Sign-In
Cart
Genetic Explanations: Sense and Nonsense
Hardcover
Medical ReferenceSports GeneralGenetics
ISBN13: 9780674064461
Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr
Published: Feb 1 2013
Pages: 384
Weight: 1.50
Height: 1.10 Width: 6.40 Depth: 9.30
Language: English
Can genes determine which fifty-year-old will succumb to Alzheimer's, which citizen will turn out on voting day, and which child will be marked for a life of crime? Yes, according to the Internet, a few scientific studies, and some in the biotechnology industry who should know better. Sheldon Krimsky and Jeremy Gruber gather a team of genetic experts to argue that treating genes as the holy grail of our physical being is a patently unscientific endeavor. Genetic Explanations urges us to replace our faith in genetic determinism with scientific knowledge about how DNA actually contributes to human development.
The concept of the gene has been steadily revised since Watson and Crick discovered the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953. No longer viewed by scientists as the cell's fixed set of master molecules, genes and DNA are seen as a dynamic script that is ad-libbed at each stage of development. Rather than an autonomous predictor of disease, the DNA we inherit interacts continuously with the environment and functions differently as we age. What our parents hand down to us is just the beginning. Emphasizing relatively new understandings of genetic plasticity and epigenetic inheritance, the authors put into a broad developmental context the role genes are known to play in disease, behavior, evolution, and cognition.
Rather than dismissing genetic reductionism out of hand, Krimsky and Gruber ask why it persists despite opposing scientific evidence, how it influences attitudes about human behavior, and how it figures in the politics of research funding.
Also in
Genetics
Beyond Inheritance: Our Ever-Mutating Cells and a New Understanding of Health
Khamsi, Roxanne
Hardcover
Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness
Harden, Kathryn Paige
Hardcover
Curved Air: A Biography of Sickle Cell Anemia and the Quest to Cure the First Molecular Disease
Davies, Kevin
Hardcover
Probability Zero: The Mathematical Impossibility of the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection
Day, Vox
Hardcover
The Vanishing Family: Love, Fate, and the Quest to End Dementia (Large Print Edition)
Kolker, Robert
Paperback
Genie in Your Genes: Epigenetic Medicine and the New Biology of Consciousness
Church, Dawson
Paperback
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes
Rutherford, Adam
Paperback
The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles
Lipton, Bruce H.
Paperback
On the Future of Species: Authoring Life by Means of Artificial Biological Intelligence
Woolfson, Adrian
Hardcover
What We Inherit: How New Technologies and Old Myths Are Shaping Our Genomic Future
Martschenko, Daphne O.
Trejo, Sam
Hardcover
The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
Dawkins, Richard
Paperback
The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA
Watson, James D.
Paperback
Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World
Metzl, Jamie
Paperback
A Child Is Born: The Fifth Edition of the Beloved Classic--Completely Revised and Updated
Forsell, Linda
Nilsson, Lennart
Paperback
Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past
Reich, David
Paperback
The Age of Scientific Wellness: Why the Future of Medicine Is Personalized, Predictive, Data-Rich, and in Your Hands
Hood, Leroy
Price, Nathan
Paperback
Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century
Roberts, Dorothy
Paperback
The Evolution of Imperfection: The Science of Why We Aren't and Can't Be Perfect
Hurst, Laurence D.
Hardcover
The Genomic Kitchen: Your Guide To Understanding And Using The Food-Gene Connection For A Lifetime Of Health
Archibald, Amanda
Paperback
Epigenetics and the Architect: Evidence of Design at the Frontier of Biology
Woodward, Thomas
Gills, James P.
Paperback
A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
Doudna, Jennifer A.
Sternberg, Samuel H.
Paperback
Dr. Gundry's Diet Evolution: Turn Off the Genes That Are Killing You and Your Waistline
Gundry, Steven R.
Paperback
The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code
Kean, Sam
Paperback
Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior
Weiner, Jonathan
Paperback
She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity
Zimmer, Carl
Paperback
Living with Our Genes: The Groundbreaking Book about the Science of Personality, Behavior, and Genetic Destiny
Copeland, Peter
Hamer, Dean H.
