Book Description

"Who are the mutants? We are all mutants. But some of us are more mutant than others."

Variety, even deformity, may seem like an unlikely route by which to approach normality, even perfection. Yet much of what we know about the mechanisms of human development, growth, and aging comes from the study of people who are afflicted with congenital diseases, most of which have genetic causes. Congenital abnormalities reveal not only errors within the womb, but also our evolutionary history.

In Mutants, Armand Marie Leroi gives a brilliant narrative account of our genetic grammar and the people whose bodies have revealed it, balancing both the science and the stories behind some of history's most captivating figures-including a French convent girl who found herself changing sex upon puberty; children who, echoing Homer's Cyclops, are born with a single eye in the middle of their foreheads; a village of long-lived Croatian dwarves; a hairy family who was kept at the Burmese royal court for four generations (and from whom Darwin took one of his keenest insights into heredity); and the ostrich-footed Wadoma of the Zambezi River Valley.

Stepping effortlessly from myth to molecular biology, this elegant, humane, and illuminating book is about us all. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Are Redheads Mutants?
Despite being the repository of many of my family's variant genes, I can't complain - I am a fully functional human being. That said, the fact that I am the first known case of inherited intermittent vertical nystagmus [at least that's what the doctors said at the time of my birth] has given me an above average interest in the genetics of human beings. Armand Marie Leroi's Mutants is an excellent introduction to genetic variety in human beings. Mutants could have been turned into a freak show by a lesser writer or one with the desire to titillate, but Leroi handles the subject directly and with the right level of sensitivity. In the introduction, Leroi demystifies the word mutant and concludes the chapter by saying

We are all mutants. But some of us are more mutant than others.

I especially enjoyed the fact that I was finally able to understand the genetics of my aunt's 6th toe and the fact that Leroi uses redheads to explore the boundary between mutation and polymorphism [I'm okay with the fact that being a redhead makes me a mutant].

Despite the way Leroi handles the material, this is not a book for the squeamish. The black and white illustrations may be disturbing to some readers. I think the perfect reader for this book would be a person with the background from a 9th grade biology class and an interest in learning more about human genetics. People with an interest in history and the process of doing science should also find much of interest in Mutants.

The Imperfections Show Us Who We Are
You are a mutant, and you have been since before you were born. You probably have three hundred mutations in your genes that impair your health in some way. Of course, that leaves a huge number of genes to correct any problems, and most of us don't look as if we stepped out of the X-Men comic books. "We are all mutants. But some of us are more mutant than others," says the evolutionary biologist Armand Marie Leroi in _Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body_ (Viking). Leroi takes a review of human mutations based on the wonderful principle that we get to understand how nature normally works by carefully examining abnormalities; when things go wrong, we know that there must be some important process going right most of the time. So there is extensive evaluation here of strange-looking humans, often with nightmarish defects. Amply illustrated, the book has engravings from centuries past to show that humans have always had a curiosity about such beings. Leroi's intellectual interest is far from morbid, however, and his lessons drawn from the monsters here are humane and increase our admiration for how often things go right, and how often those who were dealt a bad genetic hand can still play it well.

For example, Carl Herman Unthan was a violin virtuoso by age twenty, although he had no arms. Of course, not all such mutants are so successful. Harry Eastlack had a defect that told his body to make bone whenever it made any repair, so that bruises and tears would turn into bone, not healed flesh. The stillborn babies here are strange indeed. One has a second developed mouth in its forehead. Another child was born with over twenty half-developed fetuses in his brain. The book, however, is far from a chamber of horrors. Even the most bizarre of the mutants do show us things about the process of becoming and being a human creature. Conjoined twins, for instance, are closely examined here in many ways for many lessons, like how our developing bodies can know left from right. The deformities in limbs show the importance of embryonic limb-buds, a signaling protein called "sonic hedgehog," and "hox" genes that are the same ones that help keep our vertebral segments orderly. The same hox genes work to make the segments in worms. Leroi writes of the "breathtaking similarity" living creatures have in such arrangements, as evolution has built variations on the same basic plan. "We are, in many ways, merely worms writ large."

There are pygmies and dwarfs here, and giants, and men / women of intermediate sex, albinos, piebalds, cyclopes, and families covered all over in hair. There is natural curiosity about such "monsters," but Leroi shows there needs to be more. They are all products of molecules gone wrong, molecules we can now detect and understand, to better appreciate how molecules go right in the unimaginably complicated dance that creates organisms. There is a fascinating chapter near the end to show that perhaps ageing and death are caused by specific mutations (we are mutants all, remember). The final chapter is about the importance of human diversity, and the importance of beauty as a general evolutionary force (as Darwin knew it to be). A beautiful face has appeal at least in part because imperfections, the myriad types of imperfections as illustrated here, are not apparent, indicating health and fitness. With a declaration for biological beauty, this is a well-informed, life-affirming book by a scientist who has used molecular errors to ponder deeply the human condition.

Thorough, but not quite thorough enough.
I have an above-basic understanding of biology and, more specifically, genetics, but I felt the book was somewhat lacking in more scientific illustration. In talking about something like apical ridges and zones of polarizing activity, it would be helpful to have accompanying illustrations. Otherwise it's a bit difficult to try to visualize molecular levels of detail unless you have a very keen understanding of the subject already.

However, it's a very good book, humanely and thoroughly written, which doesn't treat its subject matter salaciously. I'll look forward to future works by the author.

Mutants
This witty and humane book has managed to avoid the pitfalls so commonly associated with work in this area. Dr Armand Marie Leroi does not seem to have an axe to grind. The reader is spared political lectures on genetic diversity. This is a book that can be read by those on either side of the genetics debate without being dismissed as overly prejudicial. Dr Leroi's particular achievement is that he has managed this feat without loss of seriousness or respect for his subject. The book revolves around the case histories of individuals with genetic abnormalities. Dr Leroi does not pretend that these individual's lives were enhanced by their deformities, rather he uses their lives as an illustration of genetics in action, warts and all, and usually much more than warts. While one may marvel at the courage of some of those people depicted, one is nevertheless left with a keen sense of sadness for them and for the uncomprehending world in which they lived. Theirs were unusual lives. They were unusual in having been both hidden and recorded, repellent and absorbing, freakish and yet in many ways profoundly ordinary. Dr Leroi handles these dichotomies dispassionately, respectfully and above all, expertly. This is a warm, endearing book on a topic which might easily have been neither.

Weird, witty and wise
Armand Marie Leroi's MUTANTS is a delightful mixture of historical anecdote, philosophy, artistic allusions and serious science, all served up with a first-person narrative voice that is both sympathetic and learned. Despite the bizarre and often gruesome subject matter used to illustrate scientific principles governing the formation of the human body, we are guided through the spectrum of human abnormality with a respectful hand. Although at times Leroi is amusing, he never ridicules the mutant humans he discusses - if anything, it is the scientists, anthropologists and historians who have misunderstood or abused their odd subjects that receive the well-timed onslaught of his wit. And yet even some of these jibes are sympathetic: the wise men of old were fumbling around in the dark and did not have the benefit of our knowledge or modern morals, so Leroi is gracious enough at times to excuse them, when other authors might be stern and judgmental. Even the horrific spectre of the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele is portrayed in a multi-faceted light; Leroi does not condone or excuse his acts, but he does attempt to understand his motivations. It is a delicate balancing act that the author pulls off beautifully in most cases.

If you want to learn something about the genetics of human development, the explanations are clear and logical, with enough analogies and examples to help you along. The reference section is vast, so you know where to turn for more gory (so to speak) details. If, however, you'd rather just sit back and enjoy the historical anecdotes, the structure of the book makes it easy for you to skim through the scientific stuff - which does not ramble on too long - and the section headings help you pick and choose your area of interest.

Although the information about deformities is certainly engaging, I found myself most captivated by the final chapter on race and beauty (don't be fooled into skipping it because it's called an 'epilogue' in the table of contents). Leroi makes a good case for the importance of studying the genetics of race, a topic that is not only politically incorrect, but potentially explosive. Why, he asks, should scientists know in excruciating detail the genetic underpinnings of snail shell colour variation yet have absolutely no clue why the Chinese have curved eyelids or the Eskimos, high cheekbones? In answer to the usual rebuttal, that studying race leads to discrimination, Leroi argues, quite successfully, that it is in fact our residual ignorance that gives would-be racists a welcome loophole. And as for his thoughts on beauty, the ideas are fascinating and should be of interest to us all. It's worth reading the book for the last paragraph alone. ... Read more

Book Description

This timely volume brings together essays by an internationally distinguished and diverse group of scholars. Contributors thoughtfully explore the ethical, public policy, and scientific implications of embryonic and adult stem cell research.

Part one of the book offers a variety of scientific and public policy perspectives, including essays on stem cell plasticity and using umbilical cord blood as an alternative source of pluripotent stem cells. Part two vigorously examines the ethics of stem cell research and considers issues of social justice, morality, and public policy. Scientific alternatives, a natural law perspective regarding federal funding, and a discussion of the possible moral complicity of Catholic researchers are among the distinctive contributions made to the stem cell research debate by this collection.

The objective and balanced discussions contained in this volume serve as an accessible introduction to the bioethical questions, issues, and problems surrounding stem cell research.

Contributors:David A. Prentice, Kevin T. FitzGerald, S.J., John Langan, S.J., Ronald M. Kline, Ira B. Black, Dale Woodbury, Karen Lebacqz, Edward J. Furton, Lisa Sowle Cahill, Richard M. Doerflinger, M. Therese Lysaught. ... Read more

Book Description

This work represents the first comprehensive publication in the innovative field of pharmacogenomics, a field which is set to revolutionize pharmaceutical research.In addition to renowned editors, the list of contributors is a "who-is-who" in the field.Broad coverage of all aspects of pharmacogenomics with a full presentation of applications to disease conditions is featured.Anyone involved in pharmaceutical research and drug development needs this book to keep up with this new and revolutionary approach ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Pharmacogenomics
As a novice in pharmacogenomics, this book is very organize and concise. I am happy with the format and excellent references cited. I strongly recommend this book. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

This book aims to assemble the only available rigorous, yet broadly accessible introduction to this new and exciting field. Oncogenomics: Molecular Approaches to Cancer is approachable by basic scientists, practitioners, and other health professionals required to familiarize themselves with the tremendous impact of genomics and proteomics on cancer research. Clearly written chapters offer reviews of state of the art topics such as molecular classification, early detection, SNPs in cancer, data mining, tissue microarrays, protein and antibody arrays, and drug targets. ... Read more

Book Description

Genetic programming is a method for getting a computer to solve a problem by telling it what needs to be done instead of how to do it. Koza, Bennett, Andre, and Keane present genetically evolved solutions to dozens of problems of design, optimal control, classification, system identification, function learning, and computational molecular biology. Among the solutions are 14 results competitive with human-produced results, including 10 rediscoveries of previously patented inventions.

Researchers in artificial intelligence, machine learning, evolutionary computation, and genetic algorithms will find this an essential reference to the most recent and most important results in the rapidly growing field of genetic programming.

* Explains how the success of genetic programming arises from seven fundamental differences distinguishing it from conventional approaches to artificial intelligence and machine learning
* Describes how genetic programming uses architecture-altering operations to make on-the-fly decisions on whether to use subroutines, loops, recursions, and memory
* Demonstrates that genetic programming possesses 16 attributes that can reasonably be expected of a system for automatically creating computer programs
* Presents the general-purpose Genetic Programming Problem Solver
* Focuses on the previously unsolved problem of analog circuit synthesis, presenting genetically evolved filters, amplifiers, computational circuits, a robot controller circuit, source identification circuits, a temperature-measuring circuit, a voltage reference circuit, and more
* Introduces evolvable hardware in the form of field-programmable gate arrays
* Includes an introduction to genetic programming for the uninitiated ... Read more

Reviews (8)

READ IT BEFORE REVIEWING PLEASE
my five stars are just to counteract the single star from the idiotic reviewer who gave the book one star w/o even bothering to read it. i haven't read this volume yet either, but i just ordered it and it's on its way; i'm certain i won't be disapointed. i'm a programmer and an artist and i use GP effectively to evolve forms both sonic and visual. just because you know your field(s) doesn't mean you can't benefit from a knowledge of evolutionary algorithms, quite the contrary. we have koza and friends to thank for a lot of inspirational work. i for one enjoy the interaction that i have with my algorithms, and since i'm the fitness function, forms crop up which never would have if either i or the machine were working alone. apologies for being guilty of the same crime as said reviewer but i feel in this case it's justified.

And the future is...
Genetic programming is like a new Big Bang in computer universe.
Reach the automatic programming level is a revolution that will affect the way things are done today.

In a very cientifyc way, the book shows all the aspects of how to get ready for this evolution.

Why Should You Buy This Book???
Why this book, when there are several shorter books on GP, and its principle author, John Koza, has written two other, more general and equally voluminous books on GP? This book addresses how to evolve program architecture, that's why! Living organisms didn't grow arms and eyes through simple mutation. It required more subtle genetic operators. Traditional genetic operators (as used in genetic algorithms) may be sufficient for evolving solutions to optimization problems where the structure if not the specifics of each solution is pretty much the same. But to effectively evolve program structures, you need architecture altering genetic operators. This book provides motivations in computer science, foundations in biology, and explanations in English.

