Chance in the House of Fate: A Natural History of Heredity [Hardcover]

Jennifer Ackerman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2001

In the last few years, a startling new message has emerged about our biology. Scientists probing the deep workings of organisms have discovered that all living things, from yeasts to worms to humans, are guided by similar genes and proteins, which have passed down nearly intact for hundreds of millions of years. At the most fundamental level, humans are genetically linked to every part of the natural world.
The award-winning science writer Jennifer Ackerman brings these astonishing discoveries together for the first time, weaving a mesmerizing story of heredity that is only now being understood.
Far more than a report from the field, CHANCE IN THE HOUSE OF FATE offers an encompassing vision of what these unities mean for our everyday lives. Ackerman's remarkable skills of description lend wonder and awe to the striking connections between our microcosmic makeup and the macrocosm of the visible world. Her voice is rich in imagery and poetry, vivid and deeply personal. Pregnant with her first child, she anxiously calculates the odds that her baby will inherit the gene that caused her younger sister's profound retardation. Illuminating the science of cell growth, she describes the heartbreaking cancer that claimed her mother's life. Carrying her daughter on her hip at the crack of dawn to observe the millennial orbit of a comet, she contemplates the universal circadian rhythms that measure the passing of time.
"This is the alchemy of art with solid science -- the real thing," said Edward Hoagland in praising Jennifer Ackerman's NOTES FROM THE SHORE. Her new book is a magnificent addition to both science and literature.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ackerman (Notes from the Shore) offers another series of natural science essays, this one concerning the continuity and discontinuity of cellular, sometimes molecular, existence. A fascination with the "natural history of heredity" may be written into Ackerman's DNAher youngest sister has a rare genetic syndromeand propels her career as a science reporter, so that even the mechanics of genes make for quite personal reporting, early Annie Dillard-style (viz. her conception of genetics as "the past whispered in bone and blood"). Terms that many readers will recall from biology texts become for Ackerman, a relative newcomer to molecular science via the biology "of the whole organism," characters in a thrumming, deep-time performance piece by proteins, enzymes and mitochondria: "the cosmos of molecules and cells has surprising beauties and minute dramas." She chases her themes in and out of the nucleus, up and down the phylogenic tree from E. coli to the giant squid's eye to her own daughters in uteroall points of departure for 18 energetic expositions on genetics and other biomechanisms like morbidity, sexual reproduction, the immune system and the oldest of senses, smell. Some attempts to project the microscopic up to a visible-to-laypersons scale fall flat, but her style overall is a sweet hybrid of popular science and expansive prose. A sense of wonder and clearheaded respect for the raw biochemical chance that shadows evolution leads Ackerman into interesting corners not explored in recent genetics titles like Matt Ridley's Genome. Agent, Melanie Jackson. (June 1)Forecast: Ackerman will tour as part of Houghton's Literature in Science series. The house is bullish on her, and booksellers love her, too. With handselling and good reviews, the first printing of 25,000 should sell nicely.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Recent discoveries in molecular biology have shown that genes governing life processes in widely different organisms from yeast to humans are essentially alike. That is the underlying theme of this book as it looks for meaning in the natural world while exploring complex questions in molecular genetics. Ackerman, a former staff writer for National Geographic and a nature author (Notes from the Shore), weaves her own personal experiences into this popular account of the natural history of heredity. (When she is pregnant with her first child, Ackerman worries that the baby will inherit the gene that caused the retardation of her younger sister.) Moving from topics such as development and sex determination to biological clocks and cell death, this is an engrossing book written in delightful prose that will please most readers.
- Leila Fernandez, Steacie Science Lib., York Univ., Toronto, Ont.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1St Edition edition (June 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618082875
• ISBN-13: 978-0618082872
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,612,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well written, February 13, 2005

By 

saabataj - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chance in the House of Fate: A Natural History of Heredity (Hardcover)

Whenever picking up a Science book, I always like to know the qualifications of the author. How much of this stuff is the author making up, how much of it is political propaganda? Is this going to be of the kind of "Research" I did for my grad school paper variety or the really-going-to-a-lab-and-conducting-research-on-rats kind? The excerpt mentions that Jennifer was a researcher on the National Geographic, has lectured at MIT, Harvard, Univ of Virginia. When I read her book, it became obvious to me that she is quite an expert in her field, because not only does she corroborate with other experts in her field by recounting her meetings with them, she talks in depth about her observations of the squid or some such while squatting down in the wet prarie fields. Anyone willing to rough it up in knee deep dirt, has enough hands on experience to know what she is writing about. Good enough for me.

