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The Single Helix
Steve Jones’ barnstorming survey is science writing at its best, veering nimbly from the chemistry of gold to the failures of funding, the chaos in the heavens to the fight against creationism, the optical illusions of tartan plaid to the mathematics of elections. Witty and packed with human interest, it also features interviews with playwrights, poets, and film directors, along with plenty on the Double Helix and the author’s own specialty, the Snail Helix. In a hundred succinct pieces, he reveals the extraordinary breadth and the profound shallowness of scientific knowledge. Educational and entertaining, this is a brilliant meditation on modern science.
321 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
3 people are currently reading
111 people want to read
About the author
Steve Jones
313 books132 followersLibrarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
John Stephen Jones is a Welsh geneticist and from 1995 to 1999 and 2008 to June 2010 was Head of the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London. His studies are conducted in the Galton Laboratory. He is also a television presenter and a prize-winning author on the subject of biology, especially evolution. He is one of the contemporary popular writers on evolution. In 1996 his writing won him the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize "for his numerous, wide ranging contributions to the public understanding of science in areas such as human evolution and variation, race, sex, inherited disease and genetic manipulation through his many broadcasts on radio and television, his lectures, popular science books, and his regular science column in The Daily Telegraph and contributions to other newspaper media".
John Stephen Jones is a Welsh geneticist and from 1995 to 1999 and 2008 to June 2010 was Head of the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London. His studies are conducted in the Galton Laboratory. He is also a television presenter and a prize-winning author on the subject of biology, especially evolution. He is one of the contemporary popular writers on evolution. In 1996 his writing won him the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize "for his numerous, wide ranging contributions to the public understanding of science in areas such as human evolution and variation, race, sex, inherited disease and genetic manipulation through his many broadcasts on radio and television, his lectures, popular science books, and his regular science column in The Daily Telegraph and contributions to other newspaper media".
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 11, 2010
I’m really fond of Yum Cha – despite the fact that it has been years since I’ve eaten Yum Cha – but I really like the idea of it. Lots of little dishes all quite different from each other that come in no particular order and are small enough for you to try things you wouldn’t normally dream of trying if that was all you were going to get, but it is okay given you are only going to have a bite or two to be adventurous.
Not too different from reading friends’ reviews here on Good Reads. I am pretty unlikely to ever read very many books on ship building, say – but I always read Eric’s book reviews on ships and they are invariably fascinating.
This is a book of maybe 100 three page essays on funny little things to do with science. A kind of Yum Cha for the brain really. The essays are just long enough and some of them are not just amusing but fascinating too.
He is a biologist, so naturally there are frequent digs at creationism – par for the course while serving an essential social function. There are also lots of witty asides, one of my favourites is a quote by Dr Johnson who said of visiting the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland (something I intend to do before I die – and hence I have reason enough to put it off for a while longer) “Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.”
He also does the ‘fish’ = ‘ghoti’ thing, however, he says that ‘ghoti’ also = water – ‘gh’ as in plough, ‘o’ as in cord, and ‘ti’ as in tin. Unfortunately, I can’t get the ‘er’ sound out of the ‘ti’ in tin – but perhaps it is an accent thing – one of the main problems with phonetic spelling in English, I would suspect.
There are lots of fascinating factoids along the way too – did you know the death rate dues to heart disease and stroke increases by 10% for every 3 degrees drop in temperature? That our fight against infant mortality this century has been so successful that if tomorrow all deaths of people in Britain below the age of 50 were banned the average life expectancy would only increase by one year. That the onset of puberty isn’t set by age, but by body mass – hence why we are seeing the age of the onset of puberty plummeting while our kids grow increasingly chubby.
But the best article in this book was Vultures, Cultures and Criticism – where he defines evolutionary psychology as ‘the palace of strawless bricks’. Now, if that isn’t a quote worth remembering it is hard to know what is.
I’ve read quite a few of this man’s books – but all too long ago to do reviews of them here – much like most of Gould’s wonderful books of essays which I would need to give five stars each to as they, more than anything else, introduced me to biology in all its remarkable awe and wonder. This was a fun read and often just enough.
Not too different from reading friends’ reviews here on Good Reads. I am pretty unlikely to ever read very many books on ship building, say – but I always read Eric’s book reviews on ships and they are invariably fascinating.
This is a book of maybe 100 three page essays on funny little things to do with science. A kind of Yum Cha for the brain really. The essays are just long enough and some of them are not just amusing but fascinating too.
He is a biologist, so naturally there are frequent digs at creationism – par for the course while serving an essential social function. There are also lots of witty asides, one of my favourites is a quote by Dr Johnson who said of visiting the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland (something I intend to do before I die – and hence I have reason enough to put it off for a while longer) “Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.”
He also does the ‘fish’ = ‘ghoti’ thing, however, he says that ‘ghoti’ also = water – ‘gh’ as in plough, ‘o’ as in cord, and ‘ti’ as in tin. Unfortunately, I can’t get the ‘er’ sound out of the ‘ti’ in tin – but perhaps it is an accent thing – one of the main problems with phonetic spelling in English, I would suspect.
There are lots of fascinating factoids along the way too – did you know the death rate dues to heart disease and stroke increases by 10% for every 3 degrees drop in temperature? That our fight against infant mortality this century has been so successful that if tomorrow all deaths of people in Britain below the age of 50 were banned the average life expectancy would only increase by one year. That the onset of puberty isn’t set by age, but by body mass – hence why we are seeing the age of the onset of puberty plummeting while our kids grow increasingly chubby.
But the best article in this book was Vultures, Cultures and Criticism – where he defines evolutionary psychology as ‘the palace of strawless bricks’. Now, if that isn’t a quote worth remembering it is hard to know what is.
