The History and Geography of Human Genes

Book Description

L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza and his collaborators Paolo Menozzi and Alberto Piazza have devoted fourteen years to one of the most compelling scientific projects of our time: the reconstruction of where human populations originated and the paths by which they spread throughout the world. In this volume, the culmination of their research, the authors explain their pathbreaking use of genetic data, which they integrate with insights from geography, ecology, archaeology, physical anthropology, and linguistics to create the first full-scale account of human evolution as it occurred across all continents. This interdisciplinary approach enables them to address a wide range of issues that continue to incite debate: the timing of the first appearance of our species, the problem of African origins and the significance of work recently done on mitochondrial DNA and the popular notion of an "African Eve," the controversy pertaining to the peopling of the Americas, and the reason for the presence of non-Indo-European languages--Basque, Finnish, and Hungarian--in Europe.

The authors reconstruct the history of our evolution by focusing on genetic divergence among human groups. Using genetic information accumulated over the last fifty years, they examined over 110 different inherited traits, such as blood types, HLA factors, proteins, and DNA markers, in over eighteen hundred, primarily aboriginal, populations. By mapping the worldwide geographic distribution of the genes, the scientists are now able to chart migrations and, in exploring genetic distance, devise a clock by which to date evolutionary history: the longer two populations are separated, the greater their genetic difference should be. This volume highlights the authors' contributions to genetic geography, particularly their technique for making geographic maps of gene frequencies and their synthetic method of detecting ancient migrations, as for example the migration of Neolithic farmers from the Middle East toward Europe, West Asia, and North Africa.

Beginning with an explanation of their major sources of data and concepts, the authors give an interdisciplinary account of human evolution at the world level. Chapters are then devoted to evolution on single continents and include analyses of genetic data and how these data relate to geographic, ecological, archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic information. Comprising a wide range of viewpoints, a vast store of new and recent information on genetics, and a generous supply of visual elements, including 522 geographic maps, this book is a unique source of facts and a catalyst for further debate and research.

Customer Reviews:

What I got out of this book.......2005-05-07

I learned who the people closest genetically to Basques are. The French! Makes sense the French have a a portion of Basque country in their political nation of France. I'm of French background myself. French-Canadian that is.

Great book, if you can get through it..........2005-04-06

This book is very hard to get through as someone with no backing in genetics or biology, but it is very interesting, and it shows how we humans are really just like a couple thousand breeds of dogs, all slightly different, but with the same ancestor, our distant ancestor though was probably no wolf. It is interesting when they mention the little unexplainable historical abnormalities (african genes and caucasian genes in latin american indigenous populations, perhaps?) that they see in the genes of some groups of humans.

I allmost want to dedicate my life to genetics because of all the damn interesting knowledge that could be spawned from the information presented by the authors of this book. If you know anyone studying in this field, you must give them this book for christmas or something, please.

It is now my theory that human language has been the driving force behind human evolution, how often do two parents without a common language stay together 18+ years to raise a family? Just think about that, and it explains the human diaspora pretty well. Humans very rarely mate outside of their language group. You have a group of people in africa that speak the same language, then later on, two languages develop, or three or four, these people migrate off, and form a tribe, this tribe doesnt mate with other tribes because romance and love just dont work without a common language. Tribal names and language names are usually connected anyway, and this is why. When you read this book, you need to view humanity as an animal group pretty much, its very objective without any feeling. Human beings are creatures of communication, communication has driven our evolution forward. Writing started cities, before even that farming started widespread language and trading. It seems that the natural path this should take is more communication, but most people dont like to talk, fewer like to read and write, though that is our path of destiny as humans. The average american spends more money on lottery tickets every year than books. TV is far too widespread now, the love for books is dying, though civilization has allways been built upon the libraries of past civilizations, the histories of the victors.

Anyway,
The things that could be done if these scientists who wrote this book could get together to do research with the people that are at the tip of the spear in supercomputer research...

If you want to have some mental fun/anguish, then this book should be read in conjunction with 'Forbidden Archaeology' by Michael Cremo.

Try it =)

Note that this book is not made for the layman, but if you are a layman, and have a biology textbook laying around, you can get through it no problem.

Any one who is thinking of reading this book, or anyone who has should really do a bit of research on National Geographic's Genographic project that is collecting genetic information all over the world right now (the same migratory route tracing that is in this book) and building a huge database...The cool thing though is that you can send National Geographic $100, and they will send you a kit, you send a cheek swab back, and later on, they tell you everything that you ever wanted to know about your ancestors, and their migratory routes, back 60,000 years...
The database is also building daily, so the information that you will first get about your genes will get more comprehensive as time goes on, and more genetic samples are collected from 10's or 100's of thousands of people all over the planet...
Anyone who reads this book actually MUST do a google search on this National Geographic Genographic Project, right now =)

History and Geography of Homan Genes.......2004-06-09

This work, in hardback, is written with the advanced researcher in mind. The author is world famous for his pioneering efforts in identifying traits in particular traits in ethnic groups with unique genetic markers. The color plates in the index section can be helpful to those who know how to intrepret them.
It's a scholarly treatment of a highly technical subject and a thorough one as well. This is ground-breaking work collected from many samples and analyzed in detail. I think this should be required reading for college students in the field of genetic research.

