Bringing together the latest insights from genetics and cyberculture, this book contends that all life can be conceived of as information. It explores future developments in genetics, both as a consequence of Darwinian natural selection and under the influence of genetic engineering. The ideas are illustrated by writing that draws on a range of surreal examples including hypermarkets containing every toy in the universe, pufferfish that think like flies, Peter Pan-like trips through human genes and creatures that evolve in months and not millennia. It argues that the future will be dominated by biological machines evolved artificially by a process of accelerated evolution which is called "evolution compression".
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Now that books of popular science are a genre all their own, readers can choose between a wide variety of diverting titles. Few books, however, will provide quite the exhilarating intellectual rush of Adrian Wolfson's Life Without Genes. Dealing in a jargon-free fashion with the most basic qustions of life, Woolfson examines the significance of genes, and the possibility of life existing without them. What will living things be like in the future, and how did life evolve initially? The author as a mission: to dissuade us from unexamined ideas of genetic determinism, and his book is about the opening up of possibilities. Examining everything from a highly questioning perspective, Woolfson deals with the very real genetic conundrums that exist in the world all around us. Could giraffes grow as tall as skyscrapers? Is it possible to turn sticklebacks into daffodils, or a tiger into a procupine? Taking us on a remarkable journey through the past and future of our own genes, Woolfson explains in accessible prose the remarkable range (as well as the dangers) of genetic engineering. This is the most stimulating and mind-enhancing speculation. (Kirkus UK)
About the Author
Adrian Woolfson was educated in London, Cambridge and Oxford. He is a Wellcome Research Fellow at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and the Charles and Katherine Darwin Research Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge.
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