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Author: Robert F. Weir
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 9781587292484
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Author: Robert F. Weir
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 9781587292484
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Author: John Quackenbush
Publisher: Charlesbridge
ISBN: 1607343568
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 189
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Book Description
The DNA sequence that comprises the human genome--the genetic blueprint found in each of our cells--is undoubtedly the greatest code ever to be broken. Completed at the dawn of a new millennium, the feat electrified both the scientific community and the general public with its tantalizing promise of new and better treatments for countless diseases, including Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson's. Yet what is arguably the most important discovery of our time has also opened a Pandora's box of questions about who we are as humans and how the unique information stored in our genomes can and might be used, making it all the more important for everyone to understand the new science of genomics. In the CURIOSITY GUIDE TO THE HUMAN GENOME, Dr. John Quackenbush, a renowned scientist and professor, conducts a fascinating tour of the history and science behind the Human Genome Project and the technologies that are revolutionizing the practice of medicine today. With a clear and engaging narrative style, he demystifies the fundamental principles of genetics and molecular biology, including the astounding ways in which genes function, alone or together with other genes and the environment, to either sustain life or trigger disease. In addition, Dr. Quackenbush goes beyond medicine to examine how DNA-sequencing technology is changing how we think of ourselves as a species by providing new insights about our earliest ancestors and reconfirming our inextricable link to all life on earth. Finally, he explores the legal and ethical questions surrounding such controversial topics as stem cell research, prenatal testing, forensics, and cloning, making this volume of the Curiosity Guides series an indispensable resource for navigating our brave new genomic world.
Author: John Quackenbush
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 189
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Book Description
The DNA sequence that comprises the human genome - the genetic blueprint found in each of our cells - is undoubtedly the greatest code ever to be broken. Completed at the dawn of a new milennium, the feat electified both the scientific community and the general public with its tantalizing promise of new and better treatments for countless diseases, includein Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson's.
Author: John C. Avise
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674020359
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
They mastermind our lives, shaping our features, our health, and our behavior, even in the sacrosanct realms of love and sex, religion, aging, and death. Yet we are the ones who house, perpetuate, and give the promise of immortality to these biological agents, our genetic gods. The link between genes and gods is hardly arbitrary, as the distinguished evolutionary geneticist John Avise reveals in this compelling book. In clear, straightforward terms, Avise reviews recent discoveries in molecular biology, evolutionary genetics, and human genetic engineering, and discusses the relevance of these findings to issues of ultimate concern traditionally reserved for mythology, theology, and religious faith. The book explains how the genetic gods figure in our development--not just our metabolism and physiology, but even our emotional disposition, personality, ethical leanings, and, indeed, religiosity. Yet genes are physical rather than metaphysical entities. Having arisen via an amoral evolutionary process--natural selection--genes have no consciousness, no sentient code of conduct, no reflective concern about the consequences of their actions. It is Avise's contention that current genetic knowledge can inform our attempts to answer typically religious questions--about origins, fate, and meaning. The Genetic Gods challenges us to make the necessary connection between what we know, what we believe, and what we embody. Table of Contents: Preface Prologue 1. The Doctrines of Biological Science 2. Geneses 3. Genetic Maladies 4. Genetic Beneficence 5. Strategies of the Genes 6. Genetic Sovereignty 7. New Lords of Our Genes? 8. Meaning Epilogue Notes Glossary Index Reviews of this book: Our genes, [Avise] says, are responsible not only for how we got here and exist day to day, but also for the core of our being--our personalities and morals. It is our genetic make-up that allows for and formulates our religious belief systems, he argues. Avise does not eschew spirituality but seeks a more informed, less confrontational approach between science and the pulpit. --Science News Reviews of this book: For the general scientific reader, the book is an excellent distillation of a broad and increasingly important field, a course of causation that cannot be ignored. From advising expectant parents to getting innocent people off death row, genetics increasingly dominates our lives. The sections on genetics are expertly written, particularly for those readers without in-depth knowledge. The author explains slowly and carefully just how genetics operates, using multiple metaphors. His genetic discourse proceeds in a neighborly fashion, as one might tell stories while sitting in a rocking chair at a country store. He seems to be invigorated by genes and just can't wait to tell about them. --David W. Hodo, Journal of the American Medical Association Reviews of this book: As a whole, this book is quite informative and stimulating, and sections of it are beautifully written. Indeed, Professor Avise has a real gift for prose and scientific expositions, and I would suspect that he must be a formidable lecturer...At its core, [The Genetic Gods] is a survey, and a very nice one at that, of evolutionary genetics, the field of the author's major research interests. There is a strong sociobiological cast to the arguments, and the work and ideas of E. O. Wilson figure prominently. The presentation of evolutionary genetics is imbedded in a more general discussion of modern human and molecular genetics...However, this book is, most of all, a philosophical treatise that attempts, admittedly with the bias of a biologist, to examine the intersection of the fundamental premises of evolution and religion. Professor Avise has given us plenty to think about in this book [and]...it was a real pleasure to wrestle with the ideas he was presenting. I would suggest that other readers give it a try. --Charles J. Epstein, Trends in Genetics Reviews of this book: [Avise's] account of the role genes play in shaping the human condition is wholly involving, paying particular attention to issues of reproduction, aging and death. In addition to presenting ample biological information in a form accessible to the nonspecialist, Avise does a superb job of discussing many of the ethical implications that have arisen from our growing knowledge of human genetics. Just a few of the topics covered are genetic engineering, the patenting of life, genetic screening, abortion, human cloning, gene therapy and insurance-related controversies. --Publishers Weekly Reviews of this book: Avise explains thoroughly how evolution operates on a genetic level. His goal is to show that humans can look to this information as a way to answer fundamental questions of life instead of looking to traditional religious beliefs...Avise includes some very interesting discussions of ethical concerns related to genetic issues. --Eric D. Albright, Library Journal This is a splendid account of a subject that affects us all: the breathtaking increase in understanding of human genetics and the insight it provides into human evolution. John Avise speaks with authority of molecular evolutionary genetics and with affecting compassion of what it might mean. --Douglas J. Futuyma, State University of New York at Stony Brook The Genetic Gods is many things. It is a wonderful introduction to modern molecular biology, by a man who knows his subject backwards. It is a stimulating account of the ways in which genetics impinges on human nature--our thinking and our behavior. It is a remarkably level-headed and sympathetic account of the implications of our new findings for traditional and not-so-traditional issues in philosophy and religion. In an age of genetic counseling, cloning, construction of new life forms, the book is worth its weight in gold for this alone. But most of all, it is a huge amount of fun to read--you want to applaud or argue with the author on nigh every page. Highly recommended! --Michael Ruse, University of Guelph The Genetic Gods makes a valuable contribution to the on-going task of sorting out the implications of evolutionary biology and genetics for human self-understanding. Avise addresses, with authority and grace, the most consequential intellectual issues of our time. A challenging and insightful book. --Loyal Rue, Harvard University A wonderfully informative and engaging book. Avise offers a lucid, accessible primer on our genes, angelic and demonic, and examines religious and ethical issues, all too human, now confronted by genetic science. He makes a compelling case that anyone seeking to 'Know Thyself' should study the DNA molecular scriptures, our most ancient and universal legacy. --Dudley Herschbach, Harvard University, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
Author: Siddhartha Mukherjee
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476733538
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 624
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Book Description
The #1 NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller The basis for the PBS Ken Burns Documentary The Gene: An Intimate History Now includes an excerpt from Siddhartha Mukherjee’s new book Song of the Cell! From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies—a fascinating history of the gene and “a magisterial account of how human minds have laboriously, ingeniously picked apart what makes us tick” (Elle). “Sid Mukherjee has the uncanny ability to bring together science, history, and the future in a way that is understandable and riveting, guiding us through both time and the mystery of life itself.” —Ken Burns “Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee dazzled readers with his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies in 2010. That achievement was evidently just a warm-up for his virtuoso performance in The Gene: An Intimate History, in which he braids science, history, and memoir into an epic with all the range and biblical thunder of Paradise Lost” (The New York Times). In this biography Mukherjee brings to life the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices. “Mukherjee expresses abstract intellectual ideas through emotional stories…[and] swaddles his medical rigor with rhapsodic tenderness, surprising vulnerability, and occasional flashes of pure poetry” (The Washington Post). Throughout, the story of Mukherjee’s own family—with its tragic and bewildering history of mental illness—reminds us of the questions that hang over our ability to translate the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In riveting and dramatic prose, he describes the centuries of research and experimentation—from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Mendel and Darwin, from Boveri and Morgan to Crick, Watson and Franklin, all the way through the revolutionary twenty-first century innovators who mapped the human genome. “A fascinating and often sobering history of how humans came to understand the roles of genes in making us who we are—and what our manipulation of those genes might mean for our future” (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel), The Gene is the revelatory and magisterial history of a scientific idea coming to life, the most crucial science of our time, intimately explained by a master. “The Gene is a book we all should read” (USA TODAY).
Author: John Parrington
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198813090
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 369
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Book Description
As the Human Genome Project completed its mapping of the entire human genome, hopes ran high that we would rapidly be able to use our knowledge of human genes to tackle many inherited diseases, and understand what makes us unique among animals. But things didn't turn out that way ... but the emerging picture is if anything far more exciting. Parrington gives an outline of the deeper genome, involving layers of regulatory elements controlling and coordinating the switching on and off of genes; the impact of its 3D geometry; the discovery of a variety of new RNAs playing critical roles; the epigenetic changes influenced by the environment and life experiences that can make identical twins different and be passed on to the next generation; and the clues coming out of comparisons with the genomes of Neanderthals as well as that of chimps about the development of our species.
Author: Alison K. Thompson
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0585345864
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 331
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Book Description
It is difficult to think of an example of an advancement in the biological sciences that has had an impact on society similar to that of the new genetics. Recent developments in biotechnology have occasioned much discussion among academics, professionals, and lay people alike. In particular, many questions and concerns have arisen over the acquisi tion, access, and control of genetic information. There are several reasons why the new genetics has commanded such widespread attention, and why it is now the subject of con siderable debate. Special reference is given in this volume to the implications of genetic information for five different subject areas: eugenics, the insurance industry, the commer cialisation of genetic testing, strategies for raising public awareness, and the value of theo retical ethical and sociological frameworks in the debate. This diverse collection of papers attempts to address and critically discuss issues surrounding the control of, and access to, genetic information from ethical, medical, legal, and theoretical points of view. The first and shortest section of the book attempts to address concerns over the eugenic potential of new biotechnologies. It also provides a historical context for the de bate, for controversy over the subject of eugenics predates the current debate over genetic information by a considerable length of time. Indeed, by the time the first patent was is sued for Chakrabarty's strain of oil eating bacteria in the early 1970s, the term eugenics had already acquired strong pejorative connotations.
Author: Lenny Moss
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262632973
Category : Genetics
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
A historical and critical analysis of the concept of the gene that attempts to provide new perspectives and metaphors for the transformation of biology and its philosophy.
Author: Peter Glasner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351934309
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
The title of this book derives from C. Wright Mills’ classic The Sociological Imagination (Penguin, 1970), in which he sees the essential project of social science as the use of the imagination to 'grasp history and biography and the relations between the two in society'. This enables the social scientist to 'range from the most impersonal and remote transformations to the most intimate features of the human self'. Another of Mills’ concerns was the relationship between 'the personal troubles of the milieu' and 'the public issues of social structure' and these are most acutely illustrated in human genetics, the most personal of the new technologies. The chapters in this volume address these issues through discussions of choice and informed decision-making, risks and hazards, the economic and political organization of new technology, and the public as well as the scientist’s understanding of science. The methods used range from detailed ethnographies, through deconstruction's of text and action, to surveys and interviews.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309038405
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 128
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Book Description
There is growing enthusiasm in the scientific community about the prospect of mapping and sequencing the human genome, a monumental project that will have far-reaching consequences for medicine, biology, technology, and other fields. But how will such an effort be organized and funded? How will we develop the new technologies that are needed? What new legal, social, and ethical questions will be raised? Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome is a blueprint for this proposed project. The authors offer a highly readable explanation of the technical aspects of genetic mapping and sequencing, and they recommend specific interim and long-range research goals, organizational strategies, and funding levels. They also outline some of the legal and social questions that might arise and urge their early consideration by policymakers.