She devotes separate chapters to each of the senses, and what we have in common with our ancestors. It all makes sense, heh, for example, she explains about how adult humans have a much less sensitive sense of smell that say, a male silkworm moth that can sniff out a quadrillionth of a gram of an odor that the female secreats; and boy am I glad we don't, that's just too creepy stalker-ish. But it's only the adults that lose this developed sense of smell, a baby instantly recognizes its mother's breast purely by sense of smell and they correctly chose their mother in an experiment where they were placed near other lactating mothers as well.

The most interesting chapter that highlights her well chosen title, is the one on how the Seeds of Inheritance are born, how they grow, meet their respective partners, exchange phone numbers, i mean, cellular information, you know what i mean, and give rise to a whole new being. The odds that your baby is what it is, the product of an accidental joining of one sperm in milllions and one egg in hundreds : 1 in 3 billion. Go smoke that in your pipe!

She also devotes chapters to Age, the depths of our mind's memory, and the time clock present in all our cells. We have so much in common with the small cell of a plant or amoeba. I am humbled and at the same time, marveled my Nature's penchance for re-use of materials.

She explains it all in layman language, pretty quick to read through and intersperses it with a personal story, so it's not like reading a textbook. If anything, I think her chapters are too short, I wish she'd gone in more detail or touched upon other factors, for eg, when talking about the time clock in our cells, how does a chemical such as caffeine affect it?

This book is a perfectly good way to start recapturing that sense of awe about Nature. Beats squatting in wet prarie fields to look at squicky, snarly worms, don't you think?

Jennifer doesn't delve into Evolution vs Creationism or any of that. She merely presents her facts on what we have in common, scientifically (yeah, better then calling you an ape to your face), with other species and the meticulous, ever-correcting, intelligent, survival instinct of DNA. It's upto the reader to interpret it however they want.

In short, Recommended.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A thoroughly enjoyable book, July 20, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Chance in the House of Fate: A Natural History of Heredity (Hardcover)

This is a book about life in the most fundamental sense - its origins, its evolution, its inner workings, its universality. I came to this book with high expectations, after reading the author's earlier "Notes from the Shore", and I was not disappointed. She has wrapped herself around an immensely difficult, complex and (ordinarily) technical subject, and has distilled from it a book which is engaging, warm, occasionally startling, often deeply personal, and always marvelously informative. Ackerman's writing reminds me of treasured conversations with an old friend; she's talking TO us, reacting WITH us to the wonders of heredity and evolution, and to some of the deeper questions that arise from our growing understanding of these near miraculous processes. She's also sharing with us much of her own life and experience, a strategy which could easily distract us but, instead, always serves to illustrate, enlighten or simply ground her subject with a very human perspective. Perhaps this is what I enjoy most about the book - that the author is inviting us to share her sense of wonder at the world around us (and, I think, at the language that allows us to do so). It's a rare talent, and I look forward to seeing where that sense of wonder takes her next.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The poetry of biology, December 12, 2001

By 

Alnitak - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chance in the House of Fate: A Natural History of Heredity (Hardcover)

It is often heard that there is no beauty in the "world according to Darwin", that biology has unweaved the rainbow and left no joy or beauty in its place. Not true, as demonstrated by this personal and scientific tour of modern biology. Ackerman covers a broad range of topics but always with a deeply personal viewpoint, and manages to tell at once the joys and sorrows of her life and the scientific story behind them. A true joy to read.