Genome: The Autobiography of a Species In 23 Chapters - Hardcover

Ridley, Matt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060194979 ISBN 13: 9780060194970

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2000

Synopsis

“Ridley leaps from chromosome to chromosome in a handy summation of our ever increasing understanding of the roles that genes play in disease, behavior, sexual differences, and even intelligence. . . . . He addresses not only the ethical quandaries faced by contemporary scientists but the reductionist danger in equating inheritability with inevitability.” — The New Yorker

The genome's been mapped. But what does it mean? Matt Ridley’s Genome is the book that explains it all: what it is, how it works, and what it portends for the future

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.

Genome offers extraordinary insight into the ramifications of this incredible breakthrough. By picking one newly discovered gene from each pair of chromosomes and telling its story, Matt Ridley recounts the history of our species and its ancestors from the dawn of life to the brink of future medicine. From Huntington's disease to cancer, from the applications of gene therapy to the horrors of eugenics, Ridley probes the scientific, philosophical, and moral issues arising as a result of the mapping of the genome. It will help you understand what this scientific milestone means for you, for your children, and for humankind.

About this title

About the Author

Matt Ridley's books―including The Red Queen, Genome, The Rational Optimist, The Evolution of Everything, How Innovation Works, and most recently, Viral: the Search for the Origin of Covid-19 (with Alina Chan)―have sold over a million copies, been translated into 31 languages, and won several awards. He sat in the House of Lords from 2013 and 2021, and was founding chairman of the International Centre for Life in Newcastle. He created the “Mind and Matter” column in the Wall Street Journal in 2010, and was a columnist for the Times. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Northumberland.

From the Back Cover

The human genome, the complete set of genes housed in twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, is nothing less than an autobiography of our species. Spelled out in a billion three-letter words using the four-letter alphabet of DNA, the genome has been edited, abridged, altered and added to as it has been handed down, generation to generation, over more than three billion years. With the first draft of the human genome due to be published in 2000, we, this lucky generation, are the first beings who are able to read this extraordinary book and to gain hitherto unimaginable insights into what it means to be alive, to be human, to be conscious or to be ill.

By picking one newly discovered gene from each of the twenty-three human chromosomes and telling its story, Matt Ridley recounts the history of our species and its ancestors from the dawn of life to the brink of future medicine. He finds genes that we share with bacteria, genes that distinguish us from chimpanzees, genes that can condemn us to cruel diseases, genes that may influence our intelligence, genes that enable us to use grammatical language, genes that guide the development of our bodies and our brains, genes that allow us to remember, genes that exhibit the strange alchemy of nature and nurture, genes that parasitise us for their own selfish ends, genes that battle with one another and genes that record the history of human migrations. From Huntington's disease to cancer, he explores the applications of genetics: the search for understanding and therapy, the horrors of eugenics and the philosophical implications for understanding the paradox of free will.

Reviews

We have come a long way since the public confrontation in 1860 between Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley, one of Charles Darwin's chief advocates. When the bishop asked him whether apes were on his grandmother's or grandfather's side, Huxley snapped that he would prefer an ape to a man who "introduces ridicule into a grave scientific discussion" (Adrian Desmond. Huxley. Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1997). In his latest discourse on evolution, Genome, Matt Ridley, a fluent science writer, points out that "we are, to a ninety-eight per cent approximation, chimpanzees, and they are, with ninety-eight per cent confidence limits, human beings." Yet in August 1999, the Kansas Board of Education voted to delete any mention of evolution from the science curriculum of the public schools in its jurisdiction. This act of political flimflam denies Kansas students not only the right to think for themselves but also the ennobling awareness of the fundamental unity of all living creatures. Ridley says it well: "Wherever you go in the world, whatever animal, plant, bug or blob you look at, if it is alive, it will use the same dictionary and know the same code. All life is one." How unfortunate that students in Kansas cannot share Ridley's enthusiasm for life.

Genome is a gambol through the 23 human chromosomes. It is not a catalogue of the 80,000 or so genes that wind around beads of histones to form chromatin, the stuff of chromosomes. Instead, Ridley samples one or two genes from each chromosome, selecting them to form a base from which he can wander freely into realms of biology and medicine that reach from the Prader-Willi and Angelman syndromes (for an essay on genetic imprinting) to why Mediterranean people eat cheese (Ridley will tell you). In Genome you will find essays on, among many topics, alkaptonuria, asthma, Huntington's chorea, the immune system, eugenics, and cancer. The emphasis is not so much on the genome as on evolution and natural selection, especially on how we became the way we are in form, thought, and behavior.

Ridley is a personal guide through the thickets of complex biologic systems. He addresses you directly ("Are you still with me?" punctuates a story about the role of serotonin in anxiety and depression). He is enthusiastic ("Mock my zeal if you wish"), and he challenges ("Once you start thinking in selfish-gene terms, some truly devious ideas pop into your head"). Above all, he speculates -- sometimes soberly, sometimes wildly, but never boringly. Ridley's musings can reach ethereal heights, only to be caught in a downdraft of fact. There is little or no jargon, which is fine, but also none of the equivocation that glues us to reality -- readers will not often encounter "perhaps," "might," and "maybe." A typical pronouncement: "Freudian theory fell the moment lithium first cured a manic depressive, where twenty years of psychoanalysis had failed." Perhaps. Or "products of the chemical industry, may be responsible for... the falling sperm counts of modern men." The evidence of "falling sperm counts" is tenuous, at best. And this: "Natural selection is the process by which genes change their sequences." Surely Ridley means "mutation" and not "natural selection." And Ridley's speculation about why some of us are milk drinkers and others cheese eaters veers dangerously toward the ideas of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, who ruined Russian agriculture with his cockamamie theory that acquired characteristics can be inherited.

Even so, Genome is instructive, challenging, and fun to read. I envy Ridley's talent for presenting, without condescension, complex sets of facts and ideas in terms comprehensible to outsiders. His chapter on Huntington's chorea is a masterly plain-English exposition that any writer of scientific papers could take as a model. Ridley's enthusiasm is so high that it is best to keep the book on your night table. Read a chapter a night.

Robert S. Schwartz, M.D.
Copyright © 2000 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. The New England Journal of Medicine is a registered trademark of the MMS.

The human genome is becoming a celebrity. It already has its own fan magazines, in the form of two professional journals devoted exclusively to genome research, and its own web sites, including National Human Genome Research Institute and at the private company Celera Genomics. The unveiling of the first draft of its complete primary sequence--which Celera has promised to produce within the year--is as eagerly anticipated as the next Madonna album. Now, thanks to science writer Matt Ridley, it even has its own autobiography: Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters.

It is no surprise that Ridley, an avid proponent of the Darwinian view of the world, perceives the genome not as a cookbook or a manual but as a quintessentially historical document--a three-billion-year memoir of our species from its beginnings in the primal ooze to the present day. The first popular book written by Ridley, who has a Ph.D. in zoology and covered science for The Economist for nine years, was The Red Queen, an engrossing account of sexual selection. His second volume, The Origins of Virtue, delved into the sociobiology of good and evil. Genome continues the author's interest in evolution and at the same time offers excursions into molecular biology, medicine and biotechnology.

Unlike many celebrity autobiographies, Genome is largely free of gossip and personal digs; for example, the vicious catfight between Francis S. Collins, leader of the government-supported Genome Project, and Craig Venter, president of Celera, is barely mentioned. Nor is it a long recitation of "disease-gene-of-the-month" discoveries, for as Ridley reminds us more than once, "Genes are not there to cause diseases." Instead he gives us a freewheeling, eclectic, often witty tour of modern molecular biology, illustrated by picking one gene from each of our 23 chromosomes.

It is an exciting voyage. We learn about the homeobox genes, which guide the development of the entire human body from a single cell. The gene for telomerase, an enzyme that repairs the ends of frayed chromosomes, is the focus for a discussion of aging and immortality. Ethnic differences in the frequency of a particular breast cancer gene are used to describe the relations among population genetics, prehistoric migrations, and linguistic groups, while the gene for the classical ABO blood groups is the springboard for a discussion of genetic selection and drift. The book describes genes that we share with all living creatures and those that are unique to our species, genes that are essential to every cell and those that seem to serve no useful purpose at all, genes that predict disease with complete certainty and those that only tilt the scales.

Although Ridley covers a broad range of topics, his love of evolutionary psychology is evident from the number of chapters devoted to behavior. He writes about recent evidence of genetic links to memory and intelligence, personality, language and even free will. But Ridley is no genetic determinist. He sees the brain as part of a complex, interconnected system, equally influenced by genes and environment, with no one force predominant: "You are not a brain running a body by switching on hormones. Nor are you a body running a genome by switching on hormone receptors. Nor are you a genome running a brain by switching on genes that switch on hormones. You are all of these at once.... Many of the oldest arguments in psychology boil down to misconceptions of this kind. The arguments for and against 'genetic determinism' presuppose that the involvement of the genome places it above and beyond the body."

