“Life is complicated, isn’t it?” is often a throw-away line when we are sympathising with someone’s messy circumstances. Yet conversely we have a desperate human yearning to make things as simple and explanatory as possible.
Dare you read this book, to be taken on an incredible ride through the basic workings of human biology (via many other creatures within nature today and fossils from the past)? Woolfson paints a magnificently wild and complex picture of DNA, RNA, proteins, amino acids and metabolisms which wipes off the board any Genetics for Dummies approach.
It was so much unexpected fun to ride with Woolfson through the linked hypothetical hypermarkets of Genes Are Great, Gene Space, the DNA Zoo, Protein Binding Site Space, and more. This reader has sailed a short voyage with him across the Information Sea. Life is complex and cannot be kept in neat boxes. In one chapter he gives a great layered sandwich of an explanation why GCSE-science-style experiments, with their neat equations, simply cannot apply in living organisms where adaptation and freedom are part of their existence.
I was particularly tickled by Woolfson’s reference to the 130 billion genes of the plant Fritillaria (compared to the mere 3.5 billion in humans), of which only 0.02% have been found to have a function: ‘One cannot help wondering if this were not the case, flowering plants like Fritillaria might spend their Sunday afternoons pottering around human nurseries, looking for attractive human specimens to plant in their gardens.’ In outlining his hypotheses about the origins of life Woolfson leaves enough pauses for thought for my liking. The ‘hows’ are levelly suggested. The ‘whys’ are never answered and we have to look elsewhere for those.
Admittedly the book has become slightly dated, since it was written in 2000. Also, be warned. As you approach the end of the book the fun ride begins to switch tracks on to the ghost train of future possibilities. It may leave you with a sour stomach as you consider what our wonderful human brains may well do with the myriad scientific pieces in this delightful toy shop. ( )