I’ve read quite a few of this man’s books – but all too long ago to do reviews of them here – much like most of Gould’s wonderful books of essays which I would need to give five stars each to as they, more than anything else, introduced me to biology in all its remarkable awe and wonder. This was a fun read and often just enough.
January 31, 2019
This is the first science book that I have read besides school and it won't be the last.It was well written,in a way even a foreigner could understand.For those who were allergic in the stem subjects at school there is no need to panic.
It covers a broad range of subjects,in quite small chapters that don't get exhausting.
Totally recommend!!!
It covers a broad range of subjects,in quite small chapters that don't get exhausting.
Totally recommend!!!
December 10, 2010
This is a good kind of book for reading in those spaces of time where you don't really have time to read. I could do with more books like it. It's a compendium of a hundred of Steve Jones's newspaper science articles (from the Daily Telegraph I think) and makes for interesting and thought provoking interludes without needing to engage your brain too deeply.
November 29, 2018
They’re OK but the essays are just a bit short so buy the time we’ve had the introduction and a jokey bit and an ending thought there isn’t space for much else.
Read
April 26, 2024DNF after a few essays - it isn't particularly bad, I just don't think I am as interested in it as I should be to commit to it.
October 6, 2015
Subtitle: A Turn Around the World of Science. There are Big Idea books, and there are Many Ideas books (hopefully one is never stuck reading a book which only has one idea, worth 2-3 pages, which the author takes hundreds of pages to discuss, though such have doubtless been written). I have been reading a lot of Big Idea books, lately. This book, a collection of essays by Steve Jones (the biologist, not the guitar player), is a Many Ideas book.
It's less like an entree, and more like a bag of chips. But the baked kind, where you feel good after having eaten half-a-belly's worth of them. Which is good because, although this is probably intended to be the sort of book you read a little at a time every night before bed, I more or less raced through it.
Steve Jones most impressive scientific achievement (to the non-scientist, anyway), is that he (with an Iranian physicist named Shahin Rouhani) was the first to use the word "bottleneck" to describe a mysterious event in human prehistory. Sometime a few (tens of) thousands of years ago, there were but a few thousand humans left; we were a veritable endangered species. The evidence of this shows up in our genetics, in ways too complicated to discuss here (buy me a beer and I'll happily prattle on about it, though), and Jones pointed this out to the world in 1986.
Most of this book, however, is about the research of others, the politics of science education, the history of science, and how it impacts (and is misunderstood by) the general public. "Beer Gives You Energy", "Why Not Eat Insects?", "Diamonds are for Engels", and "Evolution as Thatcherism" are all in here, and the titles give a hint at his attempts (usually successful) to inject a little levity into a typically dry and somber field.
There is something very British about Jones' writing style, which I cannot precisely define but which the reader will either appreciate or regret, in accordance with their opinion on dry wit. When discussing anomia, the inability to name everyday objects, he says it "involves a difficulty in making a connection between meaning (dim undergraduate) and sound (Si-mon)."
There is a great place in the world for Big Idea books, but it seems to me that there is always a plentiful supply of writers willing to provide them (of varying quality, of course, but that is another question). I do believe that we would be well served by a greater number of Many Idea books, and not only because many Big Ideas began life as rather smaller ones. Steve Jones (the Professor of Genetics, not the guitar player) has given us a top-notch example of one. Bravo.
It's less like an entree, and more like a bag of chips. But the baked kind, where you feel good after having eaten half-a-belly's worth of them. Which is good because, although this is probably intended to be the sort of book you read a little at a time every night before bed, I more or less raced through it.
Steve Jones most impressive scientific achievement (to the non-scientist, anyway), is that he (with an Iranian physicist named Shahin Rouhani) was the first to use the word "bottleneck" to describe a mysterious event in human prehistory. Sometime a few (tens of) thousands of years ago, there were but a few thousand humans left; we were a veritable endangered species. The evidence of this shows up in our genetics, in ways too complicated to discuss here (buy me a beer and I'll happily prattle on about it, though), and Jones pointed this out to the world in 1986.
Most of this book, however, is about the research of others, the politics of science education, the history of science, and how it impacts (and is misunderstood by) the general public. "Beer Gives You Energy", "Why Not Eat Insects?", "Diamonds are for Engels", and "Evolution as Thatcherism" are all in here, and the titles give a hint at his attempts (usually successful) to inject a little levity into a typically dry and somber field.
There is something very British about Jones' writing style, which I cannot precisely define but which the reader will either appreciate or regret, in accordance with their opinion on dry wit. When discussing anomia, the inability to name everyday objects, he says it "involves a difficulty in making a connection between meaning (dim undergraduate) and sound (Si-mon)."
There is a great place in the world for Big Idea books, but it seems to me that there is always a plentiful supply of writers willing to provide them (of varying quality, of course, but that is another question). I do believe that we would be well served by a greater number of Many Idea books, and not only because many Big Ideas began life as rather smaller ones. Steve Jones (the Professor of Genetics, not the guitar player) has given us a top-notch example of one. Bravo.
January 31, 2009
A collection of short biology-related articles, this has been my "waiting room" book for quite some time. Now I've finally finished it, and I'm sorry to see it go. "A Taxonomist's Noel" is a hoot and well worth the price of the book.
June 6, 2014
Meh. This is a collection of short essays, which are easily digestible and often on interesting topics, but they don't go far enough into anything for me. Magpie-like as my brain can be when it comes to interesting facts, this was just too scanty.
September 11, 2010
What a great book. Perfect bedside table reading. Well constructed, digestible essays.
March 6, 2018
A good, fun book to have around. Particularly useful for when you need something to read but could be interrupted at any time. I took it with me to read on the Taupō Cycle Challenge while I waited for my relay team member.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews