Mendel's Demon: Gene Justice and the Complexity of Life

by Mark Ridley

In contradistinction to the more populist of science authors, Oxford zoologist Mark Ridley (not to be confused with Matt Genome Ridley) is unafraid to pitch his acclaimed books (like Evolution, and Animal Behaviour) at a discerning and cerebral audience. In other words don't go reading this analysis of genetic and sexual complexity expecting laugh-a-minute anecdotes about transvestite sparrows.

That said, those who are willing to persevere through the dense and unashamedly highbrow text will find an interesting debate cogently and wittily argued. Ridley's self-posed question is why such complex beings as swans, gibbons and journalists should have arisen, given an evolutionary process far more favourable to the replication of simple organisms. After all, each time we have sex, reproduce and thus copy our DNA, we are attempting the equivalent of xeroxing James Joyce's Ulysses. Mistakes can and will creep in. So why bother?

Ridley's search for an explanation of this puzzle leads him up some fairly precipitous intellectual mountains. Nor is he unafraid of tackling the wilder kinds of speculation: at one point he considers the sex lives of angels--or any putative beings superior to homo sapiens. Readers willing to accompany the author on this demanding expedition, and stretch their brains as a result, will find the exercise as stimulating as it is edifying. --Sean Thomas

Genres: Science, Biology, Evolution, Nonfiction, Genetics, Natural History, Popular Science

337 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Доберман Сатэ · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting book. It explains in easy terms how evolution helps to keep us alive as species. An easy overview of genetics, but concise and direct.
I really enjoy the part concerning the evolutionary process of sex. I found it very interesting and new.

[Antti Haapalahti · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a refresher of the biology class some twenty years ago, had to squint a bit and massage my brain to remember some of the details required for comfortable reading of this book. Some googling had to be done on speculative topics to see if the points were still valid as presented or was there more information gained between the year of publishing and now. Luckily the field does not move that fast.

[Dewayne Stark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was slow reading for me.

[Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Covers some similar material as Adam's Curse- the degenerating Y chromosome of Adam's Curse is the 'mutational meltdown' of this book, though Ridley never talks about the Y chromosome.

All organisms have to deal with replication errors, and Ridley suggests that the history of life can be framed as a series of innovations that drive up the number of genes an organism might have- more genes means more damaging mutations which can drive the entire species to exinction, unless there's a mechanism that can deal with those mutations- sexual reproduction being one of the most prominent ones.

Ridley repeats himself so frequently it's often difficult to figure out when to start paying attention to the text when something new is being explained. I liked Sean Carroll's frequent illustrations using real examples, anecdotes calling out genes specifically, and there are far too few here. Even if an author wanted to make the same point twenty times over, if they have twenty concrete and detailed examples I would happily read through them, I have a much harder time with artificial and fanciful analogies. There are a series of bizarre biblically inspired illustrations and speculation on the error correcting mechanisms of an angel or god, which I think are supposed to be mildly humorous.

The end of the book talks about the extremely high mutation rates present in humans, but doesn't dig very far into resolving whether those rates could be caused by our technological civilization (or some other cause that hasn't been around for more than a few thousand years) rather than being inherent to the species.

[Walt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book, but seems somewhat incomplete. As a description of the effect of genetics on the ability of populations to evolve "complexity," somewhat circularly defined as number of genes, it does fairly well. The problem of mutation is a very important one for organisms to deal with, especially as they become larger. And the likely benefits of sexual reproduction and anisogamy (unhelpfully called "gender") especially with regards to the effects of mitochondria and meiosis on reproduction, provide useful context in understanding past influences on present reproductive patterns. But this is only about half the book. The remaining half attempts to use this understanding to project future patterns of complex life. And this is where I think defining complexity in terms of genetics is unhelpful. Really complex patterns of behavior found in social organisms must be understood at higher levels in order to make any sense, and such context is not present here. While this has some really important ideas, it isn't organized very well and doesn't really explore the consequences of these ideas.

[Gordon Gatiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

A challenging but very interesting book. Well worth reading. The book is rich in detail and explanation and the author demonstrates his wit and knowledge throughout. Why have different life forms appeared on Earth, and what is the point of sex? These and many more interesting and thought provoking questions are asked and answered. A stimulating read. Recommended.

[Meira Louis · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I loved this book, my only copy was absconded a number of years ago. Its well written, interesting, and brings forward new ideas even if you know your evolutionary biology.

[Chongkai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could give it a five start if not the slow part of Chapter 2 and 3.