A review of everything.......2003-06-17

Cavalli-Sforza presents the nearest approximation possible to the correlation of all measurable human genes, markers and attributes. You might think of the work as the "unified field theory" for evloutionary biology, culture and linguistics.

While the heft even of the abridged version is imposing, the component parts are manageable for those who already have basic statistical knowledge or who are willing to pay attention to the author's explanations. The world's populations are addressed in geographic chunks, and then at various appropriate points, more general conclusions drawn from the pieces.

Given the advances in genetic research acheived since publication, the model may ultimately prove more valuable than the particular contents...but for this decade the contents are fascinating.

Good Book, but Martel is Wrong.......2003-04-11

The book provided a great deal of information about genetic distances and the relationships between populations. However, Mr. Martel's review includes lies and these lies must be addressed. First of all, the native North Africans were not "very blonde" or "nordic". In fact, the ORIGINAL population was as black as their rock art depictions of themselves (which just so happen to span the Sahara and date back nearly 10000yrs). Many of these Ancient Saharans were, however, completely abosorbed by an incoming of migrants from the Middle East. Perhaps these migrants are the people Mr. Martel is speaking of??? At any rate, with the dessication of the Sahara, most of the original Saharans (blacks) migrated South into The Sudan. In fact, they can still be found in West Africa today. They (especially the Fulani and Dogon) can be recognized in person as easily as they can be recognized in the Ancient Saharan depictions drawn by their ancestors.

Thus, despite Mr. Martel's comments to the contrary, the admixture seen in North Africans today is not so much the result of slaves (modern admixture) as it is the result of both modern admixture as well as ancient admixture - admixture which took place LONG before the Arabs ventured anywhere near the region. As for the Egyptians, they were from the same stock as the rest of North Africa and they almost always depicted themselves as brown and intermediate between and separate from both the white people of the North (Europe), the light skinned Semites (Middle East), and the darker, more Sudanese people of the South (Nubia).

Mr. Martel is not completely wrong in so far as SOME of these Middle Eastern migrants had blonde hair and light eyes (a few individual Lybians were depicted this way). But, such features were most probably seen at the same rate theyre seen in Middle Easterners and North Africans today. Neither people, however, are "Nordics", and to assume they descend from Nordics based on hair color alone is ridiculous. Blondism occurs in Aborigines... are we to believe they descend from Nordics as well? Somehow, I think not.

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science versus political correctness

very good

Where did we come from

Too politically correct to be correct

A weak imitation

Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins
Steve Olson
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey

Genes, Peoples, and Languages

The Seven Daughters of Eve

The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution (Helix Books)

Trace Your Roots with DNA: Using Genetic Tests to Explore Your Family Tree

ASIN: 0618352104

Book Description

In a journey across four continents, acclaimed science writer Steve Olson traces the origins of modern humans and the migrations of our ancestors throughout the world over the past 150,000 years. Like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, Mapping Human History is a groundbreaking synthesis of science and history. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including the latest genetic research, linguistic evidence, and archaeological findings, Olson reveals the surprising unity among modern humans and "demonstrates just how naive some of our ideas about our human ancestry have been" (Discover).Olson offers a genealogy of all humanity, explaining, for instance, why everyone can claim Julius Caesar and Confucius as forebears. Olson also provides startling new perspectives on the invention of agriculture, the peopling of the Americas, the origins of language, the history of the Jews, and more. An engaging and lucid account, Mapping Human History will forever change how we think about ourselves and our relations with others.

Customer Reviews:

science versus political correctness.......2007-10-14

On the science front, this book is very superficial. There are many other ones that are much better and more detailed. About 80% of the book is a political correctness diatribe. If this book represents what passes for scholarship in today's academic environment, our society is in deep trouble.

very good.......2007-06-18

Some critics below carp about political correctness, but the author makes as good a case as any layman's book I've read. He is merely pointing out that human populations converge before they can evolve any important divergent phenotypes, and that all the phenotypes that separate people, which are commonly defined as "race", are pretty much insignificant. He also describes well how the biology works behind the differences in physiognomy that we perceive between the "races".

Human population on this planet is soaring, and we all have to live together more harmoniously, because there's no room left for malcontents to go off and start their own societies anymore. Just like in the remote past, when glaciers and desertification pushed different populations together and compelled their interaction by necessity, all the nations and ethnicities of the world are again bumping up against each other. The realization that we have a common genetic past, and future, is the first step to achieving more international harmony.

Where did we come from.......2007-03-27

Mapping Human History discusses how the use of mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomal DNA can be used to trace the common origins of humans. Steve builds a case for how humans appeared as a distinct group about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago based on genetic variation we see in people today. By using genetics and the study of haplotypes and haplogroups, it believed that one can trace our ancestry back to a common "Mitochondrial Eve" or an "Adam" neither of which may have lived at the same time. He covers the encounters with other species such as Neanterthal, emergence of agriculture and the development of ethnicity.

