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Title: Adam's Curse: A Future without Men by Bryan Sykes ISBN: 0-393-05896-4 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: April, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Genes at War
Comment: Sykes has done it again with this follow-up of his "Seven Daughters of Eve." "Adam's Curse" is a terrific survey of the latest findings on human genetics as told through the Y chromosome, inherited exclusively through one's father. There are plenty of new ideas here, coupled with a rather informative short course on the twentieth century's additions to Darwin's theory of evolution.
This is not a dry recitation of the facts, by any means. It contains his personal story of unraveling some of these puzzles himself, told in an a lively and amusing manner, sure to hold the reader's interest. There are history lessons, such as the one about the lamentable foul-ups of the microscopists trying to count the chromosomes. And Sykes tale of observing his own Y chromosome, carrying out the manipulations with his own hands, is described in some detail. There are stories about his coworkers, including the giant William Hamilton, who probably is second only to Darwin in developing the theory of evolution. But mostly it is the story of the application of modern genetics to the varied populations of the world, the story of their migrations and conquests, and the struggle of the Y chromosome to survive.
Sykes' distinct approach is to apply some relatively simple molecular probes to Y chromosomes obtained from many individuals in a variety of populations on a fairly big scale, rather than the other important task, carried on by a myriad of scientists, of trying to understand all the biological minutiae of a single prototypical human.
His finding the Y chromosome inherited today by about 500,000 descendants of the founder of the MacDonald, MacDougalls and the MacAlisters Clans is quite fun to read, and the similar tale of his discovering the Sykes clan reveals something about how curiosity driven science can be so deeply satisfying. The stories of the Vikings, the Polynesians, the Great Khan, and conquest by the Spaniards in South America are all covered here and the new insights revealed by their Y chromosomes gives a tantalizing glimpse of those still to come from other parts of the world. I can't wait.
Probably most unusual for a book of this sort, is that Sykes, a distinguished scientist, lays on some pretty far out, half-baked, probably wrong, but testable ideas about such things as the origin of homosexuality, the war between the sexes from the perspective of the Y and mitochondrial chromosomes, and even the possible future course of the evolution of the Y to its ultimate demise. This is a refreshing contrast to the plodding certainties of the refereed publications of the academics, hedged about with all the required caveats and cautions. In spite of his sometimes over-anthropomorphized chromosomes, this is an entertaining read, rewarding to readers yearning to understand the human beast.
Rating: 2
Summary: Bryan's Curse
Comment: Elements of this book are quite interesting but you have to wade through an awful lot of waffle to find them. Bryan Sykes belongs to a growing number of scientists who think that we are as interested in them as we are in their science. Sykes' work in human genetics is truly fascinating but is hidden beneath endless descriptions of his own family tree, the architecture of the buildings he works in, his train rides, his musings as he stares out of his office window, and an inexhaustible number of other tediums that his publisher should have edited out. Had they done this, however, the book would have been a quarter of its present length.
Theoretically, the main subject of the book is the interplay between the DNA that is exclusively owned by men (the Y chromosome) and that which is exclusively owned by women (mitochondria). The subject is not new and is dealt with much more effectively elsewhere (for example, Sex Wars by Michael Majerus or Y: The Decent of Man by Steve Jones). The subtitle of Sykes' book - A future without men - is misleading as the supposed demise of the Y chromosome is only referred to at the end of the book. It is typical of the media friendly sound bites that Sykes litters his book with.
Male homosexuality is another case in point. The subject has become very popular amongst scientists in recent years and some excellent work has been published (Roughgarden, Muscarella, Kirkpatrick). This has only been achieved as (most) scientists have learnt from past mistakes and treated the subject with awareness and sensitivity. Sykes bludgeons in on the act like a bull in a china shop. Male homosexuals are to be explained, Sykes declares, by a mother's failed attempt to destroy male foetuses in utero. This "poisoned kiss" happens as a result of a genetic battle between the Y chromosome and mitochondria. A mother, according to Sykes, performs this 'semi-abortion' to provide additional child-rearing helpers (just as "sterile workers in the hive were doing for their queen bee").
New sound bite; old (and disproved) idea. Homosexuals are not sterile and worker bees are not homosexual. There is not a shred of evidence to support the idea that women are attempting to abort foetuses that eventually become homosexual men. Moreover, there is very little zoological or anthropological evidence to suggest that homosexual offspring act as 'helpers' to their mothers any more than heterosexual offspring do (zoologist Bruce Bagemihl laid that one to rest in his excellent 1999 book Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity). These are all tired old chestnuts from last century (not, as Sykes would have us believe, his "own rapidly forming theory"). Both author and publisher should know better.
Big ego, little science - this I can just about stand because it is inconsequential. The consistent references to various diseases in Sykes' 'gay genes' chapter, I cannot. Achondroplasia, sickle cell anaemia, coronary heart disease, diabetes, schizophrenia, manic depression, bipolar disorder, haemophilia, colour-blindness, cystic fibrosis, haemochromatosis and Black Death (BLACK DEATH!) are all used to varying degrees to postulate on how gay genes might benefit heterosexuals and therefore get passed through the generations. Homosexuality is guilty by association in the first page of this chapter - "I have worked on inherited diseases for a good part of my scientific career and there is no denying that homosexuality has some of the genetic characteristics that you might find in a serious inherited disease." The disclaimer that follows is pretentious and insulting.
It was precisely this kind of unsupported association between disease and homosexuality (frequently made by blinkered scientists) that political and religious fundamentalists leapt on in defence of their extreme homophobia when AIDS broke out in the 1980s ("When it comes to preventing AIDS, don't medicine and morality teach the same lessons?" Ronald Reagan, 2 April 1987). Western governments absorbed these ideas and we now live with the devastating consequences of their muted response to the AIDS epidemic. The catastrophic and continued association between sexuality and disease is chartered in a brilliant book called The Wages of Sin: Sex and Disease, Past and Present by Peter Lewis Allen. Sykes obviously hasn't read it but he should before passing further judgment, albeit obliquely, on a section of society that he clearly knows little about.
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Title: The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes ISBN: 0393323145 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa by Stephen Oppenheimer ISBN: 0786711922 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Human Inheritance: Genes, Language, and Evolution by Bryan Sykes, Brian Sykes ISBN: 0198502745 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: December, 1999 List Price(USD): $55.00 |
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Title: Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past Through Our Genes by Steve Olson ISBN: 0618091572 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 15 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time (Great Discoveries) by Michio Kaku ISBN: 039305165X Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: April, 2004 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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