Customer Reviews

The Single Helix: A Turn Around the World of Science

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This is a strangely dissatisfying read, which is a real shame as Jones is an excellent author and i've enjoyed many of his other books. The problem with this book is that each essay is adapted from his newspaper column and therefore the topics are varied, but are not explored in any real depth. You find yourself just getting interested and the essay has finished. Also, each essay is very aimless, the facts that make it up are fascinating and leave you marveling at nature and the wonder of science, but they don't lead anywhere and very few essays seems to make a worthy/satisfactory point. All of this is a real shame, as this book is written in Jones usual clear and entertaining style, but I'd say this is a book for popular science beginners and not one for those who have read and enjoyed past Jones books, or other popular science books. A great premise, but it could've delivered so much more.

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This is a collection of short essays previously published in the Daily Telegraph. Jones is a biologist who has worked with snails. Being a snail biologist myself, I was excited when I first heard about this book. Alas, these essays are too superficial and too tied in with contemporary occasions to have much lasting value. Any scientific insight is almost non-existent. And despite the cover photo, only a few have anything to do with snails. In the preface Dr. Jones writes: "On looking back I am depressed to see how many of those columns [in the Daily Telegraph] were devoted to carping, the age-old prerogative of the academic, with complaints about cash mixed with generalised ill will. Such grumbles soon become dull and none has made it to this book." I think many made it to this book.

The bad news is that this book deals with such a wide and varied set of topics, that it's impossible to categorise it. The good news is that Jones presents each subject so well and with such enthusiasm that it's a delightful read. You may read it front to back, the reverse, or purely at random. Such is the nature of a book of selected essays on the wonders of nature and the methods of studying them. Sifting through his columns in Britain's "Daily Telegraph" to select merely a hundred must have been a daunting task, but Jones managed it admirably. As the publisher's blurb declaims, it's "a hundred easy pieces about science". They fail to mention each one is a treat to encounter.

Jones has a string of excellent books to his credit: "Almost Like A Whale" ["Darwin's Ghost" in the US] and "Y-The Descent of Men" being among the better known. He knows how to write to an informed and interested audience. He's so good at it that he's won a medal for "increasing public knowledge of science". The title derives from his work on snails and the notoriety gained by James Watson's account of the revelation of DNA's structure. Although Jones' own field is biology, he's able to venture into other disciplines in this collection. Even history is probed for unusual information - the "Telemobiloskop" is certain to gain your attention at the next cocktail party. For a biologist - and a malacologist at that, it might seem out of place for Jones to dabble in astrophysics or physics itself, yet he manages it with panache. In today's world, however, genetics plays too significant a role to be passed over lightly, and Jones provides several excellent items on the topic.

Applying a sense of irony and humour throughout these pages, Jones easily dispels the image of the dour scientist. He's not above examining his own mistakes, even while depicting critics as "vultures drawn to carrion". Nobody "peer reviews" books on science aimed at the general public, and things slip by. His discussion of errors he made in "Almost Like a Whale" is accompanied by his views on evolutionary psychology. In the process, he reminds us that we're a social species, and must tread lightly in making generalisations about how that situation is manifested in science writing. It would have been nice if Jones had avoided the lure one scientist-essayist fell prey to. Instead of baseball, however, at one point Jones deals with the national sport of his own. The axes he has to grind are kept strictly associated with science. A highly readable, entertaining and useful book. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This book consists of dozens of short articles, all of which I found to be of no interest. The author's love of Charles Darwin shines through on several occasions. The reader is informed that Darwin was "that prince among scientists" and that he was "a gent" and "a revolutionary" who "changed biology forever". No credit is given to Darwin's predecessors (Buffon, Lamarck, Geoffroy, Goethe, Chambers, etc.).

Jones declares that "natural selection can work only when some people have, for genetic reasons, more progeny than others". It appears then that he does not understand the concept of natural selection.

He states that he was once the president of what was once known as the Eugenics Education Society. Unsurprisingly then, he declares: "Psychiatric problems are often a symptom of organic disease." He then states, without any supporting evidence, that Stalin suffered from pre-senile dementia.

Other topics include a cheap shot debunking of homeopathy, again without supporting evidence. Jones also touches on so-called social Darwinism, declaring that "Glasgow in its injustices is still a factory for Darwinism. There poverty and wealth live close together ..."

With regard to the desertion of the Mary Celeste (Jones calls it the Marie Celeste), Jones believes that a convincing explanation is that the crew ate moldy biscuits, then, pursued by imaginary demons, they leapt overboard.

The author, according to the book jacket, won a Royal Society Faraday Medal for the Public Understanding of Science. One moment of unintentional humor.