Steve covers most of the globe in this quest for common origins: Africa, Middle East, Asia, Australia, and Europe and finally the Americas. The evidence tends to support an African origin. I found the discussion of the settlement of the Americas interesting. The ultimate conclusion of all of this is the commonality of the human species. A case is made for the irrelevance of race; this seems to be a prominent theme throughout the book.

One thing that I found interesting was the fact that written language goes back only to about 3400 BCE. This tends to support the Bible chronology of humans being created only about 6000 years ago (you can't have written history that predates humans), but then this would be in conflict with the genetic findings.

I also read the book The Journey of Man by Spencer Wells which also discusses the genetic history of man. Neither book really discussed, to my satisfaction, exactly how one gets from the genetic variations to the time periods for the existence of humans being promulgated. It would be of value to have more input in this regard.

Too politically correct to be correct.......2006-09-01

Some evidences, but rarely relevant; many deductions, yet mostly illogical; big conclusions, consequently, you know what they can be. This is what Olson's book showed me on and between the lines.

Olson obviously tried to give a final verdict on this otherwise interesting topic `No more arguments and that is it!' I am surprised to realize that this is what he really tried to do. This book has nothing to do with science, because it shows no respect to science and no spirit of science.

Here we see political purposes overrule science and political correctness suffocates science. I will tackle 2 of Olson's main claims.

1) `No significant difference was found in genes belong to different races, thus races do not exist.' Actually the studies on human genes has just started and in its very beginning period. There are too many unknowns to conclude. Let us see a big mistake in our history. When Copernicus and Galileo suggested the Earth be moving around the Sun rather than the other way around, one of their criticisms was that if that was true then we should be able to see the difference on view angles when we observe stars in different seasons. Since no such difference was found, Copernicus and Galileo must be wrong. The argument was as strong and logical as Olson's, but it was completely wrong. No difference on view angles was only because the stars were too far from us and the precision of the observation was too low then. 2 hundred years later, the differences were indeed found and Copernicus and Galileo were proven right. Roman Catholic Inquisition Court used the seemingly credible criticism to incriminate the Copernicus theory supporters; the court even burned Bruno, a fearless supporter of the Copernicus theory, to death in Roman Flower square. 500 hundred years later, not long ago, Roman Catholic apologized for what they did then. Do we need to repeat such mistake today? That no significant difference was found does not mean no significant difference exist. According to the recent study, the difference between human and ape is only 3%. If 3% can make such big difference, what some `insignificant difference' can do?

2) `All the people in the world are descendents of one woman.' This claim is less absurd than the logic from which Olson deducted to his claim. This can only be true if all human were all related. This is the conclusion that Olson tried to prove, but he used it as condition from which he `proved' it as conclusion. Let us see an example. We sometimes see a spam e-mail that asks, with seduction or threaten, you to send, say, 5 people whom you know. Which such original e-mail reached every one on the Earth? If isolation and independency cannot be ruled out, such claim cannot stand. Only from limited results of the gene researches cannot reach such claim. This is why Olson needed to use the conclusion as condition to `prove' the conclusion. According to Olson, the evolution in Africa suddenly popped out one common mother and another common father, thus formed a race, human, then such evolution suddenly stopped.

The hasty with which Olson jumped to his verdict is strikingly obvious. Only with other motivation other than science could explain the behavior. No truth can be revealed if political purposes over rule science conscience. Jumping to the conclusion from such little evidences with such hasty is the recipe to mistake.

Olson also made many contradicting arguments. While he claims no difference between races, he enthusiastically wrote new races were formed from different environment for lions and other animals. I often scratch my head to try to understand where his logic was. He seemed to write with the Bible stories in mind, but in a much faster and in greater scale. When there was a pass of Red Sea, Olson made human pass Red Sea and Berlin Straight. In a very short time, 20,000 years (that is 7,200,000 days), certain human beings out from Africa changed their physique and look. But Olson made sure, even with such a great speed, no more new races formed.

A weak imitation.......2006-08-12

It is conventional wisdom that good books are written by good writers, and that understanding of the subject is of secondary importance. This book is a disproof of that conventional wisdom.

Mr. Olson is a fine writer, but he is not a scientist. Within the first 50 pages he has spent 2 pages on an incorrect explanation of an important genetic concept.

Give me instead the real McCoy: Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza is a scientist with true insight. His book, "Genes, Peoples, and Languages" is beautifully inspired. He truly understands what he is writing about; and the most interesting elements of Mr. Olson's book are better handled in (if not derived from) Dr. Cavalli-Sforza's book.

Mr. Olson, by contrast, is a layman who doesn't quite comprehend that about which he writes. He is the blind leading the blind; and most of his readers don't know the difference, apparently including the nominating committee for the National Book Award.

