Genome

Matt Ridley claims in the introduction to Genome that we are living through the greatest intellectual moment in history: the unraveling of the mystery of our own genes. He's right. This is one of the most important and hypnotically interesting books I've ever read, covering an astonishing range of issues: Why are some of us combative, friendly, hopeful, grammatical? Does free will or genetic determinism shape our behavior? Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, is the autobiography of all of us. Read more below. "Genome:the autobiography of a species in 23 chapters" author Matt Ridley pages 344 publisher Harper Collins rating 10/10 reviewer Jon Katz ISBN 0-06-019497-9 summary Uses 23 pairs of chromosomes to explain our species

There is much more to each of us than a genetic code, writes Ridley, "[b]ut until now human genes were an almost complete mystery. We will be the first generation to penetrate that mystery. We stand on the brink of great new answers but, even more, of great new questions. This is what I have tried to convey in this book."

And he's succeeded, brilliantly, even entertainingly. Genome isn't about the Human Genome Project itself, but rather about what the project is uncovering in labs all over the world. Some time this year, geneticists say they will probably have a rough draft of the complete human genome. In a short time, we will have gone from knowing little about genes to knowing nearly everything.

The human genome, the complete set of genes housed in 23 pairs of chromosomes, form Ridley's outline for what he terms an autobiography of our species. Spelled out in a billion three-letter words using only the four-letter alphabet of DNA, the genome has been altered, edited and handed down for more than three billion years. With the first human-readable draft of the genome poised on the horizon, we -- the people Ridley calls "this lucky" generation" -- are the first beings who will be able to read and ponder this profound document about what it means to be, well, us.

In Genome, Ridley picks one newly-discovered gene from each of the 23 human chromosomes and tells its story, in the process recounting some of the history of our species. Ridley weaves each chapter to be more compelling than the one before. Genes that cause disease, influence language, behavior and intelligence, genes that enable us to write grammatically, that guide the development of biology and intelligence, that permit us to remember, that relate ultimately to selfishness, hope, fate, self-interest, instinct and history.

Ridley aptly promises what he calls a "whistle-stop tour of some of the more interesting sites in the genome and what they tell us about ourselves." Some stops along that tour aren't pretty -- from the creation of Luca, the Last Universal Common Ancestor (she looked like a bacterium and lived in a warm pond) to the blood-curdling research of Nazi scientists.

Two of the most powerful chapters come towards the end -- his horrific recounting of the history of eugenics, the perverted use of genetics to breed superior humans, and his chapter on free will. This chapter raises the most elemental question when it comes to the genome, one the world has and will continue to debate: do we truly have free will, or is our behavior and fate genetically pre-determined?

Ridley's answer is both affirming and disturbing.

This is an amazing book. It's hard to imagine a more sweeping, powerful or complex subject, yet Ridley, a former science editor and reporter, has made it completely accessible, clear and comprehensible. Genetics is important to every single human being, yet few people know much about it. But in Genome, hardly a paragraph is anything but lucid. You could give it to your grandmother and she'd have little trouble getting through it, or grasping its monumental significance.

Beyond that, Ridley's great ambition for the book, declared in his preface, isn't just hype. We are, in fact, on the verge of one of the great intellectual achievements in human history. We are about to learn more about ourselves, the way we evolve, and our behavior than anybody before us has ever dared to imagine. This is a book we all urgently need to read. We are entering a new era in human knowledge and self-awareness, and few of us are really prepared for it. This book will help get you ready.

Purchase this book at ThinkGeek.

Comments

The NYT review (URL)

[pq]

The New York Times reviews this book here, and includes some interesting excerpts.

Not so fast!

[lovebyte]

Some time this year, geneticists say they will probably have a rough draft of the complete human genome. In a short time, we will have gone from knowing little about genes to knowing nearly everything.
Thanks Jon for this interesting review. But please understand that we know very little about what all these ATCG's are doing. Going from the genomic sequences to the genes will take time. And understanding what all these genes are doing will take even more time. We have now barely scratched the surface. We don't even know how many genes we have (probably between 80 and 150K), and many of our genes make several proteins. Proteins are involved in complex pathways and ... Well it is complicated. But fun!

DNA as a programming language

[HancockDC]

> IANAG, but it seems to me that if we are
> made up of a "billion three letter words"
> (codons?), that means that there are (only) a
> billion factorial different genetic ids for
> humans to take? So what is the proabability of
> there being someone else on Earth having the
> same genetic makeup as me?

"Codons" is correct, and when you consider that there is a lot of genetic diversity that is NOT expressed in a given environment, and further consider the fact that the 'genetic deck' is shuffled each generation, the chances of finding an unrelated person of exactly the same genetic makeup are astronomical. Among those to whom you are related, the odds go down, but are still very high with one notable exception: Identical twins. And even identical twins show differences in development due to slight environmental differences as they develop in and out of the womb.

I have been involved with a major crop genome database since the late 1980's, and I have had the following quote on my office door since I first saw it in 1992:

". . .Wouldn't it be great if a programming language existed that was so powerful it required just four commands? Imagine if this language were modular and offered all the advantages of object orientation -- small units of code that could handle tiny chores brilliantly and then be inherited by innumerable complex processes, bringing their benefits to wildly diverse situations. Consider the impact if the language were so flexible that altering a mere 10 oercent of the code could produce a change equivalent to tramsforming a frog into a prince.

Well this language does exist. It's called the genetic code, and it's hard-wired into the cells of all living things. No computer programming language comes close to achieving the power, portability, and extensibility of DNA. . . ."

-- Mike Edelhart, PC Computing, April 1992

There is little else I can say in response to Mr. Edelhart's comments.
--------------------------------------- --

(c) 2000 BigBioTech

[Kid Zero]

Of course, most of your genes and gene sequences
will be owned by Corporate Intellectual Property groups. Want to come up with a cancer cure? Need to pay through the nose.

Decyphering God

[The Mad Hatter]

OK, I've never been religious. Ever. BUT, this whole genome project makes me think back to why science started. Science came about because people asked the enigmatic question "Why?" Scientists originally were people who were religious and were mainly looking to discover "God's plan." What happened was that they could not find God in their studies. Science then took the turn of trying to find out "Why?" without God in the picture. That's a very watered down history of science but with this genome project, I'm thinking that scientists may finally discover God. I've always found it amazing that every thought I've ever had is the result of chemical interactions going on in my brain. Trying to conceive that thought itself may one day be brought about in a lab has always disturbed me. With the genome project, what if they CAN'T figure out how to produce thoughts in the lab. They may discover that there is no other explanation beyond the supernatural. I consider myself a huge skeptic, but I also consider myself an agnostic. I don't know if there is a God nor do I claim to know, but I've an open enough mind that I'm willing to entertain many different theories. Just throwing out some mental candy for everyone.