A hint of the future.....
The authors have written a fine book here and it has and will continue to be a source of good information on the subject. What is most interesting about the approach of genetic programming is that it does not make use of the inference methods of formal logic in the search for the correct program. Correctly observing that logical thinking is insufficient for invention and creativity, the authors follow the "logic considered harmful" philosophy in their attempts to get a computer to find a creative/original solution to a problem. And most importantly, they discuss fourteen examples where genetic programming has produced results that are competitive with human-produced results. The book is almost 1200 pages long, but without reading all the examples one could cover the main points in a reasonable time frame. The reader knowing the LISP language will appreciate the discussion more.

After a brief introduction to the book in chapter 1, the authors move on to a detailed discussion of the philosophy and approaches used in genetic programming. They list the five steps that must be done before applying a genetic algorithm to a problem and give an overview of the LISP background needed to understand genetic programming. The authors emphasize that the genetic algorithm is probabilistic in nature, with the initial populations, individual selection, and genetic operation chosen at random. They give flowcharts illustrating a typical genetic algorithm and program, and then show executable programs can be automatically created. A very extensive list of references on genetic programming is given at the end of the chapter.

In the next part, the authors discuss how to eliminate the requirement that the programmer specify the architecture in advance to the program to be created. After reviewing some methods that were previously used to make the choice of architecture, the authors move on to describing a set of architecture-altering operations that give an automated method for determining the architectures of evolving programs. The discussion on automatically defined recursion is particularly interesting.

The book then shows how to use the results so far to allow problem-solving to be done using genetic programming, the first one being the rotation of automobile tires and the second being evolving a computer program with the behavior of Boolean even-parity functions. This is followed by a discussion of how to use architecture-altering operations to solve a time-optimal control problem. The most interesting part of this discussion is that it illustrates the important point that disadvantageous actions should be taken in the short term so that the long-term objective can be achieved.

In chapter 14, the ant foraging problem is used to illustrate a form of the (Minsky) multiagent problem and architecture-altering operations. This is followed by discussions on the digit recognition problem and the transmembrane segment identification problem. The authors choose the Fibonacci sequence to illustrate how recursion can be used in solving problems with genetic programming. The necessity of using internal storage is illustrated using the cart centering problem.

The authors then overview the use of the Genetic Programming Problem Solver (GPPS) for automatically creating a computer program to solve a problem. Several problems are examined using this Solver, such as symbolic regression, sorting networks, and the intertwined spirals problem.

The next part then considers the application of genetic programming to the automated synthesis of analog electrical circuits. The authors judge, rightfully, that the design process is one that will be a good judge of automated technique versus one that was done by humans, especially considering the fact that analog design is considered by many to be an "art" rather than a "science". The authors show how to import the SPICE simulation system into the genetic programming system, and discuss how validation of circuit design using this simulator would be done by the genetic programming system. After showing how a low-pass filter may be successfully designed using the genetic programming system, the authors show how with a few changes it can be used to design many different types of circuits. Interestingly, the authors cite the rediscovery by genetic programming of the elliptic filter topology of W. Cauer. Cauer arrived at his discovery via the use of elliptic functions, but the genetic program did not make use of these, but relied solely on the problem's fitness measure and natural selection!

An interesting discussion is also given of the role of crossover in genetic programming by comparing the problem of synthesizing a lowpass filter with and without using crossover. The authors conclude that the crossover operation plays a large contribution to the actual solution of the problem.

Then later, the authors show how genetic programming actually evolved a cellular automata that performs better than a succession of algorithms written by humans in the last two decades. Specifically, they show how genetic programming evolved a rule for the majority classification problem for one-dimensional two-state cellular automata that exceeds the accuracy of all known rules.

Most interestingly, the authors show how genetic programming evolved motifs for detecting the D-E-A-D box family of proteins and for detecting the manganese superoxide dismutase family.

The actual performance and implementation issues involved in genetic programming are discussed in the last two parts of the book. They discuss the computer time needed to yield the 14 instances where they claim that genetic programming has produced results that are competitive with human-produced results.

The authors wrap things up in the last chapter of the book and discuss other instances where genetic programming has succeeded in automatically producing computer programs that are competitive with human-produced results. The evidence they have in the book is impressive but there are a few areas that will be ultimate tests of this approach, the most important being the discovery of new mathematical results or algorithms. It is this area that requires the most creativity on the part of the inventor.

Can computers be creative?
The quest for *Automatic Programming* is the holy grail of artificial intelligence. The dream of having computer programs write other useful computer programs has haunted researchers since the nineteen fifties. In Genetic Programming III -Darwinian Invention and problem solving (GP3) by John R. Koza, Forest H Bennet III, David Andre and Martin A Keane, the authors claim that the first inscription on this trophy should be the name Genetic Programming (GP). GP is about applying evolutionary algorithms to search the space of computer programs. The authors paraphrase Arthur Samuel of 1959 and argue that with this method it is possible to "tell the computer what to do without telling it explicitly how to do it".

The main hypothesis of the book is that GP is not only the first instance of true automatic programming but also creative to such an extant that it competes with humans in solving very hard problems and therefore the solutions produced by GP can sometimes be called inventions, thus the name "Darwinian Invention Machine". The book starts by listing sixteen proposed attributes of any automatic programming system. The attribute list begins with obvious properties such as the ability to produce entities that can run on a computer, continues by describing components of full computer programs and ends by expressing fuzzier concepts such as applicability, scalability and competitiveness with human-produced results. The authors argue that GP definitely has most of the 16 attributes and at least to some extent possesses the remaining few. The last attribute, human competitive results, is in turn defined by a list of eight properties where each of them gives enough evidence to conclude competitiveness to results produced by the intellect of a human. This list includes concepts such as whether the results are pantentable, publishable in scientific journals or better then best known human solutions. GP3 reports 14 experiments by the authors where the they claim that GP produced results fulfilling one or more of these properties and thus are competitive with that of a skilled human such as an engineer, mathematician, designer or programmer. Examples of results with the "darwinian invention quality" include sorting networks, analogue electrical circuit synthesis and creation of motifs for protein family detection. Pointers are also given to human competitive solutions evolved by other researchers.

Overall there is no question that this is an important book putting the spotlight on one of the peak performing and most promising candidates for the general AI prize. There is no doubt that this book belongs in the standard library of all GP researchers or practitioners. This volumous book is a bit heterogeneous, probably stemming from the fact that is combined from a number of previously published papers with some new material. On the other hand is the volume important documentation of innovative work done by John Koza and his colleagues. In many place numerous pointers to work by other researchers are given but in the end I believe that the book would have a stronger case for presenting the GP state-of-the-art by including more references to similar research by other research groups.

However most important and intriguing thing about this book is the provocative questions raised concerning definitions and claims of human competitive performance, "Darwinian invention" and artificial intelligence - particularly whether we have already passed an important milestone in the history of AI - automatic programming. ... Read more

Book Description

"This is the best general book on Genetic Algorithms written to date. It covers background, history, and motivation; it selects important, informative examples of applications and discusses the use of Genetic Algorithms in scientific models; and it gives a good account of the status of the theory of Genetic Algorithms. Best of all the book presents its material in clear, straightforward, felicitous prose, accessible to anyone with a college-level scientific background. If you want a broad, solid understanding of Genetic Algorithms -- where they came from, what's being done with them, and where they are going -- this is the book. -- John H. Holland, Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, and Professor of Psychology, The University of Michigan; External Professor, the Santa Fe Institute.