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Genes, People and Languages
Genes, Peoples, and Languages
Worth a read...
A great introduction to the history of mankind.
Inspiration for more reading on the subject

Genes, Peoples, and Languages
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
Manufacturer: University of California Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520228731

Amazon.com

Jared Diamond says, "It would be a slight exaggeration to say that L.L. Cavalli-Sforza studies everything about everybody, because actually he is 'only' interested in what genes, languages, archaeology, and culture can teach us about the history and migrations of everybody for the last several hundred thousand years." Cavalli-Sforza has been the leading architect of a revolution (even a paradigm shift) in human genetics since the 1960s. Because of his work, geneticists no longer think that the human species is divided into color-coded races. Cavalli-Sforza's studies of the transmission of family names in Italy, of the relationship between human genes and languages, of migration and marriage, are the benchmarks of our biological self-understanding.

Genes, Peoples, and Languages is less personal than Cavalli-Sforza's preceding book, The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution. And it is far more compact than the magisterial The History and Geography of Human Genes (available abridged for those who prefer not to buy books by the pound). Instead, it is a an excellent overview of Cavalli-Sforza's many-faceted approach to human history and our present condition. It is that rarest of achievements, holistic without any trace of mushy-mindedness. --Mary Ellen Curtin

Book Description

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza was among the first to ask whether the genes of modern populations contain a historical record of the human species. Cavalli-Sforza and others have answered this question--anticipated by Darwin--with a decisive yes. Genes, Peoples, and Languages comprises five lectures that serve as a summation of the author's work over several decades, the goal of which has been nothing less than tracking the past hundred thousand years of human evolution.
Cavalli-Sforza raises questions that have serious political, social, and scientific import: When and where did we evolve? How have human societies spread across the continents? How have cultural innovations affected the growth and spread of populations? What is the connection between genes and languages? Always provocative and often astonishing, Cavalli-Sforza explains why there is no genetic basis for racial classification.

Customer Reviews:

Genes, People and Languages.......2007-07-31

The connection between the categories in the title becomes more apparent after reading this excellent book.

Genes, Peoples, and Languages.......2007-06-02

Excellent reference explaining the current developments and thinking on the evolution of Homo Sapiens.

Worth a read..........2005-05-25

It seems that Sforza makes the presumption that most readers of this book will have read his earlier works. Perhaps he is justified in deciding thusly. The book, however, comes off as being a overture to the politically-correct in the first half of it and a piece of patchwork for his previous works in the second half. Granted, there have been great advances in the fields of genetics and mollecular archaeology since last he wrote a book marketed toward the layman and patchwork might be necessary.

Sforza, as an elder-statesman in the field of genetics, is entitled to a bit more slack than others. This book, however, does not read as well as his previous works or even as well as the various books by newer authors who have disputed him on such topics as the mannerof the introduction of agriculture to Europe or the nature of race.

Taken as a whole, Genes, Peoples and Languages strikes me as being half sermon and half footnote to a brilliant career. The footnote section is certainly worth reading, but only for those who have read at least one or two of his previous works.

A great introduction to the history of mankind........2005-03-06

This is an excellent and easy to read book about the fascinating analysis of the heritage of mankind. The author has developed an extensive multidisciplinary approach that includes: a) archeology, b) history, c) genetics, d) linguistics, and e) mathematics.

Although the author never stresses mathematics as a key discipline to analyze mankind heritage, his work relied on Principal Component Analysis, Multidimensional Scaling, Cluster Analysis, Logistic Regression, and Hypothesis Testing. Thus, the readers familiar with these statistical methods will enjoy reading this book as a fascinating social science application of such methods.

You certainly don't have to be a mathematician or a scientist to enjoy this book. The author has clearly written it as an introduction to this field aimed at the layperson.

You will learn many fascinating concepts. One of those, is that the history of genes, cultures, and languages converge. In essence, they all influence each other back and forth. It is somehow hard to tell what is the main driver of overall changes in population. You run into many Nature or Nurture arguments. Continuing along the same line, he refers to other scientific works explaining the difference in IQ between individuals. Well, it is 1/3 due to heredity (nature); 1/3 due to cultural transmission (nurture); and 1/3 due to differences in personal experience (random). That is a pretty far cry from the 80% to 90% due to heredity that many people believe in. Also, natural evolution will or has already stopped according to the author. This is because medicine in industrialized societies has reduced the natural mortality rate down to almost zero among the pre-reproductive age set. In other words, medicine has eliminated the natural selection process as the survival rate mechanism of our specie. Some of us may have had concepts that humans eventually will evolve and look like aliens with extremely big heads (for superior intelligence and processing powers) and very skimpy bodies (since physical force is useless in an information age). Well, that's not going to happen.

Throughout the book there are many very interesting graphs and maps that beautifully illustrate and clarify the concepts he introduces. The migration map on page 94, clearly outlines all the major original migrations out of Africa starting 100,000 years ago. On page 71, a world map showing the actual genetic distance between locations is fascinating too. On page 164, you can observe the best diagram of the Indo-European languages you will ever see. English is a Germanic language, as we all know. However, English predates German by several centuries!

You can see how throughout his life, he must have been a fantastic university professor. About 6 months ago, I started reselling my books at Amazon Marketplace to cut my cost of reading. However, I am not reselling this one. I am keeping it as a reference. I anticipate there will be so many occasions when I will be glad I have kept it. The book has opened for me a new window of knowledge quest where so many of the social and quantitative sciences have converged into one to crack the mystery of the history of mankind. I hope this book will do for you, what it did for me.

