earth, the DNA-to-RNA-to-protein process (chapter one, "Life," and also chromosome one); the evolution of Homo sapiens (chromosome two, which emerged in early hominids when two ape chromosomes fused); and the discovery of genetic inheritance (which came about in part thanks to the odd ailment called alkaptonuria, carried on chromosome three). Some facts about your life depend entirely on a single gene--for example, whether you'll get the dreadful degenerative disease Huntington's chorea, and if so, at what age (chromosome four, hence chapter four: "Fate"). But most facts about you are products of pleiotropy, "multiple effects of multiple genes," plus the harder-to-study influences of culture and environment. (One asthma-related gene--but only one--hangs out on chromosome five.) The brilliant "whistle-stop tour of some... sites in the genome" passes through "Intelligence," language acquisition, embryology, aging, sex and memory before arriving at two among many bugbears surrounding human genetic mapping: the uses and abuses of genetic screening, and the ongoing debate on "genetic determinism" and free will. Ridley can explain with equal verve difficult moral issues, philosophical quandaries and technical biochemistry; he distinguishes facts from opinions well, and he's not shy about offering either. Among many recent books on genes, behavior and evolution, Ridley's is one of the most informative. It's also the most fun to read. Agent, Felicity Bryan.

January 1, 2000
Written in 23 chapters corresponding to the 23 pairs of chromosomes comprising the human genome, this is an engrossing account of the genetic history of our species. Each chapter focuses on a newly discovered gene on each chromosome, tracing its genetic contribution to such areas as human intelligence, personality, sexual behavior, and susceptibility to disease. Ridley (The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature) is a zoologist-turned-science writer. As the Human Genome Project nears completion (the first findings are expected to be released February 2000), this book will be particularly relevant to lay readers, providing insight into how far we have come and where we are heading in the understanding of our genetic heritage. Recommended for public and academic libraries.--Leila Fernandez, Steacie Science Lib., York Univ., Toronto

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 1, 2000
Sometime this year, the entire, 23-chromosome human genome will have been recorded. Most of the vast record will consist of so-called junk DNA, which merely cushions the useful variety. Ridley homes in on the latter in 22 chapters, each focused on a single gene within a single chromosome. (Why not 23 chapters? Ridley considers the famous sex determiners X and Y together.) So doing, he writes on topics ranging from life per se, accounted for in chromosome 1, to history (i.e., mutation) to intelligence to growth to memory to free will, for which no gene has been found accountable--yet. Even politics gets considered, for it is involved in any attempts to manipulate society to cope with genetic effects, as Ridley demonstrates in the late chapter about the gene on chromosome 20 that is implicated in Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human equivalent of mad cow disease. Politics also figures in the chromosome 21 chapter, which uses the gene responsible for Down syndrome as the pretext for a history of the discredited practice of eugenics and to argue that human breeding schemes must never be coerced by government, especially, but also by scientific, medical, or social-service counseling. Throughout the book, Ridley gradually switches emphasis from the good and ill effects of genes to the benefits and dangers of genetic manipulation; he associates those benefits with science and those dangers with government programs to make society better by meddling with individual lives. Superb popular science writing and cogent public affairs argumentation. ((Reviewed February 1, 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)