This is a story about you. It is the history of who you are and how you came to be. It is unique to you, as it is to each of the 100 billion modern humans who have ever drawn breath. But it is also our collective story because in every one of our genomes we each carry the history of our species births, deaths, disease, war, famine, migration, and a lot of sex.
Since scientists first read the human genome in 2001, it has been subject to all sorts of claims, counterclaims, and myths. In fact, as Adam Rutherford explains, our genomes should be read not as instruction manuals, but as epic poems. DNA determines far less than we have been led to believe about us as individuals, but vastly more about us as a species.
In this captivating journey through the expanding landscape of genetics, Adam Rutherford reveals what our genes now tell us about history, and what history tells us about our genes. From Neanderthals to murder, from redheads to race, dead kings to plague, evolution to epigenetics, this is a demystifying and illuminating new portrait of who we are and how we came to be."
Since scientists first read the human genome in 2001, it has been subject to all sorts of claims, counterclaims, and myths. In fact, as Adam Rutherford explains, our genomes should be read not as instruction manuals, but as epic poems. DNA determines far less than we have been led to believe about us as individuals, but vastly more about us as a species.
In this captivating journey through the expanding landscape of genetics, Adam Rutherford reveals what our genes now tell us about history, and what history tells us about our genes. From Neanderthals to murder, from redheads to race, dead kings to plague, evolution to epigenetics, this is a demystifying and illuminating new portrait of who we are and how we came to be."
I'm working on reading more non-fiction in 2023, so I saw this book on Audible.com and since I had a bad BRCA2 gene, it appealed to me because it talks about genetics and DNA. I have found that I am much more likely to finish a non-fiction read if I do the audioversion and listen during my runs and general housework. Easier for me to focus. I listen at 2.0 speed and that helps as well---less mind wandering.
This book is a brief overview of the evolution of humans. I know that we humans are all related at some level, but this book put that idea back front and center. We all share a common ancestor and as humans have multiplied groups of us can be traced back to various historical individuals, which is pretty neat. We aren't like cars off an assembly line, a near copy of our parents or our parents' parents, all of our genes and our DNA changes enough in each version of a person that we really are our own person; and our genes do not determine our outcomes. They may influence some things but there isn't a doomed-gene, an amazing-person- gene, or a you-are-going-to-live-to-a-100-gene.
What I took away from the book was the important reminder that we are all related and at the same time we are truly one of a kind.
4 stars