Inspiration for more reading on the subject.......2004-10-12

There is almost no scientific paper on etnology and antropology that doesn't refer to Cavalli-Sforza's work, which spans several decades and accounts for dozens of publications on the most prestigious scientific journals. The capacity of Cavalli-Sforza of translating into popular science the work that he has accumulated in years of world-class research is admirable.
The book features a re-adapted collection of lessons he held in Paris. It is perfectbly suitable for anyone from the layman to the scientist. In order to make the tractation more fluid, notes with more specific details are found in an appendix. The book summarizes the most important steps in the development of Cavalli-Sforza's scientific quest and projects into areas of interest for which he is less famous, namely glottology.
This book is a must read for anyone interested in etnology, antropology, glottology and genetics. It is not too long and can be considered the first inspiration to continue reading on the subject. At times Prof. Cavalli-Sforza's personal comments on the social and political aspects of research on science are expressed, and maybe sometimes they result out of place. Another limit of the book is that, being so short, some topics are just mentioned, and not enough information is given. This may be upsetting, but then again, it is another reason for reading more on the subject.
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in tracking the history of humanity through the differentiation of the genoma, learning about the different families of languages spoken on our planet and searching for accounts of practical achievements of population genetics.

Genetic Data Analysis II: Methods for Discrete Population Genetic Data

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Genetic Data Analysis II: Methods for Discrete Population Genetic Data
Bruce S. Weir
Manufacturer: Sinauer Associates
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0878939024

Book Description

Genetic Data Analysis, first published in 1990, became the standard reference for ways to interpret discrete population genetic data. Genetic Data Analysis II retains the strengths of the original book and, based upon the suggestions of users, includes many new features, notably the revision of Chapter 10 (Phylogeny Reconstruction) to incorporate newer methods, and new chapters on Linkage and Individual Identification.

Book Description

Drawing links between genetic and cultural development, this textbook on human evolution offers students a unique combination of cultural anthropology and genetics.For too long, cultural anthropology and science have been portrayed as antagonistic. The authors believe that this is misguided and that recent findings in genetics and anthropology indicate that, to the contrary, a fruitful analysis of human culture and evolution demands integration of these fields of study. This text unifies cultural and genetic concepts: Genes, Culture, and Human Evolution demonstrates that empirical genetic evidence, based on modern DNA analysis and population studies, provides an excellent foundation for understanding human cultural diversity.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Text on a Controversial Subject.......2007-02-01

This text is basically an anthropology textbook on human evolution that integrates the latest biological and cultural research. It comes from the merger of genetic analysis and cultural anthropology. The authors see a co-evolution of genes with culture that helps to define the organism and the environment in which they live in which both are acting as cause and effect.

Over recent years the field of anthropology, especially at an undergraduate level has become rather standardized with only minor acknowledgement of new fossil finds. This book goes away from that with it's development of two major themes:
1. the substantial and growing contribution of genetics to our understanding of human evolution, and
2. the idea that human evolution has been shaped by the interaction between genes and culture.

This book does an excellent job of stating the co-evolution or dual inheritance theory. Note that there has been critism of this overall theory, especially from the anthropology and linguistics side.

Genes, Language, & Culture History in the Southwest Pacific (Human Evolution Series)

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Genes, Language, & Culture History in the Southwest Pacific (Human Evolution Series)

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0195300300

Book Description

The broad arc of islands north of Australia that extends from Indonesia east towards the central Pacific is home to a set of human populations whose concentration of diversity is unequaled elsewhere. Approximately 20% of the worlds languages are spoken here, and the biological and genetic heterogeneity among the groups is extraordinary. Anthropologist W.W. Howells once declared diversity in the region so Protean as to defy analysis. However, this book can now claim considerable success in describing and understanding the origins of the genetic and linguistic variation there. In order to cut through this biological knot, the authors have applied a comprehensive battery of genetic analyses to an intensively sampled set of populations, and have subjected these and complementary linguistic data to a variety of phylogenetic analyses. This has revealed a number of heretofore unknown ancient Pleistocene genetic variants that are only found in these island populations, and has also identified the genetic footprints of more recent migrants from Southeast Asia who were the ancestors of the Polynesians. The book lays out the very complex structure of the variation within and among the islands in this relatively small region, and a number of explanatory models are tested to see which best account for the observed pattern of genetic variation here. The results suggest that a number of commonly used models of evolutionary divergence are overly simple in their assumptions, and that often human diversity has accumulated in very complex ways.