Genetic algorithms have been used in science and engineering as adaptive algorithms for solving practical problems and as computational models of natural evolutionary systems. This brief, accessible introduction describes some of the most interesting research in the field and also enables readers to implement and experiment with genetic algorithms on their own. It focuses in depth on a small set of important and interesting topics -- particularly in machine learning, scientific modeling, and artificial life -- and reviews a broad span of research, including the work of Mitchell and her colleagues. The descriptions of applications and modeling projects stretch beyond the strict boundaries of computer science to include dynamical systems theory, game theory, molecular biology, ecology, evolutionary biology, and population genetics, underscoring the exciting "general purpose" nature of genetic algorithms as search methods that can be employed across disciplines. An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms is accessible to students and researchers in any scientific discipline. It includes many thought and computer exercises that build on and reinforce the reader's understanding of the text. The first chapter introduces genetic algorithms and their terminology and describes two provocative applications in detail. The second and third chapters look at the use of genetic algorithms in machine learning (computer programs, data analysis and prediction, neural networks) and in scientific models (interactions among learning, evolution, and culture; sexual selection; ecosystems; evolutionary activity). Several approaches to the theory of genetic algorithms are discussed in depth in the fourth chapter. The fifth chapter takes up implementation, and the last chapter poses some currently unanswered questions and surveys prospects for the future of evolutionary computation. ... Read more

Reviews (14)

Not for beginners
I have an engineering degree, and I found this to be a little tough to follow for two reasons:

1. Not enough step by step prodecure especially at the beginning. Mitchell is too quick to start with the math formulas. It turns out that Genetic Algorithms are fairly straight forward and easy to follow, but you have to read this book twice before you "get it" because Mitchell clouds the discussion with proofs and mathematical representations of systems. It is tough to follow.

2. Mitchell does a poor job of selecting meaningful examples to illustrate the points. A nice simple set of examples where the average person easily picture the system would have been delightful. Instead this author chooses to illustrate the Genetic Algorithms through uncommon neural networks amoung other exotic applications. I found myself struggling to understand both the example (I didn't know a thing about neural networks!) and the genetic algorithm.

When buying an Introduction type book, I expected it to be more 'down to earth'. this book is for advanced minds!

Good introduction for such a short book
Although short, this book gives a good introduction to genetic algorithms for those who are first entering the field and are looking for insight into the underlying mechanisms behind them. It was first published in 1995, and considerable work has been done in genetic algorithms since then, but it could still serve as an adequate introduction. Emphasizing the scientific and machine learning applications of genetic algorithms instead of applications to optimization and engineering, the book could serve well in an actual course on adaptive algorithms. The author includes excellent problem sets at the end of each chapter, these being divided up into "thought exercises" and "computer exercises", and in the latter she includes some challenge problems for the ambitious reader.

Chapter 1 is an overview of the main properties of genetic algorithms, along with a brief discussion of their history. The role of fitness landscapes and fitness functions is clearly outlined, and the author defines genetic algorithms as methods for searching fitness landscapes for highly fit strings. An elementary example of a genetic algorithm is given, and the author compares genetic algorithms with more traditional search methods. The author emphasizes the unique features of genetic algorithms that distinguish them from other search algorithms, namely the roles of parallel population-based search with stochastic selection of individuals, and crossover and mutation. A list of applications is given, and two explicit examples of applications are given that deal with the Prisoner's Dilemna and sorting networks. The author also gives a brief discussion as to how genetic algorithms work from a more mathematical standpoint, emphasizing the role of Holland schemas. The reader more prepared in mathematics can consult the references for more in-depth discussion.

The next chapter stresses the role of genetic algorithms in problem solving, beginning with a discussion of genetic programming. Automatic programming has long been a goal of computer scientists, and the author discusses the role of genetic programming in this area, particularly the work of John Koza on evolving LISP programs. In addition, she discusses the current work on evolving cellular automata and its role in automatic programming. The latter discussion is more detailed, this resulting from the author's personal involvement in artificial life research. Those interested in time series prediction tools will appreciate the discussion on the use of genetic algorithms to predict the behavior of dynamical systems, with an example given on predicting the behavior of the (chaotic) Mackey-Glass dynamical system. The author also gives applications of genetic algorithms in predicting protein structure, an area of application that has exploded in recent years, due to the importance of the proteome projects. The area of neural networks has also been influenced by genetic algorithms, and the author discusses how they have replaced the familiar back-propagation algorithm as a method to find the optimal weights.

Chapter 3 is more in line with what the author intended in the book, namely a discussion of the relevance of genetic algorithms to study the mechanisms behind natural selection. She discusses the "Baldwin effect", which gives a connection between what an organism has learned (a small time-scale process) to the evolutionary history of the Earth (a long time-scale process). A simple model of the Baldwin effect is given using a genetic algorithm, along with a discussion of the Ackley-Littman evolutionary reinforcement learning model, which involves the use of neural networks, and which is another computational demonstration of the Baldwin effect. In addition, the author discusses models for sexual selection and ecosystems based on genetic algorithms. These are the "artificial life" models that the author has been involved in, and she gives a very understandable overview of their properties.

Chapter 4 should suit the curiosity of the mathematician or computer scientist who wants to understand the theoretical justification behind the use of genetic algorithms. Again employing the Holland notion of schemas and adaptation as a "tension between exploration and exploitation", the author formulates a mathematical model, called the Two-Armed Bandit Problem, of how genetic algorithms are used to study the tradeoffs in this tension. The level of mathematics used here is very elementary with the emphasis placed on the intuition behind this model, with only a sketch of the model's solution given. To address the role of crossover in genetic algorithms, the author discusses in detail a class of fitness landscapes, called "Royal Road functions" that she and others have developed. The performance of the genetic algorithm employed is then compared against the three different hill-climbing methods. Formal mathematical models of genetic algorithms are also discussed, one of which involves dynamical systems, another using Markov chains, and one using the tools of statistical mechanics. The latter is very interesting from a physics standpoint but is only briefly sketched. The interested physicist reader can consult the references given by the author for further details.

Practical use of genetic algorithms demands an understanding of how to implement them, and the author does so in the last chapter of the book. She outlines some ideas on just when genetic algorithms should be used, and this is useful since a newcomer to the field may be tempted to view a genetic algorithm as merely a fancy Monte Carlo simulation. The most difficult part of using a genetic algorithm is how to encode the population, and the author discusses various ways to do this. She also details various "exotic" approaches to improving the performance of genetic algorithms, such as the "messy" genetic algorithms. One must also choose a selection method when employing genetic algorithms, and the author shows how to do this using various techniques, such as roulette wheel and stochastic universal sampling. In addition, genetic operators must also be chosen in implementing genetic algorithms, and the author emphasizes crossover and mutation for this purpose. Lastly, the values of the parameters of the genetic algorithm, such as population size, crossover rate, and mutation rate must be chosen. The author discusses various approaches to this. Although brief, she does give a large set of references for further reading.

