Brian is a sparky, witty Fellow of our
Institute, and his latest book has
these virtues. But it has characteristic problems
too: it is carelessly
edited (the publisher's fault, but the author's responsibility)
and its
major argument, that the lives of cells, even of prokaryotes
should be
models for our explanations of human behaviour is at least
paradoxical.
We all like to metaphorically compare polities with bodies (Head
of State,
Arm of the Law) and it is indeed very tempting to compare
cellular
mechanisms like the rejection of unlike-self with social
mechanisms like
discriminating against foreigners. But I think it requires
contradictory
assumptions: on one side, that "we are communities of
single cells" (human
bodies, and our cultural systems, are only trivially more complex
than
Volvox) and that this reductionist approach can find the
deep causes of
what we are and do in properties of our constituent and
antecedent cells;
and on the other, he finds our differences, and differences
between
organisms in general, laudable and this must be caused by other
than our
common multicellularity (I say "cellularity", and I
also favour
"non-cellular" rather than "unicellular" for
protists - Brian only
occasionally calls prokaryotes "cells"
...). I respect this stance,
though I don't agree with it, and this book is enormously
informative about
a vast range of biological topics and will instruct
non-biologists because
this stance will hold their interest. From microbes in
water treatments,
through historical and contemporary sense about diseases, to
compost and
cancer, he tells good stories. So, on the whole, this book
is a Good Thing
for biology! It defuses the fears of agricultural gene
technology
beautifully, for example, by lauding ancient domestication:
"If
geneticists had produced a pekinese or a cauliflower the media
would be up
in arms.". Yet it warns appropriately too, about
Legionella and
monkey-viruses. However, it is over-opinionated in places
(Mendel "made
up" his numbers!), surprisingly uninformed about human
gamete technology
(he says human sperm head is implanted), and full of little
mistakes
(amino-acids in DNA, antibodies cultured in E.coli, DNA
reproducing itself,
100mg/l oxygen = 10 ounces/gallon) and naughty usages
("vary" for
"differ"). In several places he is less
than politically correct about
human races too, though he's firmly on the side of the angels; he
lauds our
diversity. We should too, and welcome both this
book's lively style and
its heterodoxy.
See also Scientist claims war is in our genes, 1999 .