The Genome The Autobiography of the Human Race in 23 Chapters Matt Ridley. Translated from English: Emmanuel Lotem. Zamora-Beitan Publishing, 436 pages, including bibliography and index, NIS 79
By Zvi Atzmon
Jacob, our father, peace be upon him, wrestled with God's angel and was able to "for you have fought with God and with people and you will be able" - an amazing act by all accounts. But he did another amazing thing - he subdued the dictation of the genes, defeated the genome, as it is told everywhere in Genesis XNUMX. And this is the point of the act: after Jacob agreed with his son-in-law that as wages he would receive all the flocks that had been plucked and spotted, Jacob took branches of a tree, split them into white shale and presented them in the water troughs where the females of the flock came to drink. Following the appearance of the crooked and spotted branches, the flock united, so it is written, and gave birth to "striped, spotted and bared" - which of course increased the property of the father of the tribes of Israel.
Jacob was, therefore, able to make it so that the appearance of the eyes of the mothers of the flock would determine the color model of the offspring, that is, the appearance of the eyes would cancel the dictation of the genes. And this is as great a miracle as a successful fight against God's angel.
The genome is the set of hereditary information of a living being, be it a human or a sheep. Genome is also a hot topic in the news, a concept that amplifies the voice of populists and even excites investors in the stock market.
This is probably the reason why Matt Ridley called his fascinating book "Genome", even though it is not exactly about the genome. Equally, it seems, he could have called his book "23 Chromosomes", but it is a less sexy name. By the way, why 23 and not 24? I didn't exactly understand, just as I still didn't understand why the 12 tribes of Israel and not 13. There are probably sexier and less sexy numbers, even though the chromosome that was "dropped" from the full list is the sex chromosome - the male Y chromosome.
To be honest, Ridley doesn't really deal with the 24 human chromosomes either, but dedicates his book to different directions - and fascinating ones, Ridley knows how to fascinate! - in the biology of man, and thus it indeed touches on the "autobiography of the human race", as the subtitle explains. Seeing this sub-heading on the cover of the book, Primo Levi's book "The Periodic Table" (Kater, XNUMX. Translated from Italian: Emanuel Barry) came to my mind.
Indeed, in the introduction to the book, Ridley specifically mentions the "Periodic Table". However, while Primo Levy required the periodic table - that technical-formal array inherent in the basis of our approach that classifies the material world - partly to justify his right to continue using words and writing literature after Auschwitz, the "forced" frame of 23 (actually, 24 remember?) chromosomes Used by Ridley mainly to keep the book within reasonable scope, to avoid interpretation. That is: Ridley doesn't really deal with the genome and doesn't really deal with chromosomes, but he does deal with a broad layout of human biology, and he knows how to write.
Still, I must make it clear: for better or for worse (probably mainly for the better, so as not to remain technical and dry), he does not exactly deal with the genome, and already in the opening sentence two inaccuracies can be pointed out. "The human genome - the complete set of human genes - is packaged in 23 separate pairs of chromosomes". Well, with regard to about half of the human race, the male half, this is not exactly the case,23 and the mitochondria are missing here, too, although they also carry their burden, albeit a little - very little, from the genome (indeed, they are mentioned later in the book). There are considerable differences in terms of accuracy and degree of interest between the different chapters of the book. The chapter called "History" (dedicated to chromosome 3), a chapter in which the history of genetics is reviewed, is a fascinating, wonderful chapter! I learned from him that it is possible that Johann Gregor Mendel gave birth to the science of genetics (and in severe agony!) not only thanks to the genes that his parents donated to him and which gave him the penetrating vision of a genius, but perhaps also thanks to a random event - a tree that fell on his father deprived him of his livelihood, forcing Johann to join a monastery , where his name was changed to Gregor.
The monk Johann Gregor excelled in mathematics and chess and was sent to study science, but failed the teaching exam and returned to the monastery. In the monastery gardens he grew pea plants and thanks to them he discovered one of the most wonderful things in life - the units of heredity, the genes.
