Books reviews, current events, and other musings

 
I read several articles today that argued for or against a war with Iraq. My conclusions -- that such a war would be a disaster -- didn't change, though it was interesting to review the arguments on both sides. The anti-war arguments were compelling: the enormous human costs of war, immorality of starting a pre-emptive war, increased hatred of America, resulting geopolitical instabilities, and increased terrorist activities.

While reading Martin Gilbert's A History of the Twentieth Century this evening, I came across an appropriate quote by Tony Blair, who ironically enough supports the war on Iraq:

Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war. That is a prize beyond value.

posted by Julian at 10:37 PM

 
Matt Ridley's Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters is a good introduction to human genetic structure. For each chromosome, Ridley selects some feature as the starting point for a chapter about human DNA. Though that's a bit of gimmick, it's a clever way to organize a book.

For example, chromosome 4 includes the gene that determines whether you'll get Huntington's disease. Ridley discusses the disease, its history, and the genetic markers that distinguish people who will be stricken with Huntington's from those who won't. He then explores the ethical and psychological question of whether people should be tested to determine whether they'll get Huntington's disease, which has no cure.

Ridley covers a wide range of topics. A majority of them deal with variations in the genetic code between different individuals, and the ways in which those variations change people's traits and health. Ridley also discusses the structure of the genome, genetic similarities and differences across multiple species, genetic engineering, junk DNA, and other things.

One surprise was the extent to which behavior is determined by ones genes, instead of the environment. For example, children of physically abusive parents are more likely to become abusive as adults. Genes, not childhood conditioning, cause that correlation. Abused stepchildren don't tend to become abusive, while adopted children of abusive biological parents do.

Genome covers lots of interesting material that I hadn't seen before. For example, evolutionary competition exists between individual genes, within a single creature, to determine which genes are propagated to future generations. That competition explains, for reasons I won't go into, why the Y sex chromosome is so small.

Overall, I'd strongly recommend this book.
posted by Julian at 9:22 PM

 
In Marge Piercy's novel He, She, and It, the characters create artificial humanoid life to protect them from outside danger. The main storyline takes place in mid-21st century America, after various economic, military, and ecological disasters. A scientist builds a cyborg to protect his community. A programmer, responsible for training the cyborg, tells it a fable about a rabbi in 17th century Prague who creates a golem to safeguard the Jewish ghetto. He, She, and It alternates between these two stories, displaying some clever parallels.

The possibilities and philosophical questions about human-like robots cover some familiar territory. Piercy's treatment reminded me of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Commander Data on Star Trek, and Isaac Asimov's robot stories. She surpassed earlier work in one aspect: exploring the emotional relationships between man and machine, from each of their perspectives. A common sci-fi limitation came into play -- the difficulty of portraying non-human intelligence and emotions. The cyborg and golem were human with some twists. They lacked a childhood, were physically stronger, and were more rational and kinder than real people. Actually, from the perspective of the female characters, they were better-than-human ideal men.

The world situation and other technologies interested me more than the cyborg story. Governments had collapsed, corporations ruled, most people lived in poverty, and the ecology was a total mess. Meanwhile, technologies such as computers, biotech, and entertainment had matured significantly. That background might be standard cyberpunk, but I haven't encountered much of it before.

Overall, I'd give He, She, and It a mixed review. However, the four women in my book club all liked it a great deal more than I did. Its themes, along with the preponderance of strong female characters, might appeal more to women.
posted by Julian at 1:35 PM