Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I purchased this book for 2 reasons: 1.) I am a lay person interested in the human genome, 2.) Matt Ridley wrote an incomparable book called Red Queen, his treatment of sex and evolution. I was hoping for a similar treatment on the topic of the genome. What a disappointment! The first problem was the identification of the chapters with the 23 chromosomes. That limited him to about one gene per chromosome with which to illustrate the topic of the chapter. Unfortunately not all the genes for learning, development and so on, are on the same chromosome. So in a book about science the actual science was almost totally absent. He then used old and current history/gossip to fill in the rest of the chapter. All the chapters were like this so there was no real common unifying argument running through the book. There was no focus ! In one chapter he digresses for around 10 pages on the eugenics movement. While that certainly is a valid topic for a science book of some sort, it does not have anything to do with the actual discoveries of the human genome. The old history and current efforts were heavily laden with what I can only call insular British snobbery of the worst sort. In the Red Queen he actually presented opposing views and then presented a collegial set of arguments to show why he disagreed. In this work he seems to have done away with the presentation of ideas, and simply reduces other ideas he disagrees with to a few lines he then sneers at. Science reporting by scorn. He sneers at global warming, but doesn't say why, he sneers at the language studies conducted with monkeys -- and then turns around in a chapter and extols animal learning. The only sneer he does expand on, is his contempt for the British government's efforts to ban British beef due to mad cow disease (yes this too is part of a book on the human genome). He seemed at particular pains to savage Americans, and to paint himself as a Briton living in England. He described one millionaire in the bio game as a 'high school drop out, former professional surfer, and Vietnam veteran' ? Now if his point is this person lacks an academic background then he is correct, but that is not stated -- the implication is that this person is worthless simply due to his unorthodox background. The tone of the whole book leads me to believe this book is in fact aimed at Ridley's British colleagues. He hopes to prove to them that though he has journeyed in the land of the barbarian (USA) he in fact has not been corrupted. That is the only way I can make sense of the tone of the book and the totally bizarre inclusion of Alexander the Great as a way to describe the ancient Egyptian god Ammon. His forays into other areas could be a wonderful addition and support to a heavily science laden tome -- but these forays are almost all there is. He then wanders off topic to preach on items that he supports or that he is against. When he does not stray from the topic he tends to talk down and lecture his audience. He is against the use of presenting diseases as the means to explain a gene -- but then he repeatedly does this himself. He seems to miss the point that disease often helps to point out what went wrong and how. He forgets that his audience is unlikely to be sensation seekers, so he feels the need to periodically admonish us in what looks like 22 point type that genes aren't there to cause disease. Finally this odd, confused book simply ends. He reaches the end of his 23rd chapter and simply stops. No summary, no wrap-up, no hopes or ideas for the future. The impression given is that someone just turned off the power, or that he completed the required number of words and that was all the time he wished to spend on the book.