Universal, Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw

This is really clearly written, it covers fascinating subjects, and the authors have tried really hard to equip readers with the ability to think things through for themselves. They don’t just state conclusions: they lead the reader through how those conclusions were reached, until they are also inevitable for the reader. It’s a smart way to write, although the right people — the people who look at the conclusions and decide they’re wrong without any evidence — probably won’t actually go through the evidence.

Unfortunately, a lot of this evidence involves thinking mathematically, which is not a strong point for me. I can hammer something into my head for practical purposes (I can now do a bunch of statistical tests using paper and a calculator!) and I can remember how to calculate something I find interesting (the number of base pairs in a fragment of DNA from how far it travelled during gel electrophoresis), but I’m not good with big concepts. And Cox and Forshaw tackle some of the biggest here.

At another time, I might be in the mood to work through this more thoroughly. As it is, I didn’t finish it — not because I think it’s bad (it’s not), but just because this is not the time. Too much for me to learn that’s more immediately relevant.

(Remember that my ratings denote enjoyment, not usefulness or interestingness per se. It’s just… maths. Not for me, not right now.)

Rating: 2/5

Evolution in Four Dimensions, Eva Jablonka, Marion J. Lamb

This is really clear if you know a bit about what it’s talking about, and probably impossibly dense if you don’t. The illustrations are rather whimsical usually, rather than being useful (even for people who aren’t me and can make sense of things they’re looking at!), and there are “dialogues” at the end of each chapter which go over the previous points and basically play a bit of Devil’s advocate. They didn’t work for me because it was so artificial — obviously they wrote the dialogues entirely themselves, so it was just the questions they wanted to answer — but it might be helpful in clarifying some things for some readers.

There’s some new stuff since this revised edition came out, but it’s still a good primer on epigenetics and some of the other things that are significant when you discuss evolution (like culture). I probably wouldn’t recommend it to a layperson, but if you’re already interested, it’s a good one.

Rating: 4/5

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The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, Dan Ariely

The reasons why we lie and to what extent we’re willing to lie are pretty fascinating, and if you haven’t read anything else of the sort before, this might be pretty revelatory. Ariely explains the various studies and results pretty clearly, and it’s definitely not aimed at people who have actually dug into the academic publications: it’s accessible to a layperson, definitely, and to my mind pretty much aimed at the layperson. At any rate, I didn’t find any of it surprising, because I’ve read most of this before and know something of the way we’ve discovered our brains work. I’m not 100% positive there was nothing new, but there wasn’t much that didn’t sound familiar.

So, a good read if you’re looking for something on the subject, but probably not much point if you’re already pretty aware of research into dishonesty and why we lie.

Rating: 3/5

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Improbable Destinies, Jonathan Losos

The question Losos asks, and tries to answer, is this: can we predict evolution? Are certain things inevitable in development — birds, humans, antibiotic resistance, etc, etc? He writes engagingly about field work, experiments, thought experiments, the various theories and people who have supported them… I definitely want to do more reading on this.

Am I convinced? Well, I’m not sure Losos is convinced that evolution can be predicted in detail; he presents some good evidence that suggests that you can predict the sorts of changes in gene function that will be beneficial in a certain environment, but that you can’t predict exactly how those changes will come about. Sometimes one gene might be altered, sometimes another. The phenotype is predictable (unsurprisingly: look for what would benefit the species in breeding successfully) but the genotype is not, unless it’s a fairly simple case of one particular molecular switch needing to be flipped on or off. There is a great deal of contingency in the process of evolution: Gould was (at least to some extent) correct in suggesting that we can’t “rewind the tape of life” and then see things proceed in exactly the same way.

As with determinism in any sense, I generally believe that if all factors were known, we would also know the result. I’m just not sure we can know those factors (and I dislike and squirm away from applying it to human ethics — our actions may be caused by previous events, but we don’t experience the process that way, so it’s irrelevant in how to be moral) — especially given events on a quantum level.

Rating: /5

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The Genius of Birds, Jennifer Ackerman

If you’ve read much about animal intelligence, most of the stuff in this book won’t be all that surprising, though of course since it’s entirely about birds, it includes a lot more anecdotes and bird-focused studies. As a whole, the book definitely makes a case for birds as specialised, well adapted, and very intelligent in their own spheres. We won’t be having philosophical discussions with them any time soon, though, if that’s what you thought ‘genius’ meant. And I think honestly that Ackerman makes less of a case for bower birds’ displays being art than others I’ve read.

It’s an easy read, and good for some ‘huh, cool’ moments, but not the most rigorous or unmissable popular science book out there.

Rating: 3/5

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The Gene: An Intimate History, Siddhartha Mukherjee

The Gene isn’t quite as great as The Emperor of All Maladies: the fact that this isn’t as much Mukherjee’s forte definitely shows, and there’s a couple of points of fact I’d quibble about. For the most part, though, it’s a really great discussion of genetics and the way they actually affect people, tracing a history of mental illness in Mukherjee’s own family as an example. I know this field pretty darn well by this point, and this is far from the first book I’ve read about genetics, but Mukherjee is a good writer, making it all seem fresh and worth reading even when it’s stuff I know backwards and forwards, and probably inside out too.

If you’re curious about genetics, about what genetics can do for us, and about how exactly things like recessive genes and pleiotropy work, this is a good choice. It’s not for experts, but it’s still a pleasant read even if you do know the topic already.

Rating: 4/5

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Experiment Eleven, Peter Pringle

I initially picked this up because of the subtitle, which specifically mentions the discovery of a cure for tuberculosis. In fact, for the most part it isn’t about the science, but more about the intellectual property battle that surrounded the discovery of streptomycin. It’s more about the two main scientists it discusses, and their struggle over who really found streptomycin. The way the book tells it, I think it’s clear that Waksman was wrong to claim all the credit, and knew he was; Schatz should have received much more credit and recognition for what he did.

It’s interesting in the sense of illuminating what goes on to get drugs from the lab bench to actual development, where Waksman really did play a key role. It might be a bit wearing if you’re not that interested in what’s essentially a biography of the two scientists, though.

Rating: 3/5

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Wonderful Life, Stephen Jay Gould

Wonderful Life is pretty, well, wonderful. If your curiosity about the Burgess Shale or the weird and wonderful beings of the Cambrian period needs sating, this book should more than do it. It is quite dense — Gould may have been a popular science writer, but he didn’t dumb it down — but it’s worth the time investment.

It’s true that some of the reconstructions of these beings have been challenged since Gould wrote, but it’s still worth reading for his overall theory about the development of life, and much important (and correct) detail about the Burgess Shale.

Rating: /5

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Virus X, Frank Ryan

This is a bit out of date now, in that there are emerging viruses it doesn’t touch on and scientific advances in studying them that it doesn’t include, but it’s still a fascinating glimpse into some of the emerging diseases of the last century or so, how the outbreaks were handled and what they mean. If you’re read David Quammen’s Spillover, it’s somewhat along the same lines, discussing many of the same diseases; it’s been a while since I read Spillover, so I found this a good refresher on the diseases mentioned and the early stages of their emergence.

If you find this whole subject a little stressful, this won’t exactly be reassuring; it does show that the world simply doesn’t have the infrastructure to deal with the kind of pandemics that are coming our way. We’ve been lucky so far — I’m honestly shocked there’s been nothing worse since this book was published.

Rating: 4/5

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