Content deleted Content added
Awards and distinctions |
→Reception: Shermer review, ref |
||
Line 125:
The biologist [[Jerry Coyne]], writing in the ''[[London Review of Books]]'', criticises ''Genome'' as "at once instructive and infuriating. For each nugget of science, Ridley also includes an error or misrepresentation. Some of these derive from poor scholarship: others from his political agenda." Coyne argues that Ridley is an "implacable" genetic determinist, denying the influence of the environment, and calling his politics "right-wing". He calls the book's structure "eccentric" and "bizarre", the chapters matching the 23 pairs of human chromosomes, and notes that ''Genome'' is the third of Ridley's books that "tries to popularise" [[evolutionary psychology]].<ref name=Coyne>{{cite journal |last1=Coyne |first1=Jerry |title=Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley |journal=London Review of Books |date=27 April 2000 |volume=22 |issue=9 |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n09/jerry-coyne/not-an-inkling}}</ref>
The science writer [[Michael Shermer]] finds Ridley's technique "at once clever and delimiting: Each chapter represents a chromosome, for which he has chosen a single entity supposedly determined or influenced by that chromosome." In Shermer's view, "It is a facile literary device to help readers get their minds around this illimitable subject, but I fear that it gives the wrong impression, disclaimers notwithstanding, that such things as intelligence, instinct, or self-interest are wholly located on that chromosome (and, therefore, genetically programmed and biologically determined)."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Shermer |first1=Michael authorlink=Michael Shermer |title=The Metagene Gene |url=https://michaelshermer.com/2001/01/the-metagene-gene/ |publisher=[originally in ''American Scientist''] |date=January 2001}}</ref>
==Awards and distinctions==
| |||