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Sasha's Reviews > The Gene: An Intimate History
The Gene: An Intimate History
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The dude who wrote Emperor of all Maladies is back with and it's good!
It starts with some history - a little Darwin and a lot of Mendel, the monk who spent his whole life geeking out over pea plants, and who I remember as being the most boring part of a very boring 9th grade biology class. (Why is high school so awful at making science interesting? It's so interesting!) And some other, lesser-known characters. This is what Mukherjee did in Emperor of Maladies, too: the history of research into a thing. He's good at making it interesting - and he reads a lot of books, so you never know when all of a sudden he's gonna cite Tarzan of the Apes. That's a great bonus for those of us who are book nerds first, science nerds later.
Then it goes into actual DNA stuff with Watson & Crick etc., and here we get into the realm of "There's really no way for me to intuitively grasp any of this," so it's a little tough going for me but I get it a little, I guess.
And in the last third, we talk about all the stuff you're really curious about with genes:
- If we're all getting DNA tests when we're pregnant, are we actually engaging in a vague sort of opt-in eugenics? (Yes!)
- Remember that book The Bell Curve? WTF was that? (It was bullshit!)
- Is there a gay gene or what? (Sortof!)
- What personality traits are genetically influenced? (Studies of identical twins separated at birth find that they tend to agree on sexual preference, religion and politics. That's bananas.)
I raised an eyebrow a little when Mukherjee discussed kids with Downs Syndrome: he ascribes to them a genetic tendency toward sweetness, and my wife (who works with disabled children) adamantly denies that's a thing. She says Downs Syndrome kids are just kids; it's condescending and even damaging to insist they're naturally sweet, and also laughably incorrect if you've spent much time with Downs Syndrome kids. Science so now we're reminded that it's dangerous to pick any one person as one's authority on any one thing. Mukherjee is well-intentioned but what else is he wrong about? So, y'know, warning: no one's got all the answers.
Mukherjee has many of them, though, and this is a fun-to-read and informative book.
It starts with some history - a little Darwin and a lot of Mendel, the monk who spent his whole life geeking out over pea plants, and who I remember as being the most boring part of a very boring 9th grade biology class. (Why is high school so awful at making science interesting? It's so interesting!) And some other, lesser-known characters. This is what Mukherjee did in Emperor of Maladies, too: the history of research into a thing. He's good at making it interesting - and he reads a lot of books, so you never know when all of a sudden he's gonna cite Tarzan of the Apes. That's a great bonus for those of us who are book nerds first, science nerds later.
Then it goes into actual DNA stuff with Watson & Crick etc., and here we get into the realm of "There's really no way for me to intuitively grasp any of this," so it's a little tough going for me but I get it a little, I guess.
And in the last third, we talk about all the stuff you're really curious about with genes:
- If we're all getting DNA tests when we're pregnant, are we actually engaging in a vague sort of opt-in eugenics? (Yes!)
- Remember that book The Bell Curve? WTF was that? (It was bullshit!)
- Is there a gay gene or what? (Sortof!)
- What personality traits are genetically influenced? (Studies of identical twins separated at birth find that they tend to agree on sexual preference, religion and politics. That's bananas.)
I raised an eyebrow a little when Mukherjee discussed kids with Downs Syndrome: he ascribes to them a genetic tendency toward sweetness, and my wife (who works with disabled children) adamantly denies that's a thing. She says Downs Syndrome kids are just kids; it's condescending and even damaging to insist they're naturally sweet, and also laughably incorrect if you've spent much time with Downs Syndrome kids. Science so now we're reminded that it's dangerous to pick any one person as one's authority on any one thing. Mukherjee is well-intentioned but what else is he wrong about? So, y'know, warning: no one's got all the answers.
Mukherjee has many of them, though, and this is a fun-to-read and informative book.
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Ken
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Jul 22, 2016 07:12AM
So I take it that The Emperor of All Maladies is more layman-reader friendly? Though I have to tell you, with all the bad news going down lately (shootings, terrorism, Republican Conventions), I'm not sure I'm up for a read about cancer. Not now, anyway...
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Good question, Ken. I actually don't think this is very unfriendly. Sure, there's that part in the middle that's a little tough, but it's relatively short - and the last third raises questions so interesting to the lay reader that it makes up for it. That last third raises a ton of points that make great dinner party conversations. If you could know the sexual preference of your child before she was born, would you do it? To what extent is opt-in eugenics okay? What if you could correct your child's vision in utero? What if you could correct his depression? These questions are so much fun (or so terrifying, also) that I think I'd be inclined to recommend this one first.
This one's also shorter.
And agreed, this feels like a bit of a dark time for society. Who knew we would be seriously debating fascism?
Or that ex-KKK leader David Duke, seeing the time as ripe and certain elements of the populace stoked, would throw his hat in the ring to become Senator of Louisiana?OK, then. This one first.
(Why is high school so awful at making science interesting? It's so interesting!) , Seriously!, part of it is because the way our education system is.
You really need to be self motivated if you find science interesting. I got my interest in science from reading science fiction - not my teachers in high school.