Ridley includes just the right amount of history and personal anecdotes to spice up the science. He's a good storyteller. I have read many versions of the discovery of DNA as the carrier of genetic information, from Friedrich Miescher's extraction of pus-soaked bandages to Watson and Crick's elucidation of the structure of the molecule, but still found Ridley's version captivating. His capsule descriptions of some of the modern genome researchers are concise yet revealing.

It is clear that Ridley is a big fan of the Genome Project. He writes with gusto about the rapid advancement of the science, the thrill of discovery and the power of the new technology it has unleashed. But at times his enthusiasm may lead him astray. For instance, Ridley advocates that people be tested for the APOE gene that is a predictor of susceptibility to Alzheimer's disease. His argument is that people who are genetically at risk should avoid sports such as football and boxing because of the connection between head injury and disease onset. But given that there is no true prevention or treatment for Alzheimer's disease, it seems likely that such information would cause at least as much harm as good. For example, a person who could have become a millionaire professional athlete might instead decide to take a lower-paying job, even though he is destined to die of other causes long before Alzheimer's would ever have set in. Or another individual who never would have played sports at all might not be able to obtain desperately needed health insurance because of his test results. Although Ridley clearly understands the scientific distinction between genetic determinism and predisposition, he sometimes fails to consider the policy implications.

At times Ridley's enthusiasm about the science even causes him--like a devoted fan who believes every one of Madonna's songs is perfect in every way--to gloss over potential weaknesses and inconsistencies in the evidence. For example, the "intelligence gene" and "language impairment gene" described in chapters 6 and 7 are merely statistical linkages, not actual genes, and the results have yet to be replicated by independent scientists. And the dopamine receptor gene highlighted in the chapter on personality was originally thought to be involved in thrill seeking but now appears to be more important in attention-deficit disorder.

On the other hand, Ridley's excitement about the science has the benefit that the book is very much up-to-date, with many of the references from just the past year. And even the most speculative of his ideas is made palatable by the consistently graceful language and imaginative use of metaphors.

To biologists, the genome is simply the complete set of genes contained in our 23 pairs of chromosomes, and the Genome Project is merely a funding strategy to make sure it gets decoded. But different people have different views of the genome, just as they often do of celebrities. To advocates, it is the "Human Blueprint" or, more grandiosely, the "Book of Life." To critics, it is a Doomsday book, full of unwanted information just waiting to be abused by unscrupulous insurers, employers, eugenicists and social Darwinists. And to Wall Street investors it is cold cash; despite negative earnings, shares in Celera have soared almost 20-fold in less than one year. But what the Genome Project really is, above all else, is a beginning--the start of a new way of doing biology, of understanding diseases, of comparing organisms, of tracing our origins and even of understanding ourselves. Genome provides a delightful introduction to all who wish to follow the career of this rising star. DEAN H. HAMER is a molecular biologist, co-author of Living with Our Genes and The Science of Desire, and chief of gene structure and regulation at the National Cancer Institute.

A rare event: a scientific paradigm shift going on in our own time, lucidly explained. Since the discovery of DNA's symmetrical structure by Watson and Crick in 1953, life scientists have decoded much of the human genome, the digitally sequenced software of life consisting of thousands of genes, which in turn consist in total of a billion ``words'' of three-letter combinations, housed in 23 pairs of chromosomes. Molecular biologists anticipate that the first rough draft of the genome will be complete in 2000 and that a more detailed copy will be ready a few years later. Ridley (The Origins of Virtue, 1997, etc.), a former editor of The Economist, deftly takes up the story of the genome in 23 chapters. In clear, entertaining prose, but without dumbing down the subject for nonscientists, he uses each chapter to explore one effect of distinct genes, and the information they carry, on an important aspect of human lifethe origins and history of our species, aging, intelligence, personality, sexual behavior, disease, memory, and death. It is startling to learn that some of our genes date from a time when our ancestors were fish or primates, that we are genetically almost identical to chimpanzees, that genes are engaged in combat with one another, that behavior and genes may shape each other, and that genetic combinations may predispose an individual to homosexuality, Alzheimer's disease, or criminality. But even more amazing are the applications of this knowledge for any discipline that takes mankind as its subject. Ridley notes that molecular biology has already revolutionized cancer research, helped to trace the migrations of peoples, and raised resonant questions for philosophers and policymakers alike. Eminently readable, compelling, and important. (Print satellite tour) -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A superb writer whose exquisite, often moving descriptions of life's designs remind me of the best work of the late Lewis Thomas. . . . He crafts some of the clearest explanations of complex biological processes that I have encountered. What's more, he captures their slippery beauty.

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.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060194979
• ISBN 13: 9780060194970
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352