An introduction and much more
First it must be said that the book is not an introduction that the non-scientist will easily understand. Some knowledge of computer programming is assumed. It acknowledges this in the last paragraph of the preface. Many of the notations in the book are unfamiliar to business or financial readers. There is no mathematics beyond algebra so the aforementioned prerequisites are the main hills to climb.

Mitchell's book is an overview of genetic algorithm analysis techniques as of 1996. The author gives a history of pre-computer evolutionary strategies and a summary of John Holland's pioneering work. A description of the basic terminology is presented and examples of problems solved using a GA (such as the prisoner's dilemma). The second chapter discusses evolving programs in Lisp and cellular automata. Also included in this chapter is a discussion of predicting dynamical systems. This was the section that has the most interest for me. Also interesting was the summary in this chapter about putting GAs into a neural network so that the ANNs could evolve.

The fifth chapter discusses when to employ a GA for maximum success. I appreciate the clearly thought out discussion of when to choose a GA for a problem. Sometimes authors of these types of books mimic the man with a hammer that thinks everything looks like a nail.

A Great Introduction to Genetic Algorithms
This is a great place to start to learn about genetic algorithms. The writing is clear and not bogged down by jargon. The book is not overly technical; it is written for the layman and has a casual conversational style that is a pleasure to read.

About half of the book is devoted to presenting examples of studies that have used genetic algorithms. These examples are interesting in themselves and also serve to illustrate the variety of genetic approaches that are available. The book also presents conflicting points of view of experts about which algorithms work best and why. This is helpful in combatting the impression that a beginner sometimes gets that everything is simple and all the answers are known.

Good Overview
I found this book to cover many of the aspects of GAs. Had I not read David Goldberg's work before hand, however, I wouldn't have been able to put it to use (I'm using GAs for my senior thesis).
Overall, though, it is an informative and well written text. ... Read more

Book Description

Conditional gene targeting is an emerging technique for introducing mutations into the genes of laboratory mice.This collection of protocols comes from one of the world's premiere laboratories for gene targeting--the Institute of Genetics in Cologne--and is written for newcomers and more experienced researchers in the field.Topics include the Cre/loxP recombination system and gene targeting in ES cells; gene targeting vectors; chromosomal translocations; and identification of homologous recombinants. ... Read more

Book Description

DNA Structure and Function, a timely and comprehensive resource, is intended for any student or scientist interested in DNA structure and its biological implications. The book provides a simple yet comprehensive introduction to nearly all aspects of DNA structure. It also explains current ideas on the biological significance of classic and alternative DNA conformations. Suitable for graduate courses on DNA structure and nucleic acids, the text is also excellent supplemental reading for courses in general biochemistry, molecular biology, and genetics.

Special Features
* Explains basic DNA Structure and function clearly and simply
* Contains up-to-date coverage of cruciforms, Z-DNA, triplex DNA, and other DNA conformations
* Discusses DNA-protein interactions, chromosomal organization, and biological implications of structure
* Highlights key experiments and ideas within boxed sections
* Illustrated with 150 diagrams and figures that convey structural and experimental concepts ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The bible for anyone interested in nucleic acid structure
I never took a formal class in nucleic acid stucture, but I do research in this field. Its a great book and very easy to understand. You can teach yourself the subject without the aid of a professor. The author carefully reviews each topic and describes critical experiments that lead up to the present knowledge. The language is not too technical but the author introduces jargon where appropriate. I would recommend this book to anyone doing research in nucleic acids or anyone taking a course in nucleic acid structure. Its a very well written and informative book. Don't miss out! ... Read more

Amazon.com's Best of 2001

It may be true that we are what we eat. Now, with a flood of genetically modified foods overtaking the market, it is possible to eat what we are. But the prospect of genetic cannibalism is the least of the worries of food activists, and journalist Bill Lambrecht's Dinner at the New Gene Café follows both sides of the genetically modified organism (GMO) debate with vigor. He's been covering the story since the mid-1980s, interviewing agricultural officials, biotech industry executives, family farmers, and protesters to build a comprehensive understanding of the issues.

Lambrecht's writing, clear and direct, explains the science and politics plainly enough that even those who flunked Biology or Poli Sci 101 can understand his arguments. He is equally skeptical of the claims of industry shills and activists, and often shakes his head in wonder at the incompetence of government agencies. From academic conferences to the Battle for Seattle, he's seen every aspect of the GMO wars, as they ignited in Europe and slowly spread across the world and eventually penetrated the U.S. Peppered with short essays on his own illegal home experiments with GMO seeds, Dinner at the New Gene Café offers readers insight into a growing question that will most likely define our menu choices for many years to come. --Rob Lightner ... Read more

Reviews (2)

a comprehensive look at gmo's
This book was very enlightening in the subject of GMO's, as they are a powerful new technology with frightening implications. Lambrecht uses entertaining anecdotes and accounts of his dealings with ordinarys farmer and head agricultural powerfigures. I recommend this book because it tried to show an objective perspective on the entire issue, and left no voice unheard.

The new age of eating
If you are curious about what you are eating this is a necessary book for you. Bill Lambrecht provides an unbiased resource for those intrested in the history of GMO food. Lambrecht gives the opinions of scientists, politicians and the farmers that grow these crops. This provides a balenced collage of information that allows anyone to make up their own mind about what the future of food should be. ... Read more

Book Description

"Stewart writes with such compelling clarity that general readers can share in the intellectual daring of his perspective."—Booklist An invitation to a hidden world In Life’s Other Secret, mathematician and award-winning science writer Ian Stewart reveals the way mathematics describes the origin, structure, and evolution of life. Featuring a sumptuous gallery of color illustrations demonstrating nature’s intricate wonders, here is an intriguing invitation to enter a world deeper than DNA, a world where number series bloom in springtime and equations gallop across the plains. From the latest theory of how life started to the rules governing the shapes into which animals grow to the ancient patterns of evolution, Stewart illuminates the fundamental forces that shape our world. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

Math Rules
Is life regulated and given structure by genetics alone? Or do physical and chemical constraints have a significant bearing on an organism's morphology? Inspired by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's classic, On Growth and Form, mathematician Ian Stewart argues convincingly that, the current popular view of the primacy of the genome notwithstanding, the major phenotypical influences, including those of the genes themselves, are highly constrained by physics and chemistry, both as endogenous and exogenous processes. What's more, such processes are manifestations of underlying mathematical "rules". (Stewart is, of course, neither the first nor the last to champion the "life is math" viewpoint. Other strange bedfellows in this general tradition range from William Paley, the eighteenth century theologian who conceived a mechanical universe so finely crafted and tuned that there must be a (divine) "watchmaker", to Stephen Wolfram, whose recent vanity tome, A New Kind of Science, posits, at its core, cellular automata as life's computing mechanism.)