Biology of the Ubiquitous House Sparrow: From Genes to Populations

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Biology of the Ubiquitous House Sparrow: From Genes to Populations
Ted R. Anderson
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 019530411X

Book Description

After the chicken, the House Sparrow is the most widely distributed bird species in the world, occurring on all continents except Antarctica and on most human-inhabited islands. Although its Latin name is Passer domesticus, it is certainly not domesticated. In fact, it is widely regarded as a pest species and is consequently not protected in most of its extensive range. This combination of ubiquity and minimal legal protection has contributed to its wide use in studies by avian biologists throughout the world. The purpose of this book is to review and summarize the results of these global studies on House Sparrows, and to provide a springboard for future studies on the species. House Sparrows have been used to study natural selection in introduced species, circadian rhythms, and the neuroendocrine control of the avian annual cycle. One current question of considerable interest concerns the catastrophic House Sparrow population declines in several urban centers in Europe. Is the House Sparrow a contemporary canary in the mine? Other topics of broad interest include the reproductive and flock-foraging strategies of sparrows, and sexual selection and the function of the male badge in the species. Anderson also explores the role of the House Sparrow in disease transmission to humans and their domesticated animals.

Human Biodiversity: Genes, Race, and History (Foundations of Human Behavior)

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Bankruptcy in the field of social science.
A Broadbased View of Human Diversity
Very clear. No indepth knowledge of genetics required.

Human Biodiversity: Genes, Race, and History (Foundations of Human Behavior)
Jonathan Marks
Manufacturer: Aldine Transaction
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0202020339

Book Description

The present volume is an attempt to synthesize, present, and argue for what has been learned and remains to be learned about the biological differences within and among human groups. Marks, a biologist as well as an anthropologist, avails himself of the data generated by molecular genetics about the hereditary composition of the human species. As it happens, genetics has undermined the fundamental assumptions of racial taxonomy, for genetic variation has turned out to be, to a large extent, polymorphism (variation within groups) rather than polytypy (variation among groups). Though populations at geographical extremes can be contrasted, the fundamental units of the human species are populations rather than races. Further, genetics provides little in the way of reliable biological history of : our species, because human populations are culturally-defined, as well as biological, entities. Genetics has also been used as a scientific validation for cultural values - from the idea that there is indeed a small number of genetically distinct kinds of people ("races") to be identified, to more pervasive suggestions about the relationship of genetics to behavior. In its presentation of the biocultural nature of human diversity as well as in its presentation of the history of the problem and the illusions embedded in that history, this will be a widely used textbook that fills a void in the literature of biology and of physical anthropology.

Customer Reviews:

Bankruptcy in the field of social science........2000-04-20

This book is very similar to Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man" except it attacks eugenics more straightforwardly and is even more shameless; just a series of lies and half-truths. But first, let me say that the eugenics movement at the turn of the century did have two fundamental stumbling blocks: a belief in simple Mendelian principles of heredity, and a belief in class and elitism. Until universal education finally took hold in only the last few decades, where bright students are encouraged to get advanced degrees, elitism or a sense of aristocracy and moral certitude was part culture. But culture changes. So this book, like Gould's, uses old arguments against new concepts that are no longer relevant.

What is even more strange however, is that almost every diatribe against understanding group differences and investigating why and how humans behave has now been turned around. At one time, like folk medicine, folk eugenics was in fact largely pseudoscience in that doctrine drove the science without adequate academic peer review or oversight. But now, the opposite is occurring. The radical egalitarians, those die-hard Marxists that reject science they do not like, are attacking academically reviewed work without providing any evidence to the contrary. This is how he describes pseudoscience, and it is in fact what this book is all about. Half-truths and accusations against behavior genetics and evolutionary psychology, fields that have now matured and are solidly in the mainstream. And social scientists? Still floundering around trying to make sense of failed programs and broken promises. They accuse institutional racism for poverty but they provide no proof or evidence. They claim that redistribution of wealth will make everyone equally smart without one study to show that this is possible. The Gouldian Marxists have now become the Pseudoscientists, fighting a rear-guard defense by making claims and accusations that are clearly incorrect.

This book was written in 1995, but it reads like it was written in 1970. The author has conveniently ignored all of the most recent research in human evolution, sociobiology, and differential psychology. It is as if, in order to make his claims seem credible, he had no way of addressing the scientific progress made the last thirty years. And just over the last five years the few caveats he may have had about such matters as the correlation of brain size to intelligence have been laid to rest. Numerous recent studies from around the world using sophisticated MRI methods have confirmed that intelligence does correlate with brain size, and is different for men and women for different parts of the brain. This is just one example of the obfuscation conjured up in this book.

So is it good reading? By all means. Existing Marxists will have their prejudices reinforced, while those of us who are unabashed empiricists can take pleasure in the hackneyed attempts at dislodging good solid science. That is, it was for me a pleasure to read because on almost every page, the arguments against eugenics could be turned around against the radical environmentalists. It is similar to an atheist reading the bible to confirm, chapter after chapter, the inconsistencies and absurdities of the text to reaffirm their position.

