Well sourced: The notes at the end reveal that Ridley is on top of the latest academic research and writing. Each chapter has about 20 citations from within a few years that the books were published.

The biologist Jerry Coyne, writing in the London Review of Books, criticises Genome as "at once instructive and infuriating. For each nugget of science, Ridley also includes an error or misrepresentation. Some of these derive from poor scholarship: others from his political agenda." [3] For example, Coyne mentions Ridley's incorrect claim that "half of your IQ is inherited"; [3] that Ridley assumes that the marker used by Robert Plomin, IGF2R, is the purported "intelligence gene" [3] that it marks; and that social influences on behaviour [always] work by switching genes on and off, something that Coyne states is "occasionally true". [3] Coyne argues that Ridley is an "implacable" [3] genetic determinist, denying the influence of the environment, and calling his politics "right-wing". [3] He calls the book's structure "eccentric" [3] and "bizarre", [3] the chapters matching the 23 pairs of human chromosomes, and notes that Genome is the third of Ridley's books that "tries to popularise" evolutionary psychology. [3] The idea of genes in conflict with each other, the notion of the genome as a sort of battlefield between parental genes and childhood genes, or between male genes and female genes, is a little-known story outside a small group of evolutionary biologists. Yet it has profoundly shaken the philosophical foundations of biology. Chromosome 9 – DiseaseThe rest of the book is filled with vignettes about other interesting genes. A focus of many chapters is on genetic etiology, because so often news stories are driven by: “a gene found for disease X”. Of course, as Ridley points out, when we say that BCRA1 leads to breast cancer, we actually mean that people who do not have a proper version of this gene are more likely to get the disease. It would be like saying: liver organ found to cause cirrhosis or stomach organ found to cause ulcers. While any book about genetics is at risk of being dated due to the rapid progress being made in this field, Ridley’s clear prose and insight easily extends the shelf life of his writing to the present day. The book's author, Matt Ridley, is a British journalist and businessman, known for writing on science, the environment, and economics. [4] He studied zoology, gaining his DPhil in 1983. [5] Structure [ edit ] Anticipation: it has been known for some time that those with a severe form of Huntington’s disease or fragile X are likely to have children in whom the disease is worse or begins earlier than it did in themselves. Anticipation means that the longer the repetition, the longer it is likely to grow when copied for the next generation. We know that these repeats form little loopings of DNA called hairpins. When the hairpins unfold, the copying mechanism can slip and more copies of the word insert themselves. Chromosome 5 – Environment The whole serotonin system is about biological determinism. Your chances of becoming a criminal are affected by your brain chemistry. But that does not mean, as it is usually assumed to mean, that your behaviour is socially immutable. Quite the reverse: your brain chemistry is determined by the social signals to which you are exposed. Biology determines behaviour yet is determined by society.

Human behaviour shares these characteristics. Stress can alter the expression of genes, which can affect the response to stress and so on. Human behaviour is therefore unpredictable in the short term, but broadly predictable in the long term. Thus at any instant in the day, I can choose not to consume a meal. I am free not to eat. But over the course of the day it is almost a certainty that I will eat. The science writer Michael Shermer finds Ridley's technique "at once clever and delimiting: Each chapter represents a chromosome, for which he has chosen a single entity supposedly determined or influenced by that chromosome." [8] In Shermer's view, "It is a facile literary device to help readers get their minds around this illimitable subject, but I fear that it gives the wrong impression, disclaimers notwithstanding, that such things as intelligence, instinct, or self-interest are wholly located on that chromosome (and, therefore, genetically programmed and biologically determined)." [8] Awards and distinctions [ edit ] This book is 20 years old, so there's been a lot of progress, but it is still relevant since he's dealing with a lot of basics & shows how our expanding knowledge is making life better. I can't remember the exact quote, "Scientists live for ignorance; finding the answers. Knowledge is boring." or something like that & adds that every discovery only creates more questions. It was great because he summed up our technological leaps of the past few centuries so well. The book was welcomed by critics in journals such as Nature and newspapers including The New York Times. [1] [2] The London Review of Books however found the book "at once instructive and infuriating", as "his right-wing politics lead him to slant the implications of the research. [3] Context [ edit ] I feel bad giving this book a rating, since it has been one of those rare ones that I decided to stop reading despite having only managed a few chapters. I did skim through a fair bit of the rest, and saw that the interesting facts and historical figures associated with the nurture-nature debate persist throughout the book. Those were the bits that made it informative and interesting. But I had some serious issues with some of Ridley's opinions disguised as fact, as well as some technical choices such as referring to a "Genome Organizing Device" or "GOD" which is responsible for the development of life. He says he does this so he can write in the active rather than the passive voice, but he could easily have used "natural selection" or some other substitute. He says he chooses GOD to "keep religious people happy", which I would find incredibly patronizing if I was religious. This is just one example among many when Ridley tries to say something clever or adopts a writing style that strays from scientific interest to being pompous at best and misleading at worst.A baby chimpanzee would be as socially confused if reared by human beings as Tarzan would be if reared by chimps. Ridley takes on a number of controversial topics. These include the genome’s influence on intelligence, sexual orientation, personality and free will; genetically modified foods, eugenics and testing for incurable diseases. He explains how genes function, their structure, and how they shape our bodies and minds. The book was written in 1999 so some of it may be dated. Below are my notes. Freedom lies in expressing your own determinism, not somebody else’s. It is not the determinism that makes a difference, but the ownership. Arguably the most significant scientific discovery of the new century, the mapping of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes that make up the human genome raises almost as many questions as it answers. Questions that will profoundly impact the way we think about disease, about longevity, and about free will. Questions that will affect the rest of your life. Some readers might object to how much he injects his personal opinions into the text, but I liked it. And I felt it was usually clear that it was his personal opinion. Another thing a little odd was the number of off topic digressions, often coupled with personal observations. But I mostly liked those too. The last chapter got a bit into the weeds, discussing the apparent controversy over "free will". He disagrees with the common positions that there is no free will because your actions are either dictated entirely by your genome or your actions are entirely random. Ridley does not accept that dichotomy, saying that neither of those control absolutely and free will resides in the interaction between those two extremes. That makes a lot of sense to me.

entertainment, глупава езотерика и таблоидни биографии. На този фон наличието на стабилна литература за еволюция, рационализъм, скептицизъм и науката in general остава някъде назад. Прекалено назад.

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It is a rather basic, chemical—mechanical, step-by-step process. From simple asymmetry can grow intricate pattern. Dawkins, Richard (2009). The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing. Oxford University Press. p.35. ISBN 978-0-19-921681-9. But even this is misleading. Not only does your IQ change with age, but so does its heritability. The heritability of childhood IQ is about forty-five per cent, whereas in late adolescence it rises to seventy-five per cent. As you grow up, you gradually express your own innate intelligence and leave behind the influences stamped on you by others. You select the environments that suit your innate tendencies, rather than adjusting your innate tendencies to the environments you find yourself in. The analogy between a homeobox and a plug is quite close: the homeobox is the bit by which the protein made by the gene attaches to a strand of DNA to switch on or off another gene. All homeotic genes are genes for switching other genes on or off.