Lifelines: Life Beyond the Gene

Description

Today, genes are called upon to explain almost every aspect of our lives, from social inequalities to health, sexual preference, political orientation and criminality. In this incisive and original account, Steven Rose confronts the fashionable ideology of ultra-Darwinism, which reduces humans to little more than machines for the replication of DNA. Whilst recognising the importance of genes and natural selection, Professor Rose argues that the trajectory of life (lifeline) depends on the complex interactions that occur within cells, organisms and ecosystems through time and space. By placing the organism rather than the gene at the centre of life, he offers a bold new perspective on biology that acknowledges the essentially complex nature of life.

Steven Rose is Professor of Biology and Director of the Brain and Behaviour Research Group at The Open University, Visiting Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology at University College London, and, jointly with sociologist Hilary Rose, was the Professor of Physic (genetics and society) at Gresham College, London. His previous books include The Chemistry of Life (1996), Science and Society (with Hilary Rose) (1973), The Conscious Brain (1973), Molecules and Minds- Essays on Biology and the Social Order (1988), and The Making of Memory (1992). The Making of Memory won the 1993 Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize and he has received a variety of medals and international awards, most recently the Biochemical Society's special medal for science communication, the Edinburgh Medal and the silver medal of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts.

In the current intellectual and political climate, there is a desperate need to return to the real biology of real organisms, including human beings, in a real world. For the general reader wanting to know how this might be done, there can be no better guide than Rose's book * New Scientist * Written with admirable clarity and force... I can't imagine anyone who wanted enlightenment coming away from this book empty-handed * Spectator * Essential reading for anyone interested in biology and evolution * Times Higher Education Supplement * There is no denying his skill as a writer...a flowing, elegant scientific treatise * Observer *