A review by archytas
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
My first really outstanding read of 2023. Mukherjee is surprisingly good at the all the things - the science is really well explained (this is the clearest epigenetics has ever been for me), the history is well researched and documented, and Mukherjee wields words with skill. (e.g. - "In Calcutta, I knew, every accent is a surgical probe. Bengalis send out their vowels and consonants like survey drones—to test the identities of their listeners, to sniff out their sympathies, to confirm their allegiances.")
The sheer breadth of what is coverage is impressive. History covered in depth includes Mendel's pea experiments, Carrie Buck and early eugenics, fascinating portraits of Watson, Crick and Franklin; the agonising of 1970s geneticists Paul Berg and Maxine Singer, the founadtion of genentech and the production of insulin, the intense race to finish line of the Human Genome Project, and the initial - sometimes botched - trials for gene manipulation. The science explained includes Mendelian genetics, the double helix and it's importance for replication, mitochondria, RNA, protein production, epigenetics, stem cells and why they matter, gene therapy and more. Yet the story never feels chunked between these aspects, but integrates smoothly, allowing the discussion of people to alternate naturally with exposition.
On top of all this, Mukherjee's perspective is one I find highly persuasive. Unlike the cruder science writers (*cough*Dawkins*cough*), Mukherjee wants us to understand that genes are not "good" or "bad", but rather engage with environments. Something that provides an organism with a survival advantage in a plague might be a disaster without; genes that protect cells can become cancer in the wrong situation. He deftly extrapolates this in the later part of the book into a warning about genetic engineering: what we call 'disability' might be a mismatch of the situation we have created with a different way of being " It is a peculiar modern fallacy to imagine that the definitive solution to illness is to change nature—i.e., genes—when the environment is often more malleable." Mukherjee also clearly distinguishes between heritable characteristics - once which twin studies indicated are heavily impacted by genes - and inheritable characteristics, ones in which close, but not identical, family will share characteristics. He points out that many traits, such as cognitive ones, are determined by such a complex set of genes that identical twins will share them with each other, but not with parents or children. His discussion of intelligence is considered and to the point: IQ tests don't test holistic intelligence. Whatever they do test, in impoverished circumstances the impact of genes is insignificant. Even amid the wealthy and healthy, environment will contribute as much as genes. This is especially important given the growing conversation around race and genetics. (He also discusses the tests briefly, and the ways in which the construction defines "intelligence" in ways which benefit the skills white men do best in, in contrast to elements (including perception and recall) in which they do worse).
Mukherjee also introduces the importance of "chance" (he once asks, possibly joking, about whether is better thought of as fate). In the focus on nature vs nurture, one of the biggest fallacies has been that everything is one or the other. Rather, our bodies and our minds respond constantly to what is around them, and what happens to them. Random events, fluctuations in molecules, exposure to bacteria all interact with the genome. Our experiences change how RNA activates DNA over our lifetime, and those markers can also be inheritable. In this post-pandemic world, we know this instinctively - exposure to the same virus elicits different responses, based both in genes and in prior exposures and health. There is little that is easily predictable about our individuality, and there is risk in forgetting that (this is well illustrated by the death of an early gene therapy patient, whose immune system reacted extremely to the viral vector, probably because of childhood exposure, - a lesson that bodies have histories).
But Mukerjee wants to warn us of the opposite - assuming that gene editing is so complex it will never happen. This book is littered with technology moving faster than its creators were prepared for. It is not enough, Mukherjee clearly believes, to say "oh well, they will never work out how to elimate , "where x could be Autism, Schizophrenia, Sickle Cell or just having brown hair. We need to be ready to understand how as a society will respond*. It is chilling, in the end, to realise that since the book was published six years ago, Mukehrjee's predictions for how much we will understand by 2020 have not been achieved - or close - but those for how easy genes will be to change have been exceeded.
*There is already evidence that gene editing and selective abortion are drastically reducing the number of people with Down Syndrome in our society. In Denmark, where testing is free and deciding to abort as a result is legal, just 18 babies with Down Syndrome were born in 2019, 11 of whom were not expected to have Downs. Yet, you can't believe many Danes don't appreciate the contribution that people with Down Syndrome make - and while the likely extra health difficulties will be a factor, you can't help thinking that a major motivator is knowing the environment we have built is not as supportive of their needs, and their parents, as it needs to be.