Paperback
Terralogy: - Our Reality Field, Its Energy Systems, Biologically Engineered Forms and Networks
Green, Randi
Paperback
Human Peoples: On the Genetic Traces of Human Evolution, Migration and Adaptation
Quintana-Murci, Lluís
Paperback
Investigating the Impossible: Biology offers New Answers and Insights
Aspin, Steve
Lueck, Andreas
Paperback
A Feeling for the Organism, 10th Aniversary Edition: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock
Keller, Evelyn Fox
Paperback
Genes, Giants, Monsters, and Men: The Surviving Elites of the Cosmic War and Their Hidden Agenda
Farrell, Joseph P.
Paperback
Children of the Flames: Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz
Lagnado, Lucette Matalon
Dekel, Sheila Cohn
Paperback
The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology
Hessel, Andrew
Webb, Amy
Paperback
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, 10th Anniversary Edition: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes
Rutherford, Adam
Paperback
Breath from Salt: A Deadly Genetic Disease, a New Era in Science, and the Patients and Families Who Changed Medicine Forever
Trivedi, Bijal P.
Hardcover
When a Gene Makes You Smell Like a Fish: ...and Other Amazing Tales about the Genes in Your Body
Chiu, Lisa Seachrist
Paperback
Activating Our 12-Stranded DNA: Secrets of Dodecahedral DNA for Completing Our Human Evolution
Remennikova, Ruslana
Paperback
Eco-Evo-Devo: The Environmental Regulation of Development, Health, and Evolution
Gilbert, Scott F.
Pfennig, David W.
Paperback
Summary and Analysis of the Gene: An Intimate History: Based on the Book by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Worth Books
Paperback
The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution
Cochran, Gregory
Harpending, Henry
Paperback
The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People
Lipton, Judith Eve
Barash, David P.
Paperback
The Genome Odyssey: Medical Mysteries and the Incredible Quest to Solve Them
Ashley, Euan Angus
Paperback
Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend
Oakley, Barbara, PH. D.
Paperback
Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture
Thompson, Barbara Fritchman
Thompson, Robert Bruce
Paperback
In Search of Giants: The Quest to Find the Genetic Giants of Northern Ireland
Snyder, Colleen
Holland, Brendan
Paperback
The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov: The Story of Stalin's Persecution of One of the Gr
Pringle, Peter
Paperback
Populations of Individuals: Understanding Biological Variation from Molecules to Ecosystems
Bradford, Kent J.
Hardcover
The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures
Kenneally, Christine
Paperback
The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code
Kean, Sam
Hardcover
At the Water's Edge: Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs, and How Life Came Ashore But Then Went Back to Sea
Zimmer, Carl
Paperback
On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life
Darwin, Charles
Paperback
Cancer Simply Explained: What Is Cancer and What Can We Do about It?
Vela, Visar
Sabani, Besmira
Spahn, Günther
Paperback
Dressmaker's Mirror: Sudden Death, Genetics, and a Jewish Family's Secret
Liebman, Susan Weiss
Hardcover
Genetics 101: From Chromosomes and the Double Helix to Cloning and DNA Tests, Everything You Need to Know about Genes
Skwarecki, Beth
Hardcover
Genetics of the Fowl: The Classic Guide to Poultry Breeding and Chicken Genetics
Hutt, Frederick B.
Paperback
A Beginner's Guide to Genealogy 2.0: Using the Internet, DNA, and Online Databases to Trace Your Family History
Kabla, Herve
Paperback
How to Argue with a Racist: What Our Genes Do (and Don't) Say about Human Difference
Rutherford, Adam
Paperback
Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves
Church, George M.
Regis, Edward
Paperback
At Our Wits' End: Why We're Becoming Less Intelligent and What It Means for the Future
Dutton, Edward
Woodley of Menie, Michael A.
Paperback
The Fly Room: The Story of the Scientists Who Discovered Genetics and Reinvented Evolution
Dejong-Lambert, William
Hardcover
The Psychobiology of Gene Expression: Neuroscience and Neurogenesis in Hypnosis and the Healing Arts
Rossi, Ernest L.
Hardcover
The Genome War: How Craig Venter Tried to Capture the Code of Life and Save the World
Shreeve, James
Paperback