Genetic explanations [electronic resource] : sense and nonsense / edited by Sheldon Krimsky and Jeremy Gruber.
Gruber, Jeremy.; Krimsky, Sheldon.
2013
QH426.5 .G46 2013eb
Available Online

Linked e-resources

Linked Resource Online Access

Details

Title Genetic explanations [electronic resource] : sense and nonsense / edited by Sheldon Krimsky and Jeremy Gruber.
ISBN 9780674067769 electronic book
Imprint Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2013.
Language English
Description 1 online resource (xi, 368 pages) : illustrations
Call Number QH426.5 .G46 2013eb
Dewey Decimal Classification 515/.042
Summary "Can genes determine which fifty-year-old will succumb to Alzheimer's, which citizen will turn out on voting day, and which child will be marked for a life of crime? Yes, according to the Internet, a few scientific studies, and some in the biotechnology industry who should know better. Sheldon Krimsky and Jeremy Gruber gather a team of genetic experts to argue that treating genes as the holy grail of our physical being is a patently unscientific endeavor. Genetic Explanations urges us to replace our faith in genetic determinism with scientific knowledge about how DNA actually contributes to human development. The concept of the gene has been steadily revised since Watson and Crick discovered the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953. No longer viewed by scientists as the cell's fixed set of master molecules, genes and DNA are seen as a dynamic script that is ad-libbed at each stage of development. Rather than an autonomous predictor of disease, the DNA we inherit interacts continuously with the environment and functions differently as we age. What our parents hand down to us is just the beginning. Emphasizing relatively new understandings of genetic plasticity and epigenetic inheritance, the authors put into a broad developmental context the role genes are known to play in disease, behavior, evolution, and cognition. Rather than dismissing genetic reductionism out of hand, Krimsky and Gruber ask why it persists despite opposing scientific evidence, how it influences attitudes about human behavior, and how it figures in the politics of research funding." -- Publisher's description.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description Description based on print version record.
Added Author Gruber, Jeremy.
Krimsky, Sheldon.
Available in Other Form Genetic explanations.
Linked Resources Online Access
Record Appears in Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources
The mismeasure of the gene / Ruth Hubbard
Evolution is not mainly a matter of genes / Stuart Newman
Genes as difference makers / Evelyn Fox Keller
Big B, little b : myth #1 is that Mendelian genes actually exist / David S. Moore
The myth of the machine organism / Stephen L. Talbott
Some problems with genetic horoscopes / Eva Jablonka
Cancer genes : the vestigial remains of a fallen theory / Carlos Sonnenschein and Ana M. Soto
The fruitless search for genes in psychiatry and psychology : time to reexamine a paradigm / Jay Joseph and Carl Ratner
Assessing genes as causes of human disease in a multi-causal world / Carl Cranor
Help for autistics : the shifting roles of genetics, complexity, and judgment / Martha Herbert
The prospects of personalized medicine / David Jones
The persistent influence of failed scientific ideas / Jon Beckwith
Map your own genes! the DNA experience / Susan Lindee
The myth of the perfect baby / Shirley Shalev
The potential fallibility of forensic DNA evidence / William Thompson
Nurturing nature : how parental care changes genes / Mae-Wan Ho.

Browse Subjects

Show more subjects...

Statistics

from
to
Export