Click to have a closer look
About this book
Biography
Related titles
About this book
Collection of essays written over 17 years for the NY Review of Books. Lewontin discusses Darwin, Mendel, natural selection, heredity and the current state of play in genetics - decrying what he sees as widespread biological determinism.
Customer Reviews
Biography
Richard Lewontin is a leading geneticist and the author of Biology as ldeology: The Doctrine of DNA and The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change and co-author of The Dialectical Biologist (with Richard Levins) and Not in Our Genes (with Steven Rose and Leon Kamin). He is Professor of Population Sciences and the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Professor of Biology at Harvard University.
Out of Print
By: Richard Lewontin
368 pages, no illustrations
'The sweep and scepticism of his arguments is always exhilarating and usually spot-on. This is a fine and important book, and a very necessary corrective to all sorts of popular fallacies.' Guardian; 'The painstakingly, highly accessible, but penetrating quality of his work is essential reading. Lewontin is one of the most sensible exponents in a field plagued by hype and hysteria.' Sunday Times; 'Lewontin...is a working biologist and a wonderfully stylish writer. If you read only one book on genetics this year, make sure it is this one.' The Times; 'It Ain't Necessarilly So is an elegantly written and lucidly argued critique of the myth that genes are fate. Lewontin is one of the great unsung figures of post-war science.' New Statesman; 'Few writers, and even fewer scientists, possess Lewontin's strength of vision, breadth of knowledge or stylistic poise.' New Statesman; 'A cool, impressive intelligence presides over It Ain't Necessarily So.' Daily Telegraph; 'Richard Lewontin...provides a valuable antidote to the current hyperbole surrounding the Genome Project.' Scotland on Sunday; '...brilliantly provocative essays on matters of the science industry and biology...written with an elegance that won't tolerate grandiose claims, but they're also the work of a practising scientist, He is the sensible, accessible, essential expert.' The Scotsman