Mendel was a humble anti-hero, and in many ways a kind of negation of Jacob our father: he recognized the existence of genes, but as a monk he did not pass genes to his own descendants - Jacob as is known passed his genes, with the help of four wives, to at least 12 sons and one daughter; Jacob was a shepherd - his brother Gregor was a gardener, working the land. Jacob successfully passed the angel test, while Mendel failed the exam, never received a teaching certificate. For the attention of the multitudes of teachers around the world who are currently beating "Mendel's Laws" to their flocks, in all human languages. His scientific work, the results of the experiments and the crystalline conclusions - the basic laws of heredity, all of which he religiously and properly published in the scientific press, but they were completely ignored. Only in 16,1900 years after his death as abbot, three researchers at once rediscovered what he had already discovered; And then his writings were brought up from the abyss of femininity and his name was included in the Genesis book of the sciences of life.
Another amazing story emerges from a comparison between the chapter devoted to the chromosome - chapter 3 "History" - and the chapter devoted to the chromosome, chapter 2 "Humanity": in 1953 the legendary couple James Watson and Francis Crick deciphered the structure of the DNA molecule (DNA), and this on - Based on sophisticated and indirect physical and chemical considerations. "Eureka, we have discovered the secret of life" that's roughly how Francis Crick shouted in a pub near the laboratory over a mug of beer as full as a bathtub. A great achievement, which at the same time both solved and opened some basic life puzzles, and earned Watson and Crick a Nobel Prize and world fame.
But: "Sometimes one does not see what is under the nose", writes Ridley, meaning that one does not see what is under the lens of a simple microscope. This is unacceptable: until 1955, two years after the structure of the DNA molecule was deciphered, everyone was wrong about the number of human chromosomes! It's as if they sent a spaceship before the locomotive was invented, or a computer before the invoice. Still, it turns out that until 1955, for some reason, it was thought that humans had 48 chromosomes, not 46. All that was needed was to observe carefully and count accurately. Indeed, an unbelievable story! But Ridley himself also sins - and perhaps misses a little - in such a matter: "Matt Ridley's 23 pairs of chromosomes" this is how the picture on the back of the cover is described, and what to do - and I repeat it once more: what to do, the picture shows exactly 22 pairs, plus two chromosomes non-partners - the large X chromosome and the small, male Y chromosome.
And yet: in some of the chapters, the connection between the topic of the chapter and the chromosome to which it was "attached" is quite loose, artificial to a large extent, and intended to maintain the framework more than to indicate any essence. For example, the chapter, fascinating in itself, "Prehistory", which was attached to chromosome 13. So much so that the author himself feels to neutralize the reader's criticism, and he himself raises the question "What is the connection of all these things to the chromosome?"13 But the connection between the last chapter, " Free will", to his chromosome attached, chromosome 22, does not exist at all, not even in a pinch, except in the form of a "hoax" that Ridley stretches his readers for an entire paragraph. A prank is really nice, but a prank is a smiling lie, and a lie is not a relationship.
The book has, as mentioned, fascinating chapters and some that are less so. And there are chapters in which the wording is not careful enough, to the point of being misleading, and there are also mistakes. For example, not William's syndrome (p. 127, also in the index!) but Williams' syndrome - and it is not the mistake in a single letter that disturbs, but the feeling that certain matters were written casually. It will not be surprising, then, that in the same sentence there is another mistake: "William's syndrome, which originates from a change in a certain gene". No, the origin of Williams syndrome is damage to a series of genes (details can be found in the article "Cracks inside - heartbreaking portholes for the soul and mind", Galileo, issue 43).
Perhaps it is no coincidence that such inaccuracies were mixed up in a paragraph dealing with a genetic defect. Throughout the book Ridley repeats and comments that he has no interest in expanding the description of genetic diseases, so as not to create a feeling that the entire "function" of genes is to cause diseases. His intention is certainly correct and worthy of appreciation. However, this must be said: the main motivation, without a doubt, for the project of deciphering the human genome (and finally, this book rides the wave of interest in the project) is medical! True, the genes are supposed to function well, and as usual only the faulty ones cause malfunctions and hereditary diseases. But so too, it has been said, the vitamins - the vitamins give us good health, but they were discovered and studied mainly in the context of diseases caused by a lack of them. It seems that whoever would write a book about vitamins would not think of not addressing deficiency diseases. The same goes for the hormones that the body produces - they are supposed to function, not cause problems, but a significant part of the interest in them stems from defects in their normal functioning. And so are the genes - indeed, as usual they function in an exemplary manner, but it is not appropriate to create the feeling that any preoccupation with a genetic disease is unnecessary and repulsive. And certainly the feeling of aversion to dealing with hereditary defects must not lead to inaccuracies.
