Genome - Matt Ridley

Two years ago Raji introduced me to Matt Ridley by lending me a copy of the book Genome. This is a book that should be read in one sitting. I did. This is a book that should be read many times. I have. Three times - so far.

The book consists of 23 chapters and each chapter focuses on one of the 23 chromosomes in our species. The author goes about with his description in an interesting manner. He takes various topics that are important or interesting to humanity and weaves a story about the chromosome using that topic. The author credits this approach to a similar approach by another famous author, the late Primo Levi. In his book, The Periodic Table, Primo Levi described the elements of a periodic table by relating them to various stories, some of them taken from his own life and experiences.

Without revealing too much details, let me describe some of the chapters that were very good, the rest being merely good!!

Chapter One sets the tone for the book with a grand title Life!! It deals with several important topics, RNA, DNA, 5S gene on chromosome, and surprisingly a Turing machine!! What on earth does a central concept from computer science have to do with biochemistry? Well you have to reach this chapter for that. Trust me it is not incidental. A brief digression - Alan Turing was a genius. If Noble Prize could have been awarded for outstanding work in Computer Science, he would have easily won one or two.

Chapter Four is Fate. Religious people and others who are not aware of advances in biochemistry generally misrepresent or misunderstand how genes work. They imply a determinism to genes - if you have this gene then this bad thing (put a suitable disease) will happen to you - that does not exist. First of all, genes do not exist to cause diseases. They exist to serve a purpose. It is when a mutation occurs in a gene that bad things could happen. The key here is could. Second, genes are no more deterministic than the weather is, both being examples of nonlinear systems. Just as weather man never gives absolute answers but couch their prediction in probabilities of certain weather patterns occurring, so does a geneticist.

Chapter Seven is about Conflict. This chapter was really scary - at least for men. Men may rule the world, but out in the world of gene, it is the women who have the men on the run!!

I will just list the titles of a few more chapters that I loved; Stress, Immortality, Sex, Memory, Politics, Free Will, and Death.

If there is one message I took away from this book, it is this - Genes are not there to cause diseases.