The sheer breadth of what is coverage is impressive. History covered in depth includes Mendel's pea experiments, Carrie Buck and early eugenics, fascinating portraits of Watson, Crick and Franklin; the agonising of 1970s geneticists Paul Berg and Maxine Singer, the founadtion of genentech and the production of insulin, the intense race to finish line of the Human Genome Project, and the initial - sometimes botched - trials for gene manipulation. The science explained includes Mendelian genetics, the double helix and it's importance for replication, mitochondria, RNA, protein production, epigenetics, stem cells and why they matter, gene therapy and more. Yet the story never feels chunked between these aspects, but integrates smoothly, allowing the discussion of people to alternate naturally with exposition.
On top of all this, Mukherjee's perspective is one I find highly persuasive. Unlike the cruder science writers (*cough*Dawkins*cough*), Mukherjee wants us to understand that genes are not "good" or "bad", but rather engage with environments. Something that provides an organism with a survival advantage in a plague might be a disaster without; genes that protect cells can become cancer in the wrong situation. He deftly extrapolates this in the later part of the book into a warning about genetic engineering: what we call 'disability' might be a mismatch of the situation we have created with a different way of being " It is a peculiar modern fallacy to imagine that the definitive solution to illness is to change nature—i.e., genes—when the environment is often more malleable." Mukherjee also clearly distinguishes between heritable characteristics - once which twin studies indicated are heavily impacted by genes - and inheritable characteristics, ones in which close, but not identical, family will share characteristics. He points out that many traits, such as cognitive ones, are determined by such a complex set of genes that identical twins will share them with each other, but not with parents or children. His discussion of intelligence is considered and to the point: IQ tests don't test holistic intelligence. Whatever they do test, in impoverished circumstances the impact of genes is insignificant. Even amid the wealthy and healthy, environment will contribute as much as genes. This is especially important given the growing conversation around race and genetics. (He also discusses the tests briefly, and the ways in which the construction defines "intelligence" in ways which benefit the skills white men do best in, in contrast to elements (including perception and recall) in which they do worse).
Mukherjee also introduces the importance of "chance" (he once asks, possibly joking, about whether is better thought of as fate). In the focus on nature vs nurture, one of the biggest fallacies has been that everything is one or the other. Rather, our bodies and our minds respond constantly to what is around them, and what happens to them. Random events, fluctuations in molecules, exposure to bacteria all interact with the genome. Our experiences change how RNA activates DNA over our lifetime, and those markers can also be inheritable. In this post-pandemic world, we know this instinctively - exposure to the same virus elicits different responses, based both in genes and in prior exposures and health. There is little that is easily predictable about our individuality, and there is risk in forgetting that (this is well illustrated by the death of an early gene therapy patient, whose immune system reacted extremely to the viral vector, probably because of childhood exposure, - a lesson that bodies have histories).
But Mukerjee wants to warn us of the opposite - assuming that gene editing is so complex it will never happen. This book is littered with technology moving faster than its creators were prepared for. It is not enough, Mukherjee clearly believes, to say "oh well, they will never work out how to elimate , "where x could be Autism, Schizophrenia, Sickle Cell or just having brown hair. We need to be ready to understand how as a society will respond*. It is chilling, in the end, to realise that since the book was published six years ago, Mukehrjee's predictions for how much we will understand by 2020 have not been achieved - or close - but those for how easy genes will be to change have been exceeded.
*There is already evidence that gene editing and selective abortion are drastically reducing the number of people with Down Syndrome in our society. In Denmark, where testing is free and deciding to abort as a result is legal, just 18 babies with Down Syndrome were born in 2019, 11 of whom were not expected to have Downs. Yet, you can't believe many Danes don't appreciate the contribution that people with Down Syndrome make - and while the likely extra health difficulties will be a factor, you can't help thinking that a major motivator is knowing the environment we have built is not as supportive of their needs, and their parents, as it needs to be.