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.

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