Awards

• Short-listed for Aventis Prize for Science Books 2000
• Short-listed for Aventis Prizes for Science Books: General Prize 2000
• Shortlisted for Aventis Prize for Science Books 2000.
• Shortlisted for Aventis Prizes for Science Books: General Prize 2000.

Overview

The origin of our species was one of the great unanswered questions - until Darwin. The origins of the universe, and of life itself, are fundamental questions still. But perhaps the most intimate and pressing inquiry for our species concerns the origin of human behaviour. How much of it is passed down from one generation to the next? How much of our fate is decided before we are born? What is written for us - in what code, and from what materials?

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Reviews

Fascinating.... [A] compelling account of the origins of a scientific revolution [and] a poignant sketch of the scientist-as-artist. -- Newsday Weiner shines his formidable science-reporting light indoors....There is no better fly on the wall. -- The Philadelphia Inquirer

It's a biography of a scientist, a summary of 20th-century genetics, and a fly's-eye (i.e., multifaceted) view of trends and controversies in biology - all told by an expert science writer with one Pulitizer Prize already to his credit (The Beak of the Finch, 1994). Seymour Benzer is the fly man par excellence and a dream subject for profiling. Curious and restless, he made his mark in physics and phage genetics (phage are viruses that infect bacteria) before turning to the fruit fly and launching a second wave of fly genetics that not only sparked a revolution in developmental biology but now has turned to the study of behavior. Yes, flies behave. They have courtship songs; they have circadian rhythms; they can learn and remember. Indeed, time, love, and memory (and thus learning) have become associated with specific fly genes. And these genes have counterparts in mammals, including humans. Benzer et al. are saying that behavior as well as the housekeeping rules that govern cellular metabolism get encoded in living organisms as products of evolutionary adaptation. It's not that there is a gene for this or that, but rather complex sets of interacting genes affected by environment. But some, like Richard Lewontin and Jonathan Beckwith, will have none of that, categorically denying the relevance of fly genetics to human behavior. Weiner gives them a fair hearing, as well as E.O. Wilson and others on either side of the nature-nurture fence. Fair play aside, the momentum of the new studies could play out in the 21st century with the rich opting for favored genes for their offspring, Weiner says, a phenomenon that could eventually split the species. There is thus plenty of food for thought in the volume. But Weiner's great gift lies in explaining the science with you-are-there descriptions of lab life and personalities; reporting what scientists say and what they do. He provides telling anecdotes that reveal the humor, quirks, frustration, anger, and rewards of being a scientist. (Kirkus Reviews)

After explaining physical evolution by natural selection clearly and entertainingly in Mr Beak of the Finch, Weiner now turns his attention to sociobiology, the evolutionary understanding of human behaviour. As with his earlier book, he focuses on one particular piece of research, this time that of a Caltech team which studied the effects of specific genes and the people involved. Biography and history combine grippingly with up-to-date science. (Kirkus UK)

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