Jones likes to tackle controversial issues or bringing up issues about genetics which could affect us in the future. An example of this would be where we should cross the line at abortion. How bad a genetic disease should it be before a woman should be allowed an abortion. Jones was true in his prediction of this case where a woman is now being sued for having an abortion because her child would have been slightly disfigured and could have had surgery after being born.
He also likes to bring up previous geneticists and show how wrong they were like Dalton and Nietzsche but also praises Darwin, telling us that we should read his works if we are keen enough. Jones it seems likes to make fun of creationalists, like most scientists seem to do. As if it was the new thing to do. He points out how Duane Gish observed how the chances of an organ as complex as the eye being formed was impossible without divine intervention.
I felt the book also gave the reader a rich understanding of how we as people have evolved since we first moved out of Africa. Through reading we have a broader sense of how man has infested our planet. How the use of the flooding of the nile was used since AD641 and also how modern agriculture helped us to expand our horizons from hunter gatherers.
One of the few flaws of this publication is its suggestion to what will happen in the near future, a future which has come and gone. Jones often refers to the Human Genome project and human cloning, which at the time were totally revolutionary concepts but now have had time to mature. This isn’t as bad as it seems however, as he discusses the implications and conclusions in through detail, when previously they would have only known the sparse information which the media would have garnered them with. I found it documenting much of what has been accomplished already, bringing readers who had no prior knowledge, bar perceived knowledge. It dispelled this perceived knowledge rather quickly and slowly outlined the ramifications of these accomplishments and what we can expect in the future. Because of the time aspect of the book it will inevitably become dated which it has done. This is not to say it is not useful as it provides the key basics to the science.
I found one of the most interesting aspects of the book was how he laid out what would happen to us, how our genes would act in the future. With spontaneous abortions and infant deaths, humans have selected from the survival of the fittest. Now that modern medicine has taken away some of this advantage we have the weak surviving on. This allows weak genes to survive and upsets the balance of things. This is a popular misconception as Jones points out; because of our current out breading we are now mixing our genes where they have never been mixed before and canceling out the effect of low infant deaths.
The structure of the book is well laid out, I however found myself re reading particular examples in different chapters even though they were coupled with other examples. This became quite annoying at times and I was, at times close to skipping pages. An example of this would have been Elisabeth Nietzsche’s experiment to breed the super race full of Aryans; although it is fascinating we do not need to re read it a few times. Each chapter has clear themes which are backed up with examples with a similar theme. We can see this in Chapter 11 – The deadly Fevers, Jones gives many examples how new fevers were brought over from places where evolution had combated these fevers. Jones tries to add humor into this publication, often succeeding but sometimes falling flat. What he does achieve however, is a consistently entertaining book which can sometimes be tricky when talking about genetics. At least he isn’t talking about his second preferred science in mollusks. He tries to use simple concepts to grasp such as distance, like comparing the amount DNA in a cell to the distance between New York and London and our knowledge of DNA being from London to Birmingham.
He goes into detail about how genetics is itself very evolutionary and its theories will change, asking us to make our moral decisions separately from what genetics tells us because genetics is often wrong. Steve Jones’s states many examples to which genetics has failed such as how the Nazis used eugenics in pointless way. He also shows us that genetics, although better understood than previously, is still very infant. How we do not truly know why our skin is a different color in certain parts of the world or why some of us have evolved to have a certain type of ear eax.
Jones tries to come to a compromise, between an interesting biology book open to all and a Biology textbook. The book must be informative enough so that we have a grasp of the content but not be to overbearing so as to dissuade a layperson from reading it. This is true with all popular science books and Jones comes to a great compromise. I was often however, left reading much repeated biology from the classroom, which at times became tedious, but I’m sure the average reader would have found this informative. Despite this fact I felt it fleshed out my knowledge of genetics with useful examples. I personally found the consequences of genetics the more interesting side of the book because of this tediousness. It provides a useful stepping stone to readers without prior knowledge to genetics and provides some food for thought for others.
From his writings we can see his views on the subject being made very apparent. He is very against some of the things which can be done with genetics, pointing out that it is not the science involved which is the limiting factor to progress, it is the scientists and with good reason. That the danger is a demand in this science brought forth from the general public with little idea of the consequences. This maybe the fundamental reason for this book, to educate the public in the misconceptions and what may lead to our demise.