"Girls (with Turner syndrome) are normal in intelligence and appearance" Ridley writes about girls with a single X chromosome, while he ignores a whole series of symptoms. And in another place (p. 258) he formulates, and is misleading: "The difference is that in (Prader-Willi syndrome) the section is absent from the chromosome inherited by the father, while in (Syndrome) Angelman this section is missing from the mother's chromosome." Although, on page 263 it can be understood that these are different genes for these two terrible syndromes, whose inheritance, by the way, is in direct conflict with Mendel's laws of inheritance, like all genes that undergo "parental imprinting".
It is interesting to fantasize: what would have happened if Mendel had encountered, by chance, in the peas he grew, a trait determined by imprinted genes? The entire history of genetics might have looked different! In the continuation of the description of these two syndromes and the phenomenon of parental imprinting, one of the strangest expressions in the book is used, which I have no doubt will cause a mistake to many of the readers: the expression "deletion" of a chromosome. On page 263 there is another claim that is explicitly inaccurate: Ridley claims that if due to a malfunction the fetus receives an extra chromosome 21, a child with Down syndrome will be born, but that "in other cases (...) the development of the fetus fails". Well, that's not true. If there is an excess of chromosome 18, a baby can be born who in some cases may live for several years (Edwards syndrome), so too is chromosome 13 redundant (Pato syndrome).
Admittedly, in another chapter Ridley refers to the excess of these two chromosomes, but in doing so he emphasizes the inaccuracy: "From time to time children are born with an extra chromosome 13 or 18, but these never last more than a few days" (p. 351). Not to say that if the excess chromosome is an X chromosome in men (Klinefelter syndrome) or in women, then the person can reach a return, but that is really a different story (inactivation occurs with an excess X chromosome).
An embarrassing expression - I don't know how to define it any other way - I found on page 177, precisely in one of the fascinating chapters in the book, dedicated to chromosome 9. "Those who have (blood type) A are in fact the owners of (the pair of genes)," AA and later on "Those who have B are actually my own." BB Well, every beginner student knows that having blood type A can indeed carry the gene pair, A, A, but also the gene pair; A, O and having blood type B can certainly contain the genes B, O. More inaccuracies and quibbles I found potentially misleading things in the book, including in things that are at the heart of the genome subject, such as the phrase synonymous letters - just as this concept is meaningless in the linguistic context, it is also meaningless in the genome context; Words (in DNA - threes) can be synonymous, having the same meaning; Letters (in DNA - nucleotides), on the other hand, cannot be synonymous!
I wouldn't be surprised if researchers directly participating in the human genome project raise an eyebrow at the reading of this book, which actually avoids, specifically avoids, dealing with their business - the process of deciphering the human genome. Indeed, Ridley has a good reason for this - he strives for both popularity and substance, rather than technical and heavy reporting about research methods. Instead of a report centered on the genome and the race (which in the end turned into a real rush) to decipher it, Ridley wrote a fascinating book, but not without flaws, about human biology, while emphasizing genetics. The chapter "Fate", for example, dedicated to chromosome 4 and Huntington's disease, is a bright and thought-provoking chapter; The chapter "Environment", chromosome 5, which is mostly devoted to allergies and their causes,
Interesting and well informed; The chapter "Wisdom", dedicated to chromosome 6 and the IQ, nicely sums up a subject of many tensions, even though much has already been published on this subject in Hebrew; In the chapter "Personality" (chromosome 11) I found a lot of interest, aside from wording that needed correction, and I was very happy to discover in it a report about the pioneering research that was done "in the laboratory of Richard Ebstein (Herzog Hospital) in Jerusalem". The next chapter, dedicated to chromosome 12, "Self-Assembly", is dedicated to one of the most exciting and amazing biological topics of recent years - deciphering the mechanisms of development of new human beings - embryos, and the universality of these mechanisms in the animal world. An amazing, fascinating subject, not much has been written about it in Hebrew. I'm almost tempted to write: it's a shame Ridley didn't expand this chapter into a whole book, which should have also included drawings, for illustration.
Indeed, in his "genome", Ridley interprets a wide spectrum of human biology, and informs his readers in fascinating directions that, just a few years ago, were the same genes and laws of inheritance before Mendel expanded to do in the well-remembered gardens of the monastery, when the cultivation of peas and the genome were not yet in vogue.
Zvi Atzmon is the scientific editor of "Galileo - a journal of science and thought"
