Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code
Francis Crick, who died at the age of eighty-eight in 2004, discovered,
together with James Watson, the structure of DNA - an achievement that
would revolutionise science and secure their place in history. In this
book Matt Ridley discusses the life of the late scientist.
Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience and What Makes Us Human
In February 2001 it was announced that the genome contains not 100,000 genes as
originally expected but only 30,000. This startling revision led some scientists to
conclude that there are simply not enough human genes to account for all the
different ways people behave: we must be made by nurture, not nature. Yet again
biology was to be stretched on the Procrustean bed of nature-nurture debate.
Acclaimed science writer Matt Ridley argues that the emerging truth is far more
interesting than this myth. Nurture depends on genes too, and genes need nurture.
Genes not only predetermine the broad structure of the brain, they also absorb
formative experiences, react to social cues and even run memory. They are consequences
as well as causes of the will.
Published fifty years after the discovery of the double helix of DNA,
Nature via Nurture chronicles a new revolution in our understanding of genes.
Ridley recounts the hundred years' war between the partisans of nature and nurture to
explain how this paradoxical creature, the human being, can be simultaneously free-willed
and motivated by instinct and culture. Nature via Nurture is an enthralling,
up-to-the-minute account of how genes build brains to absorb experiences.
Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
In Genome, Matt Ridley examines in his inimitable style the mapping
of the human genome. He describes what the genome is, how it works, and
examines how this new knowledge will affect medicine, the pharmaceutical
industry, business, politics and our lives. Each chapter is devoted to one of
the 23 human chromosomes, telling the story of a particular gene on that
chromosome and how it affects the individual who bears it. Examining the most
important scientific achievement since the splitting of the atom, Genome
makes a useful and entertaining contribution to understanding who we humans are
and where we are going.
The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation
In The Origins of Virtue Matt Ridley applies an evolutionary
perspective to explaining the roots of trust, cooperation and virtue. He argues
that humans have cooperative instincts which evolved as part of our natural
selfish behaviour; by exchanging favours our ancestors were able to benefit
themselves as well as others. Ridley shows us how breakthroughs in computer
programming, microbiology, and economics give us new insights into how and why
we relate to each other in the ways we do.
The Red Queen : Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
In the title of this book, Matt Ridley refers to the Red Queen
from Lewis
Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, who has to keep running to stand
still; he demonstrates why sex has proved to be a successful evolutionary
strategy for outwitting ever-evolving parasites and examines the key role
played by sexual selection in human evolution.
Matt Ridley