What do you think?
Rate this book
The Book of Man: Quest to Discover Our Genetic Heritage
The Human Genome Project, biology's equivalent of the Apollo lunar-landing program, aims to uncover all 100,000 genes that control human development and to detail the DNA alphabet of each.
"The message of The Book of Man is that all responsible citizens ought to achieve DNA literacy. Strongly recommended for scientists and nonscientists alike." --Francis Crick, Nobel laureate
- GenresScienceBiologyNonfiction
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
2 people are currently reading
192 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 7, 2011
I can't ding The Book of Man for being over 15 years old (and therefore 15 years behind the times), but don't take my 4 star rating as a recommendation to read, as it is understandably quite dated.
That said, it was an interesting and well-explained book. It touched a little bit on the race to discover the structure of DNA (and gives props to Rosalind Franklin, who is overlooked in the Watson and Crick business), but mostly focused on discovering the contents of DNA and how they are expressed in humans. I still don't understand how DNA transcription works--like, what is its Big Bang that causes it to unravel and where do all the extra ACGTs come from to bind to the unraveled bits? And how does DNA protein expression build a body with all its parts, including fat?--but I think that's my ignorance showing.
The structure is somewhat similar to The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, with chapters focusing on various topics and how genetic research unlocked their mysteries. Huntington's Chorea is a popular study for this sort of book, as is Cystic Fibrosis. The author optimistically predicted a gene therapy cure for CF (and many other diseases) by now, but alas.
I found the DNA anthropology stuff really interesting--tracking the movement of human population throughout history by comparing DNA quirks among seemingly diverse populations. I never really understood how scientists figured out that life started in Africa, but the book provides and interesting, plausible, and intelligible discussion (I also found The World Without Us helpful on this topic--the fact that big game in Africa evolved with humanoids and learned to fear them explains why they survived there but were easily wiped out in the Americas).
Although I enjoyed the book, I feel like I need to read a more up-to-date discussion of the study of the human genome, but at least I have a good foundation.
That said, it was an interesting and well-explained book. It touched a little bit on the race to discover the structure of DNA (and gives props to Rosalind Franklin, who is overlooked in the Watson and Crick business), but mostly focused on discovering the contents of DNA and how they are expressed in humans. I still don't understand how DNA transcription works--like, what is its Big Bang that causes it to unravel and where do all the extra ACGTs come from to bind to the unraveled bits? And how does DNA protein expression build a body with all its parts, including fat?--but I think that's my ignorance showing.
The structure is somewhat similar to The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, with chapters focusing on various topics and how genetic research unlocked their mysteries. Huntington's Chorea is a popular study for this sort of book, as is Cystic Fibrosis. The author optimistically predicted a gene therapy cure for CF (and many other diseases) by now, but alas.
I found the DNA anthropology stuff really interesting--tracking the movement of human population throughout history by comparing DNA quirks among seemingly diverse populations. I never really understood how scientists figured out that life started in Africa, but the book provides and interesting, plausible, and intelligible discussion (I also found The World Without Us helpful on this topic--the fact that big game in Africa evolved with humanoids and learned to fear them explains why they survived there but were easily wiped out in the Americas).
Although I enjoyed the book, I feel like I need to read a more up-to-date discussion of the study of the human genome, but at least I have a good foundation.
June 12, 2008
Finished this one and I found it really worth reading. Despite the technical subject (the Human Genome Project), it was an entertaining book. The examples used were really fascinating and most of the little illustrations and graphics made it easy to understand what they were talking about. I didn't like the chapter on the origins of humankind, since I disagree with a lot of that, but it was a small portion of the book and the science was really interesting.
Cindy
Cindy
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews