Uncategorized Baste on 23 Apr 2008 11:18 pm
Book Review
AN INTELLIGENT PERSON’S GUIDE TO GENETICS
Adrian Woolfson (2004)
Publisher: Duckworth Overlook
Reviewed on April 21, 2008:
A couple of days ago I borrowed a rather small book (just about 200 pages) written by Adrian Woolfson and published in 2004, which carries the interesting title “An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Genetics”.
Let me cite from its preface:
“ (…) We are at the cusp of a new Enlightenment, defined by the accumulated genetic knowledge that enables us to entertain the possibility of modifying our own nature and of creating artificial life. The tremendous power for change is unprecedented. (…) My view is slightly different: the creation of synthetic life is an inevitability.”
Such a statement might invite to indulge in all too fantastic speculations about the future of (human) life on earth.
Instead, Woolfson takes you on a thrilling voyage though the origins, key principles and recent developments of genetics. For me, the book has been a real page-turner, especially due to the myriads of papers he cites (many of which I – sadly - haven’t heard about before) and anecdotes from the life of scientists whose groundbreaking work will change our life, maybe forever.
So, if you want to learn something about smart genes, the N-value paradox, how to make creatures from scratch, the Fibonacci pattern in plants, the hypothetical organism LUCA, the trade-off between olfaction and vision, why humans are natural-born dualists and how the one-by-one study of over one million fruit fly embryos can pave the way to the Nobel prize Read more