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It Ain't Necessarily So: The Dream of the Human Genome and Other Illusions, by Richard Lewontin
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Is our nature—as individuals, as a species—determined by our evolution and encoded in our genes? If we unravel the protein sequences of our DNA, will we gain the power to cure all of our physiological and psychological afflictions and even to solve the problems of our society? Today biologists—especially geneticists—are proposing answers to questions that have long been asked by philosophy or faith or the social sciences. Their work carries the weight of scientific authority and attracts widespread public attention, but it is often based on what the renowned evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin identifies as a highly reductive misconception: "the pervasive error that confuses the genetic state of an organism with its total physical and psychic nature as a human being."
In these nine essays covering the history of modern biology from Darwin to Dolly the sheep, all of which were originally published in The New York Review of Books, Lewontin combines sharp criticisms of overreaching scientific claims with lucid expositions of the exact state of current scientific knowledge—not only what we do know, but what we don't and maybe won't anytime soon. Among the subjects he discusses are heredity and natural selection, evolutionary psychology and altruism, nineteenth-century naturalist novels, sex surveys, cloning, and the Human Genome Project. In each case he casts an ever-vigilant and deflationary eye on the temptation to look to biology for explanations of everything we want to know about our physical, mental, and social lives.
These essays—several of them updated with epilogues that take account of scientific developments since they were first written—are an indispensable guide to the most controversial issues in the life sciences today.
The second edition of this collection includes new essays on genetically modified food and the completion of the Human Genome Project. It is an indispensable guide to the most controversial issues in the life sciences today.
- Sales Rank: #546764 in Books
- Color: Yellow
- Published on: 2001-10
- Released on: 2001-09-30
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.53" h x 1.03" w x 5.11" l, .82 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 368 pages
Amazon.com Review
Stephen Jay Gould calls Richard Lewontin "simply the smartest man I have ever met." And not the least opinionated, either. Lewontin has long been famous among biologists for a volatile combination of feisty leftism, scientific insight, and verbal skill, which have been displayed for the more general public in his essays for what has been called The New York Review of Each Other's Books.
It Ain't Necessarily So is a collection of some of his more characteristic reviews from the 1980s and 1990s. The Mismeasure of Man, by Stephen Jay Gould; Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior, by Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson; sociological studies of Sex in America; and Ruth Hubbard's books on gender in science: all his essays are informative yet lively, with a high acid content--as when he begins his piece on the Human Genome Project with a definition of "fetish."
Lewontin's prose is worth reading in itself, but what lifts this anthology to another level is that it also includes replies and rebuttals selected from the New York Review's letters column--a forum that doubles as the intellectual's World Wrestling Federation. For the older pieces, he also includes updates, "where are they now" summaries to give a sense of historical change in each field. Assertive, brilliant, sarcastic, dense, wide-ranging--Lewontin may be challenging, but he is never dull. --Mary Ellen Curtin
From Publishers Weekly
Harvard biologist Lewontin is highly skeptical of the human genome project supporters' claims that complete knowledge of the human organism and effective gene therapies are just around the corner. His forceful critique of this multimillion-dollar gene-mapping project points out that our DNA is infinitely complex, and that mutations in genes are not the cause of, say, cancer, although they may be one of many predisposing conditions. In a bracing, lucid collection of essays, all originally published in the New York Review of Books, Lewontin makes bold forays into such fields as evolutionary theory, IQ testing, criminology, artificial intelligence, neurobiology and gender differences, exposing sloppy thinking and fallacies on all fronts. Scrutinizing "the development of modern biology from Darwin to Dolly" (a reference to the sheep cloned in 1997), Lewontin lambastes Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission, charging that its report on the possibility of human cloning sidestepped fundamental ethical, religious and political issues. Lewontin is a formidable critic of simplistic, flawed biological determinism, which he sees at work in studies of identical twins reared apart; in feminist biologists' claim that females are the smarter, gentler, more humane sex; in sociobiologist E.O. Wilson's belief that the sexual division of power flows directly from innate differences between men and women; and in biologist Richard Dawkins's argument for the primacy of genes over the social environment. Several of these rigorous essays include an exchange of letters between Lewontin and his critics, making this an illuminating forum of ideas. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
This wide-ranging collection of provocative essay-reviews from The New York Review of Books focuses on the biological sciences. Lewontin (Agassiz Prof. of Biology/Harvard) finds himself at odds with some fashionable orthodoxies of modern biology. In particular, he is skeptical of the determinist streak evident in many proponents of genetics. In a brief introduction he sets the context. As he sees it, part of the problem originates with the migration into biology of physicists and chemists in the 1950s, thrusting molecular biology into the center of public attention. Congress may be unwilling to fund the supercollider, but it did not blanch at funding the Human Genome Project, touted as the cure-all for myriad ills. Lewontin points out that, despite the geneticists' hype, in many cases the genetic expression of a congenital disease is not confined to a unique sequence of DNA. Moreover, identifying the genetic cause does not necessarily produce a cure. Lewontin's historical observations are also useful. For instance, while Darwin's formulation of natural selection as the driving force of evolution is not open to serious challenge, the pat notion of species often conveniently overlooks the considerable degree of variation within a species. As one would expect from an NYRB reviewer, Lewontin rarely dodges controversyconcerning the National Bioethics Advisory Commission's report on cloning, he wonders whether it was at all wise to give religious spokespeople input into a document on scientific policy. Likewise, he points out the key problem in research on human sexuality: whether the subjects can be trusted to tell the researchers the truth about their practices. The book's exploration of these and other issues is given additional depth by the inclusion of exchanges between Lewontin and some of the subjects of the reviews. Well-written, insightful, and a useful reminder of the complex issues still unsolved in the biological sciences. -- Copyright �2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Words do matter to Lewontin
By B. F. Mooney
Words do matter to Lewontin, and his portrayal of scientists as pontificating from a position of "objective truth" is not an indictment of individual scientists, but rather, a charge against the whole scientific enterprise. And the charge will stick. Each scientist exemplifies this, some to greater, and others to a lesser, degree. Speaking from 35 years experience as a scientist, I can say Lewontin is much more right, than wrong in his assertion. For the most part, the modern scientific enterprise is contaminated by scientists believing they are working at the "wholesale" level when it comes to "objective' truth, while the rest of people unknowingly work "retail," making culturally-biased statements which merely pass as "truth." This problem intensified after the Enlightenment, when natural philosophers (scientists) began to seriously confuse an arrogant superficial materialism/a priori rationalism with true science (information painstakingly and imperfectly derived from studying a world which is diffuclt or impossible to fully comprehend). Lewontin has caught on to this.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting contrarian ideas, if you can take the hubris
By Nicholas Sterling
Other reviews have touched on the content of the essays in detail. I'll just say the following:
PROS:
- The topics are generally quite interesting, and Lewontin's comments are at times eye-opening, casting serious doubt on established doctrine.
- He writes very well (although he seems to be showing off a bit with vocabulary and the use of French).
CONS:
- He seems quite opinionated. I find his words compelling enough to be more suspicious of what others have said, but at times I don't really feel that I can trust his opinion. There are many examples of this, one being that he is thoroughly convinced of the validity of group selection and can't understand why everyone else doesn't see it. It's all so clear to him...
- At times he seems to delight in being nasty, in choosing hurtful ways to say things, as though that were part of his responsibility in reviewing the work of others.
Occasionally I found the book almost painful to read. For some of the essays, in which he tried to lay waste to the egos of others, he includes their responses as well -- so that he can take one last swipe at them. I actually did skip a few pages in the middle of the book, where he was taking one of these last swipes -- I couldn't stand it. I wanted to shout "Richard, go to your room!"
Still, the book is a thought-provoker, worth reading. Just be forewarned that the author gets a D-minus on "Plays well with others."
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Looking beyond the hype
By Adam Rutkowski
When I first opened this book, I was a little disappointed that it was a collection of book reviews, not a set of essays in their own right. However, Lewontin's depth of coverage makes these essays more centered around the book topics than the books themselves. The fact that some of these reviews are 10 to 20 years old doesn't pose much of problem either, since they are usually still relevant and informative, and he provides updates discussing advances since they were written.
Lewontin has taken several topics of biology that are very much in the public eye lately, and tries to dispell misconceptions, usually to good effect. He clearly has opinions worth airing, and to have so many different topics covered here is a great bonus. It's also nice to see that he's not afraid to print criticisms of his reviews.
I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in controversial topics like cloning or the usefulness of the Human Genome Project, but those with a little scientific background will probably get the most out of this.
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