Product Description

One of our most brilliant evolutionary biologists, Richard Lewontin has also been a leading critic of those--scientists and non-scientists alike--who would misuse the science to which he has contributed so much. In The Triple Helix, Lewontin the scientist and Lewontin the critic come together to provide a concise, accessible account of what his work has taught him about biology and about its relevance to human affairs. In the process, he exposes some of the common and troubling misconceptions that misdirect and stall our understanding of biology and evolution.

The central message of this book is that we will never fully understand living things if we continue to think of genes, organisms, and environments as separate entities, each with its distinct role to play in the history and operation of organic processes. Here Lewontin shows that an organism is a unique consequence of both genes and environment, of both internal and external features. Rejecting the notion that genes determine the organism, which then adapts to the environment, he explains that organisms, influenced in their development by their circumstances, in turn create, modify, and choose the environment in which they live.

The Triple Helix is vintage Lewontin: brilliant, eloquent, passionate, and deeply critical. But it is neither a manifesto for a radical new methodology nor a brief for a new theory. It is instead a primer on the complexity of biological processes, a reminder to all of us that living things are never as simple as they may seem.

(20010109)

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #156798 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-15
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .40" h x 4.98" w x 7.53" l, .35 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
There is the Richard Lewontin non-biologists know, the author of acerbic, thoughtful, witty, unhesitatingly leftist books such as his essays from The New York Review of Books collected in It Ain't Necessarily So. This is the other Lewontin, the hard-core scientist, one of the most insightful evolutionary biologists going.

The Triple Helix is a manifesto for the life sciences: "The time has come when further progress in our understanding of nature requires that we reconsider the relationship between the outside and the inside, between organism and environment". Lewontin is not arguing for what he calls "obscurationist holism", but for a more complex interaction between gene, organism and environment, in which they construct each other:

.... it is the biology, indeed the genes, of an organism that determines its effective environment, by establishing the way in which external physical signals become incorporated into its reactions .... Whatever the autonomous processes of the outer world may be, they cannot be perceived by the organism. Its life is determined by the shadows on the wall, passed through a transforming medium of its own creation.

Lewontin argues for a life science that faces up to reality, that tackles the problems of studying subtle processes in complex systems where three-dimensional shape is crucial. The journal Nature "cannot recommend [it] too highly for the many commentators and headline-writers who think that DNA is the blueprint for the organism"--or for their readers. --Mary Ellen Curtin

From Publishers Weekly
The central message in this slim and eloquent book is that life is complex. Eschewing simple answers, Lewontin (It Ain't Necessarily So, reviewed below, etc.), professor of biology at Harvard, demonstrates how all organisms, including humans, are the product of intricate interactions between their genes and the environment in which they live. Neither genes nor environment are static, however, and their interplay dramatically changes both. Lewontin, long a social critic commenting on the ways biological information is misused, continues his articulate attack on genetic determinism, arguing against the simplistic belief that genes are largely responsible for behavioral characteristics. But the reductionists who believe that the ultimate understanding of human nature will come from molecular biology aren't the only ones he finds fault with here. Environmental determinists, Lewontin asserts, are equally incorrect and narrow in their focus. Looking only at the big picture works no better than reductionism: "Obscurantist holism is both fruitless and wrong as a description of the world." An integrative approach is what is needed, but, Lewontin laments, our technical ability to manipulate DNA has seduced scientists to such an extent that the very questions they are asking are being shaped by technology rather than by intellectual curiosity. Our fascination with DNA has "changed and pauperized, temporarily it is to be hoped, an entire field of study." Although the issues Lewontin addresses are huge, he writes about them in a manner fully accessible to the nonspecialist. 19 line illustrations. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Lewontin, an eminent Harvard biologist, is known both for his own contributions and his criticisms of other scientists' theories. This slim volume contains four essays. The first two essays critique theories asserting that genes or environment primarily determine the adult organism. The third discusses the problems of studying individual parts of an organism in isolation and of assuming that every effect has a "cause." In the final essay, Lewontin offers suggestions for further research. The emphasis throughout is on the extreme complexity of living organisms and the dangers of oversimplifying biological processes. One feels that Lewontin, a political leftist, is especially critical of sociobiology because he fears that emphasizing the role of genetics in human behavior and abilities will continue to be used to justify oppression of "inferior" groups. This is a valid fear, but it should not be used to deny the real benefits of the study of behavioral genetics. Whatever the reader's views, these essays are well worth reading for their brilliant, if sometimes partisan, criticisms. Lewontin's style is remarkably clear considering the complex nature of some of his arguments. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.
-Marit MacArthur, Auraria Lib., Denver
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.