The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment

I. Gene and Organism II. Organism and Environment III. Parts and Wholes, Causes and Effects IV. Directions in the Study of Biology Notes Index

Richard Lewontin is Alexander Agassiz Research Professor at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. His many books include Biology and Ideology, Not in Our Genes, and Human Diversity.

Lewontin is one of the great living biologists. With the scientific enterprise passing, it is said, from the age of physics into that of biology, his remarks on biology studies couldn't be timelier. -- Ray Olson Booklist In his latest book, The Triple Helix...Lewontin lays out his position with devastating clarity; the science in the book should be accessible to most laypersons. However much our DNA may tell us about individual diseases, he says, ultimately reductionism provides a simplified and therefore false picture of both the interactions between the genes of any cell and the other parts of the cell and the interactions between a cell and all the other cells of an organism. By extension, that false picture also undermines a true understanding of any organism's interaction with its environment. -- Ralph Brave Salon.com 20010109 Even for readers who do not agree with Lewontin, there is much of value in [his] books. He is superb at conceptually characterizing large research programmes in biology, and putting them in historical context...his writing is consistently elegant and readable, frequently funny, and abounding with provocative remarks. -- Mark Ridley Nature Whatever the reader's views, these essays are worth reading for their brilliant, if sometimes partisan, criticisms. Lewontin's style is remarkably clear considering the complex nature of some of his arguments. Recommended. -- Marit MacArthur Library Journal A slim tour de force of the new genomic thinking. In an evenhanded set of essays, Lewontin extends this dynamic view of heredity to the interactions of genes, biology, and environment. -- John Palattella Lingua Franca 20011001 [Lewontin] is at odds with some orthodoxies of contemporary biology. He is skeptical of genetic determinism, the notion that what we are and what we do is determined by our genetic makeup. He argues in The Triple Helix for a more nuanced explanation than strictly genetic or strictly environmental views, or even the view that the