It Ain't Necessarily So: The Dream of the Human Genome and Other Illusions

by Richard C. Lewontin

Book Overview

Now that we have deciphered our genome, can we use that knowledge to cure diseases, solve social problems, or understand what makes us human? Biologists? work is often based on ?the pervasive error... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0940322951
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: New York Review Books
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.5" x 1.0" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

Interesting contrarian ideas, if you can take the hubris

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."

Good insights on diverse themes

First of all, let me say I feel a special admiration for Richard Lewontin. I believe he is a really smart man and always has an interesting point of view and lots of knowledge to sustain his opinions. This short collection of Reviews he wrote in The New York Review of Books undoubtly endorse my personal opinion on the author. I really recommend this book to anyone with some background on genetics, evolution and biology who wants to enrich his (hers) personal opinion on diverse themes in this subjects. I did not gave this book 5 stars because the reviews contained in it are not new. Although he writes some stuff at the end of his reviews in an attempt to update them, I believe that if he was to write them again, today, he might have changed (maybe, just maybe) a great deal of them. I think Richard Lewontin has more interesting things to say about this themes today than 12 or 20 years ago. He certainly has grown in knowledge and surely has mature his ideas with time and scientific enrichment. Just because he could have gave us more I did not give him 5 stars.

Maybe it is

This book is a collection of nine essays from The New York Review of Books, beginning in 1981, mostly on genetics, the genome and the Darwinian pantheon. The essays are presented with new footnotes and cross references followed by an Exchange and/or an Epilogue in which the material is updated and some contrary points of view presented and addressed. The expression is erudite, polished and complex, the tone authoritative and at times slyly satirical and not more than a microbe's breath away from the pompous.The first essay, "The Inferiority Complex" is a review of Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man (1981) which deals with the IQ conundrum. Lewontin's main point here, in agreement with Gould, is that "there may be genes for the shape of our heads, [but] there cannot be any for the shape of our ideas" (p. 9). I'm not sure I agree with that rousing call to the uniqueness of human kind, but I am confident that no one has yet refuted such a point of view. Not entirely as a surprise Gould (in a jacket blurb) acknowledges Lewontin as "the smartest man I have ever met."Gould is not the only one to sing praises to Lewontin's intellect and understanding. Noam Chomsky chimes in with an acknowledgment of "the impressive quality and significance" of Lewontin's essays, while a book I just finished reading, Steve Jones's excellent Darwin's Ghost (1999) is dedicated to Lewontin, who showed him "what evolution can and cannot explain." Perhaps that is Lewontin's main strength, as a anchor on the ship of biological presumption that would sail us to a questionable nirvana of the pre-determined. I can say from my own experience that the very learned professor reminds me of someone I would call "the Edmund Wilson of book critics biological." He is also the very distinguished Alexander Agassiz Research Professor at Harvard and the author of several books on genetics and related subjects, most characteristically perhaps, Not in Our Genes (1984) with Steven P. R. Rose and Leon J. Kamin.Why then am I not entirely thrilled with this beautifully wrought collection of unquestionably significant and stimulating essays? I think it's that I disagree with his point of view and emphasis, and feel that the sequencing of the human genome really is a significant step toward our understanding of who and what we are, and I don't care who, or who did not, get rich in advancing it.. I also think that the practical applications from such information may prove valuable in ways we cannot begin to predict. I am a fool for knowledge if only for knowledge's sake, and I wonder why Lewontin has expended so much energy knocking the project. His real criticism of the effort, despite his use of the derogatory words, "dream" and "illusion" and even "fetish" (p. 135) is presented on page 177: "The promise of great advances in medicine, not to speak of our knowledge of what it is to be human, is yet to be realized from sequencing the human genome."Who could disagree with that?

Dream? Huh!

It seems that this > called << Human Genome Project >> has come true Mr. Richard C. Lewontin !

Truth or Consequences

Lewontin does it again, literally with updates. I've read these reviews in New York Review of Books and find them still relevant and insightful. What he does he not only does well, he does it for us all. It is about biology, but in a larger sense, it really about science and us as a people and civilization. In a sea of sound bites and rampant commercialism, there are some brilliant and knowledgeable people who speak the truth. It is a truth that needs to be said at this critical time. We are quickly losing our grip on reality due to fear of the transnational corporation or just plain apathy and greed. Lewontin sees the big picture and is a highly competent scientist that can see as others do not. He explains it on layman's terms, and therefore, is a true democrat. If he had an index and a general bibliography, it would be nice.