Life's Other Secret is a beautifully written book that teaches about symmetry and symmetry breaking and oscillators and other important facets of evolution's geometry. It might seem odd that a mathematician takes on a subject more apparently appropriate to biology or zoology. And, indeed, life does often imitate art: In Collapse of Chaos, Stewart and Jack Cohen provide an example destructive professional encroachment: Two ice cream venders at the beach increasingly move in on each other's territory, so that, in the end, neither the bank accounts of the venders nor the gustatory desires of their customers are best served. Yet, in a more complete sense, the idea of bringing the weight of mathematics to bear on diverse disciplines is firmly in the tradition of "the unity of all knowledge". This concept (which Edward O. Wilson identifies as "consilience") held scholarly sway prior to the fairly recent "symmetry breaking" among the sciences: the ultra-specialization desired for engineering and for academic dissertations. A return to the renaissance approach is truly a breath of fresh air.

Life's Other Secret is also a curiously non-technical book that should present few challenges to those with math anxiety. This is, in fact, a conscious part of Stewart's message. In the spirit of the late physicist Richard Feynman, Stewart promotes qualitative math (as opposed to the more common idea of quantitative math, which Life's Other Secret studiously avoids) not as "vague generalities", but as "features that are conceptually deeper than mere numbers."

To me, one characteristic of good writing (both fiction and nonfiction) is that the reader is led to extrapolate and go off on personal tangents. Here are two possible directions for speculation. The positing of "rules-based evolution" raises the further question of whether these rules are artifactual emergences out of evolutionary dynamics, or whether they were set down by a Great Designer, ere the worlds began to be. And, secondly, how, specifically, do biological entities implement the math? That is, how do organisms "compute"? What are the "algorithms" of life?

My only criticism is the lack of appendices where concepts such as spherical harmonics, field functions, and other technical matters could be discussed in more detail without tromping on the narrative. But this is, to me, a minor carp. In Life's Other Secret, Stewart is clearly a master expositor at the top of his form.

Answers: yes; satisfactory level of understanding: no
I think 4 or 5 stars is really over-rating this book...

In short, if you "are" a mathematician to any degree, and are more than just a layperson looking for some neat facts to through out during cocktail conversation, then skip this. There are some answers, yes; but you won't find any of the depth of understanding that, in my opinion, goes with enjoying mathematics.

There were a number of times I was reading a chapter, lost track of what the point was, and looked at the top of the page for the chapter name for help. A number of times I found myself unable to get the chapters' contents to jive with their titles and intros. Overall, it felt like a mish-mosh of topics, questions, answers,...

The part about "Turing's equations" was especially frustrating. Over and over they were described in the context of looking for understanding behind animals' stripes, spots, etc. First the equations seemed to provide some answers; later they were not proven to have a physical basis; later still biologists are said to have re-embraced them. But through all this, not ONE iota of description (never mind -- gasp -- an equation) of what Turing's equations are !

The one part of the book I *did* enjoy was the beginning third or so which, for me, added continuity to my previous disjointed understanding of how life could evolve from inorganic materials. And yes, he makes his point that "Genes are great, but there's math in there too!". But the point does *not* require that much argument; after a while, you're saying, "OK, OK, you've made your point. Can you focus on depth and continuity a bit more please."

At 2/3-rds through the book, I skimmed the rest looking for something to make me want to continue reading it. I stopped reading it at that point.

DNA may not be the last word
Stewart begins his book by telling the reader:

"I am going to try to convince you that as wonderful as genes are, they are not the whole answer to the question of life. More radically, I am also going to try to convince you that a full understanding of life depends upon mathematics."

Basically, Stewart believes that scientists have overemphasized genetics and ignored (or at least under emphasized) the role of what I'll call large-scale or macro rules of physics and chemistry and the comparatively simple mathematics that describe them. For example, a molecular biologist might see a striped shell and wonder which genes caused them. Stewart would be more inclined to ask if there isn't some sort of chemical diffusion equation that leads to the stripes without them being specifically encoded in the genes. The point is that DNA may not need to encode much detail in many cases because the detail arises spontaneously out of macroscopic laws.

Stewart has studied at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. Other prominent scientists associated with the Institute are Murray Gell-Mann and Stuart Kauffman. Kauffman, in particular, has conducted studies regarding emergent properties of self-catalytic systems and you can see the influence of his thinking in much of Ian Stewart's book (see Stuart Kauffman's book "At home in the universe, the search for laws of self organization and complexity").

The book begins with discussions relating to the nature of life and musings about DNA and replication. It's interesting to see the line between life and non-life blur under Stewart's prose. Chapter three discusses the emergence of DNA, possible roles played by clay platelets, and the idea that DNA might be just a frozen accident - the molecule was picked because it evolved first and created an environment in which no others could get a start once DNA was established.

Chapter four is called the oxygen menace. There is an interesting discussion of how prokaryotes might have evolved, created oxygen as a poisonous byproduct, oxygenated the atmosphere, and then evolved into eukaryotes to capitalize on a more efficient method of generating energy by burning fuel using oxygen in the new atmosphere. This chapter has some interesting stuff on how cells move using the cytoskeleton and microtubules. I also enjoyed the description of slime-mold colonies and how they illustrate the possible manner in which larger organisms evolved from cooperative colonies of less complex life forms.

Chapter five is titled artificial life, but much of it deals strictly with the process of evolution among very un-artifical forms. There is a discussion about the famous finches on the Galapagos Islands and how they stimulated Darwin to understand how species evolve. There is also some interesting material on numerical taxonomy, evolutionary taxonomy, and cladism. Finally, the end of the chapter distills the discussion into general principles of evolution and how simple computer programs (artificial life) can illustrate many of the patterns we see in the real world among living species.

The first five chapters are really just background information about the first life on our planet, the evolution of DNA, and general principles of evolution. Stewart's real thesis (and the real fun) begins in chapter 6 with flowers for Fibonacci. Ever wonder why the seeds in a sunflower spiral the way they do? Ever wonder why there are the numbers of petals you find in flowers? Chapter 6 has the surprisingly simple answer, and it doesn't require lots of information encoding in DNA sequences, either.

Chapter 7 is a little more controversial than chapter 6. It attempts to show that patterns in living organisms might not be specifically encoded in DNA, but might result from gradient chemical reactions and diffusion in some species. In other words, DNA only needs to encode the production of the right chemicals at the right time and macroscopic rules using rather simple mathematics do the rest.

Chapter 8 deals with speculation about sexual selection and how it relates to such things as the peacock's tail. In this chapter Stewart argues that in many instances the thing that is being selected is actually symmetry. Asymmetry can be a sign of a damaged or defective organism. The thing I enjoyed most from this chapter was the discussion about common hallucinations and how they might result from the way simple plane waves in the visual cortex map into our retina.