A Broadbased View of Human Diversity.......1999-08-08

This book is excellent introduction to the thorny topic of human biodiversity. The book's real strength lies in the fact that Marks brings in historical material which illuminates the ideological underpinnings of work on human diversity. Dr. Marks, at the time this book was written was a visiting professor at UC/Berkeley. He had studied anthropology at the University of Arizona and genetics at UC/Davis. According to a note on the copyright page he is known for his work in molecular anthropology. The book's 14 chapters take an extremely broad view of human diversity, both cultural and biological, and of the attempts to understand and explain that diversity. The book covers the history of anthropology's attempts to understand human biodiversity, the evolution of primates, the eugenics movement, a critique of the biological race concept, patterns of human variation - both phenotypic and genotypic, the nature and function of human variation, the role of human variation in health and disease and a critique of hereditarian theory. An appendix discusses DNA structure and function. The chapters are generally well written and referenced. The book is written for an academic audience or at least a reader with a strong foundation in biology. I found the critique of the biological race concept to be the most lucid and well thought out one that I have ever read. Marks points out that a division of humans into three or four primordial races seems to ignore the long history of human intermingling. Either there has always been intermingling among humans - in which case the very concept of biologically separated races is wrong from the start - or intermingling is a more recent phenomenon in which case race may have been relevant in the past but no longer is. Marks points out that the three major races identified in the US - White, Black and Asian - correspond to the three major immigrant groups in US history - from Europe, Western Africa and Eastern Asia. [I note that he did not discuss Native Americans.] There is an excellent discussion of the history of race thinking as it was applied to the ABO blood groups. This makes palpable the argument that within-race diversity is much greater than between-race diversity. Marks devotes a fair amount of time to discussing how cultural values impact on scientific work. This is illustrated by numerous examples, many drawn from a critique of the eugenics movement. It is difficult, however, to figure out what he thinks we should do about the fact that science is not "value neutral." He appears to suggest that scientists be better schooled in the humanities and pay more attention to the social implications of their work. It is unclear to me, however, that the problem with eugenics was that the scientists were unschooled in the humanities and unmindful to the social implications of their policies. Could one not criticize Marks for simply displaying his own values when he writes, for instance that: "The resolution of the problem of racism is not to deny group differences, which obviously exist; nor to deny the human urge to associate with like-minded people, which is undeniably strong; but to ensure that the diverse groups of people in contemporary society are given equal access to resources and opportunities. In other words, to assure that individuals are judged as individuals, and not as group members. The opportunity for self-improvement is vital to a free and cosmopolitan society, and the possibility to take advantage of it must be independent of group considerations." (p. 168)? How does Marks assure himself that these values of his do not subvert his scientific studies? The question is particularly troubling because many of the concepts surrounding work on human diversity - such as "innate ability" - are loaded with social judgements. Is innate ability a static thing? Should society reward provide greater rewards to people with greater innate ability? Marks repeatedly makes the observation that studies of humans are different than studies of animals, because there are practical implications to the results of studies on humans. But his book amply demonstrates how studies on animals - such as studies on "rape" in scorpionflies - have also been misused to draw conclusions about humans. One could easily argue that all science is inevitably based on values. The book appears to be a collection of lectures and unfortunately there is a fair amount of repetition. The book might have been stronger had it developed one central thesis. Nonetheless I found this to be a clearly written and very informative book.

Very clear. No indepth knowledge of genetics required........1998-07-14

I read this book while taking a correspondence course in physical anthropology from Univ. of Cal. at Berkeley. It is a textbook for a course on biodiversity.

The book is about 280 pages and is subtitled genes, race and history. It has 14 chapters. The book's major theme is how culture and science have interacted around the issue of race.

Marks is both an anthropologist and a biologist, so the book presents a clear and thorough explanation of genetics in the context of how Western culture has chosen to interpret--and misinterpret--human differences.

Book Description

Do your ears burn whenever you eat hot chile peppers? Does your face immediately flush when you drink alcohol? Does your stomach groan if you are exposed to raw milk or green fava beans? If so, you are probably among the one-third of the world's human population that is sensitive to certain foods due to your genes' interactions with them.

Formerly misunderstood as "genetic disorders," many of these sensitivities are now considered to be adaptations that our ancestors evolved in response to the dietary choices and diseases they faced over millennia in particular landscapes. They are liabilities only when we are "out of place," on globalized diets depleted of certain chemicals that triggered adaptive responses in our ancestors.

In Why Some Like It Hot, an award-winning natural historian takes us on a culinary odyssey to solve the puzzles posed by "the ghosts of evolution" hidden within every culture and its traditional cuisine. As we travel with Nabhan from Java and Bali to Crete and Sardinia, to Hawaii and Mexico, we learn how various ethnic cuisines formerly protected their traditional consumers from both infectious and nutrition-related diseases. We also bear witness to the tragic consequences of the loss of traditional foods, from adult-onset diabetes running rampant among 100 million indigenous peoples to the historic rise in heart disease among individuals of northern European descent.

In this, the most insightful and far-reaching book of his career, Nabhan offers us a view of genes, diets, ethnicity, and place that will forever change the way we understand human health and cultural diversity. This book marks the dawning of evolutionary gastronomy in a way that may save and enrich millions of lives.

