The Society of Genes

Yanai, professor of biology at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and Lercher, professor of bioinformatics at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, join forces in an attempt to reconceptualize the way scientists look at the role genes play in evolution. They view their offering as an extension of Richard Dawkins’s pivotal 1976 work, The Selfish Gene, helping readers go beyond what they consider to be a perspective that is far too narrow in scope. They hope to reach a general audience while also intending that the book “will be interesting to our colleagues by offering a new angle on the evolution of genes and genomes.” This is a tall order, and the latter half of it is not achieved. The writing is engaging and clear, providing ample introductory material to ensure that the interested lay reader will be swept along by both the science and the evolutionary story, but there is little here for the professional scientist. As the authors themselves note, biologists have long appreciated many of the ways that genes interact with one another to form integrated and well-functioning organisms. For the general reader, however, Yanai and Lercher’s discussions of cancer, immunology, sexual reproduction, and population genetics are well worth exploring. Illus. [em](Jan.) [/em]