Chapter 9 was my favorite. It describes hypothetical harmonic generators that work together in various relative relationships of phase and attenuation to produce the natural gaits of quadrupeds and even bipeds. Stewart has done original work in this area, and so this chapter has some of the most insight and technical backup. I've often wondered about this myself and contemplated the possibility that such natural harmonic generators might be somehow related to the tendency of our species to develop certain musical beats and to naturally move in rhythm with them.

Of course you will want to read chapter ten, which shows how rather simple rules can lead to rather complex looking spider webs. And don't forget to read chapter 11 which discusses the complex interrelationships of reefs, along with some rather interesting information regarding Von Neumann's amazing insights.

This isn't a book on mathematics - it's a book about how mathematics applies to biology. And it's mostly qualitative. There are no mathematical equations, for example.

Overall, I think this is a first-rate book. It's well written, engaging, has a complete index, copious notes, good figures, and brilliant color plates that I especially appreciated. You don't have to agree with everything Stewart has to say, but I think you will find his arguments intriguing, thought provoking, and stimulating regardless. If you love life and mathematics, this book should be in your library.

Duwayne Anderson, March 18, 2000

Lots of interesting ideas about how Life works
This book is about biomathemetics for those of us who didn't know we were interested in biomathematics. Stewart teases us into the subject by exploring different contexts for the question of "What is Life?". This leads to explorations into how life is shaped by the properties of physical laws. The book focuses on abstractions. Stewart talks about ideas, but chooses not to go into much detail. Many of the illustrations have no explanations, and some have errors. The ideas are all clearly related, but they are never really tied together in the book. I think this was intentional. I think Stewart is hoping that the theme of the book will emerge from the ideas. If he had tried to state the theme as a conclusion that tied the ideas all together, the theme would belong to the author. He wants the theme to belong to the reader, and so he let's us come to our own conclusions. This leaves you with an unfinished feeling, but there are lots of good references (I especially like his annotated further reading section). I feel wiser for having read this book. The most confusing part of the book comes from using the name "math" to describe the language of numbers and as a notation for describing symmetries in the physical universe.

Interesting reading, full of ideas, but devoid of depth
This book is a nice review of new findings in mathematical biology, and proves it's point: genes are not the only things capable of explaining biological phenomena. But it doesnt go further in any of the subjects it mentions, so the reader (be it biologist or mathematician) gets the feeling of inconclusiveness. Some more maths would be appreciated, since most potential readers are biologist with an interest en mathematical modelling, and have some foothold in the subject. Anyway, some points are remarcable, as the explanation to the Fibonacci series in plants. In conclussion, a good reading for someone needing some new ideas, and willing to do further bibliographical research. ... Read more

Book Description

From famines and deforestation to water pollution, global warming, and the rapid rate of extinction of plants and animals--the extent of the global damage wrought by humankind is staggering. Why have we allowed our environment to reach such a crisis? What produced the catastrophic population explosion that so taxes the earth's resources?Reg Morrison's search for answers led him to ponder our species' astonishing evolutionary success. His extraordinary book describes how a spiritual outlook combined with a capacity for rational thought have enabled Homo sapiens to prosper through the millennia. It convincingly depicts these traits as part of our genetic makeup--and as the likely cause of our ultimate downfall against the inexorable laws of nature. The book will change the way readers think about human evolution and the fate of our species.Small bands of apes walked erect on the dangerous plains of East Africa several million years ago. Morrison marvels that they not only survived, but migrated to all corners of the earth and established civilizations. To understand this feat, he takes us back to a critical moment when these hominids developed language and with it the unique ability to think abstractly. He shows how at this same time they began to derive increasing advantage from their growing sense of spirituality. He convincingly depicts spirituality as an evolutionary strategy that helped rescue our ancestors from extinction and drive the species toward global dominance.Morrison concludes that this genetically productive spirituality, which has influenced every aspect of our lives, has led us to overpopulate the world and to devastate our own habitats. Sobering, sometimes chilling, consistently fascinating, his book offers a startling new view of human adaptation running its natural course. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

Chilling, eye-opening, essential reading
This book puts the entire human predicament in perspective. It clearly explains how we got to the point of six billion people on a small, fragile planet and why we are unable to stop ourselves from multiplying our way into a disaster. Reg Morrison has done his research and the conclusions he draws, while not pleasant, make a lot of sense. I've read a lot of environmental books and this one is one of the best. Highly recommended.

Reg Morrison wrote the book I wanted to write.
Why is economic theory so screwed-up? Why do economists invariably assume what they hope to prove? Or what's even more incredible, why does everyone on the planet seem believe this stupidity? Obviously, we must answer these questions before we can even hope to solve our collective survival problem.

Guess what? Humans are genetically predisposed to believe in mystics, UFO's, Neoclassical Economic Theory, good-luck charms, etc.! In short, we evolved to believe in all kinds of gods -- including the Free Market God.

Reg Morrison wrote the book I wanted to write. The forward is written by Lynn Margulis. Morrison's book is endorsed by E.O. Wilson of Harvard, and Thomas Eisner of Cornell. If you are ready for some answers, read The Spirit in the Gene : Humanity's Proud Illusion and the Laws of Nature by Reg Morrison, Lynn Margulis from Cornell University Press

(This was a 07 August, 1999 BrainFood Book Alert! Permission to reprint granted!)

Great Stuff
The author thinks our species is genetically programmed for extinction and can't do anything about it. He may be right. Species usually disappear immediately after an enormous run-up in population, and our population has doubled in the last 50 years. (Without people generally taking much notice of it, I might add.)

Morrison doesn't think we have much choice in the matter, and I couldn't help remember the comment of the lead character in Neil Elliott's THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JESUS CHRIST, when asked if mankind had free will sufficient to control his destiny. "Of course I believe in free will," he said, "--I have no choice!"

The elusive beast within
Reg Morrison summarizes in succinct and personal polemic style what problems the human race really faces, and does a good job of unmasking the nature of our mystically constructed delusions. It is a short book for covering such a broad sweep of our evolutionary and cultural heritage. Possibly some minor details are amiss, but the message is clear. For such an ultimately pessimistic view of what we prize most about ourselves, its punches are well delivered.
According to Morrison, globalism is heading for global ecological collapse under the weight of the human plague, and will be followed by massive decline in human numbers, if not outright extinction. As the situation gets more dire, the search for mental escape in our mystical beliefs in culture-land, nationalism, media will increase, not decrease. We will be all mentally "off the planet" by the time we are kicked off it.