Customer Reviews:

Or not hot..........2007-06-25

This book lies at the intersection of several fields, including but not limited to nutrition, history, evolutionary biology, agriculture, biochemistry and genetics. The author's premise can be stated as follow: the members of any ethnic group have evolved to adapt to the edible materials present in their environment to maximize their survival chances. At first, this premise does not seem like much, as the author admits early in the book. But he proceeds to examine several vary different ethnic cuisines, and the environment and culture they arose in, and then shows us how different ethnic groups can require vastly different diets in order to lead healthy and long lives. The ramifications then become huge. For instance, the Atkins diet and Mediterranean-based diets are really not that appropriate for all types of people; but only for those of specific ethnic backgrounds.

Some of science cited in this book is quite important. First, the author explains how the use of spices is related to food preservation. Specifically, food like meat spoils quicker in tropical areas than temperate areas. Many spices kill microbes that spoil meats, hence early humans in tropical areas learned by trial and error to add spices to their foods to preserve them longer. Second, the author demonstrates the links between diet and environment. For example, diet of fava beans is useless vis-a-vis other types of beans in arid environments. But in a climate full of malaria-carrying mosquitoes, ingesting fava beans changes the blood chemistry to reduce the likelihood of a malarial infection.

The book is written as a combination of personal narrative and scientific text. The author provides examples from his own life of how diet and environment interact with a person's genetic makeup to affect health. The amount of science in the text probably requires a college education to understand, though not a medical degree. The text is smooth-flowing and easy to follow, and overall quite interesting.

Interesting topic, confusing book.......2007-06-16

I really feel torn about this book. I was drawn to it because I do NOT "like it hot" and wanted to see if I could find an explanation for it. I did - I'm a supertaster & I am forever grateful to this book for bringing this concept to my attention. Nabhan has also gotten me even more excited about ethnobotany, and it's always fun to get excited about something.
However, I had a hard time getting through this book. I found myself thinking, "it'll get better" and "he'll get to the point" more than I like to. I think Nabhan was really trying to be accessible but I generally found it annoying; I wish he'd given more general ideas of conversations instead of dialogs.
I agree this book could use some reorganization and a better editor. The middle was the worst - with repeated words, misspellings and parts just didn't make sense. I read the part about fava beans at least 3 times and I'm still not sure I fully understand everything that he was obviously very excited about.
I was also confused about the point of this book - at some points it seems he wrote it as a response to fad diets such as the "caveman diet." I agree with his stance on these diets, but I was never interested in them and don't care to read about them. Other times the book seems to be more about what he's seen and done and what he thought about it. Other parts are about what I was interested in - how your genetics, life experience, food availability and family/community traditions shape what and how you eat. I was expecting a book solely about this and felt these parts were much too short.
I would love to see a revised edition (I know it only came out a few years ago). I think Nabhan has a lot of interesting things to write about. I am very glad I read this book & will recommend it to others, but I would tell them to skim large parts of it. I think it could be broken into at least 3 focused books that would be much more interesting.

Interesting material but poorly written and edited.......2006-08-22

This book presents an interesting hypothesis, i.e. that our genetics have been affected by the food we and our ancestors ate, and vice-versa. What could have been a fascinating read turned into a boring series of anecdotes and random statistics. Seemingly random ethnic groups (apparently the ones the author is familiar with or chose for whatever reason to investigate) are discussed and shown to have unusual consequences from food consumption. This book needed to be edited and material reorganized.

Interesting but not well-presented material.......2005-12-29

I found myself reading and then skimming this book, as my interest in what could have been a fascinating theory waned in the face of the author's inability to do more than cob together personal anecdotes and impersonal statistics. The book's layout added to the problem: narrow margins, double-wide line spacing and few paragraph breaks (about one per page) conspired to make it feel like a semi-scholarly article drawn out to book length. Also, Nabhan's focus on Malaysia, Crete and the Pima tribe left me wondering: what about us Northern Europeans? There was exactly a page and a half on British cuisine, and it amounted to an anecdote about how the author once spent a week in England, the food was terrible (no leafy green veg), and how a "British friend" suggested that possibly his compatriots traveled so much to find better sources of food. (Incidentally, the sloppy editing shows up in a sentence where Nabhan talks about "the Irish, the Scotch, the British, the Norwegians, the Scandinavians," or something like that, which made me want to scream "The Scots ARE British! The Norwegians ARE Scandinavians!") It was interesting, at first, to read about the benefits of lactose tolerance among herding populations, or the disastrous consequences to desert Indians of dairy, sugar and alcohol, but I was left none the wiser about how I, as a person with exclusively North Sea ancestors, was supposed to come up with a diet suited to my genetic code. Or, for that matter, how anyone could be expected to work out their body's needs and live in a largely urban, multi-cultural world. In sum, the theory is interesting, and I'd love to know more, but from a more graceful writer.

Why Some Like it Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultrual Diversity.......2005-09-26

Excellent reading! I found the information intreguing and exciting but too short. Need more of this type of information. We have heard too much of the life style side of health living and not enough about the interaction of genes on what we eat and how this may affect our life and health.

Genes in the Environment: 15th Special Symposium of the British Ecological Society (Symposia of the British Ecological Society)

Average customer rating:

Genes in the Environment: 15th Special Symposium of the British Ecological Society (Symposia of the British Ecological Society)

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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