Taking his presentation of facts and conclusions seriously means that the present course of human affairs is still heading for disaster. I present some conclusions of the book. Reg debunks some of our cherished mystical beliefs, and counterpoises his grim facts, and I present here his main conclusions.
Belief 1. Humans have spiritual autonomy and are therefore accountible for their actions.
Fact 1. We are genetically driven just like any other animal. We have no mind other than the body, and we lack behavioural choice.
Belief 2. The environment is inherently stable and will rebound if given half a chance.
Fact 2. The environment is a chaotic system and is therefore inherently unstable and always has been. If it were not so, evolution could not have occurred. Rebound is a not characteristic of the system.
Belief 3. With enough moral courage, political will and technical know how, time and money, the environment could be repaired.
Fact 3. Most environmental damage is inevitable product of overpopulation. The more technological the attempted solutions, the greater the environmental debt. All human activity adds to environmental debt.

We fall for the false beliefs most of the time, because humans have a split brain, with "two spheres of awareness available to us, with two entirely separate behaviour control systems, one rational and one entirely non-rational.... ". Unfortunately for the human species " ... the rational brain should be viewed, not as the principal generator of behaviour and the pivot on which the species turns, but as an optional extra designed to be switched off the moment any serious evolutionary matters, such as genetic survival or propagation, arise."
The best course for human species survival would be a global, concious coordinated reduction in human environmental impact, and a strong reduction in birth rate. Instead we are probably going to get conflict, continued exploitation to death and extinction, with war and upheavals on the scale of the Biblical Revelations. As Reg says, "All species must fail eventually, especially the very successful ones, or the whole system will grind to a halt". Reg hopes we will wipe ourselves out quickly as plagues tend to do, so the system can carry on without us.

Exactly what is happening and why you don't believe it.
Reg Morrison tells us, in this book, not only what is happening to the world's ecosystem but he also tells us why most people do not believe it. Morrison lays it out step by step. He explains why the population, in the last century has grown at such an exponential rate, and why that growth will soon come to an end....and head dramatically in the other direction. But one of the most important things covered in this book is why we refuse to believe the obvious, why we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the Easter Islanders and refuse to believe that our actions must inevitably lead to a dramatic population collapse.

Morrison tells it like it is, we are by nature anthropocentric and have ultimate faith in the ability of Homo sapiens to overcome any difficulty. Faith, Morrison tells us, is the magic ingredient that enables to make that wondrous leap from grim reality into the totally bloody ridiculous. So those who have given this book one star are the true believers. They have criticized it because they say it smacks of genetic determinism, a term invented by the critics of sociobiology, and not subscribed to by sociobiologists themselves. Or they have criticized the book because it does not offer a rosy picture where we are all saved by the wonders of science. Morrison paints science as one of the culprits in the rape of the world and not our ultimate savior. That is a message that raises the ire of many a true believer.

Yet all Morrison is trying to tell us is that what has happened many times in the past on a much smaller scale, is happening again on a worldwide scale. And it will happen because our population has already reached plague proportions and is now way beyond any sustainable level.

This is the very best book I have read in years, and I read an awful lot of books. ... Read more

Book Description

Hybrid zones--geographical areas in which the hybrids of two races are found--have attracted the attention of evolutionary biologists for many years, both because they are windows on the evolutionary process and because the patterns of animals and plant variation seen in hybrid zones do not fit the traditional classification schemes of taxonomists. Hybrid zones provide insights into the nature of the species, the way barriers to gene exchange function, the genetic basis of those barriers, the the dynamics of the speciation process. Hybrid Zones and the Evolutionary Processsynthesizes the extensive research literature in this field and points to new directions in research.It will be read with interest by evolutionary biologists, geneticists, and biogeographers. ... Read more

Book Description

In The Biotech Century, bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin examines the emerging biotech revolution that has captured the world's attention.Biochips, cloning, and genetic mapping and engineering are among the new biotechnologies that are allowing scientists to redirect the evolutionary wisdom of millions of years of life on earth. These technologies offer a cornucopia of potential benefits in fields ranging from agriculture to medicine, but very troubling issues are being disregarded, denied, and overlooked by both the scientific community and the media.In a state-of-the-art account of what is currently possible, what is being developed, what is being imagined, and the potential repercussions, Rifkin provides an opinion that is not generally expressed in the ebullient reports given to the public. He examines how these discoveries will fundamentally transform our economic systems and our civilization.The Biotech Century is a fascinating portrait of the new era in economics, science, and technology upon us and is certain to become a standard reference source on biotechnology. ... Read more

Reviews (21)

Excellent book, readable and timely
Dr. Rifkin and I were simultaneously interviewed on WICR FM in Indianapolis on November 19, 1998. (My book, Mobius, discusses the evolution of life and of humanity, and the host of the show thought there was much common ground with The Biotech Century.) Thus, I have had the benefit of reading The Biotech Century, as well as the opportunity of speaking with the author at length about it.

I do not agree with all of Dr. Rifkin's points. If I happened to have an untreatable genetic disease, I personally would not wish to see laws enacted which would restrict my access to a cure that involved permanently changing my genetic structure. If my children could be born without the disease, so much the better, in my humble view. But I still give Rifkin five stars for The Biotech Century.

Rifkin has been labeled as an alarmist, and I disagree. The corporate spin doctors have conditioned all of us to believe that there is little or no risk to splitting the gene and tampering with the code of life. Rifkin lets us know of some of the hazards, and he does so with brilliance. Richard R. Hofstetter, lawyer, author of Mobius (1998).

A thought-provoking look at our future.
Jeremy Rifkin has written a well-informed and provocative book. As a practising molecular biologist I consider that frequently his criticisms if not his predictions err on the side of caution. Perhaps he felt the need to restrain himself in the light of previous criticism of his hyperbole. Nevertheless, he was proven right in the past and I am sure for the most part he will be again. In his struggle for balance he frequently lets the biotech industry and its regulators off the hook, especially in the field of agricultural biotechnology, a subject that scares me to death. The writing style is a little irritating but the book is a must-read. Everyone should know what is in store for their children.

The Fire Flower
Rifkin does not attack the idea of creation as an anti-thesis to an divine creator. Instead proposes the genesis of life was a composition of diversity produced by genes. Rifkin says man first major break through was fire. Fire allowed elements to be separated and recombine. Fire empower man to move into the industrial century. The next century would be the biotech century. It all started with a major advancement in science put a Japanese company who gained the the spotlight after they discovered who to classify a gene, remove specific gene material, and reinsert the geneic material various DNA species. The effective extracting and recombination open the door of new life. Thus, man would be able to recombine the genes to create new forms of life blocked orignial by barriers of the species. The idea of the second genesis is to take the best genes properties and introduce them into high demand life forms. Rifkin points out that the biotech century emerged proportional to increasing computer computations. The commerical of living material was thoughtfully presented. Rifkin explains legally, we do not have ownership over cell matter taken from our body. Unique celluar resistence to specific diseases can be exploited, catalog, recombined, and marketed. The gene database will produce exponential increase in new drugs, products, foods, and material. Commerical companies use the gene information which does not necessarily benefit the original sources of the