Introducing Genetics: A Graphic Guide (Graphic Guides)

i expected more. i thought the book would make a dull subject more fun, i guess... the info is ok but the drawings are too complicated.

I thought this was a great especially for those that are in highschool biology or in genetics and thinking about a future as a geneticists.

I really enjoy the books in the "A Graphic Guide" series. They are a light read on interesting and informative topics, with a touch of fun.The "Introducing Genetics" books was an enjoyable read, remembering me of high school biology classes. I liked that it also includes social, economical, historical and political context, not just scientific information. To fully enjoy the book, I do think you already need to have some knowledge in this subject.

Mr. Jones succeeded in communicating about genetics in a thorough manner without much jargon and not too technical for the average person. He also covers the many ethical issues that studying and using genetics in the individual raises. Today, complete genetic testing for a reasonable cost is available. This is a great book to read before having your DNA read.

This 2005 edition may exhibit an updated text. My own copy of the book is a 2001 reprint of the original text from 1993, and one thing that struck me as I read it was that over those 8 years there appeared to have been no changes made. Not only is genetics a very modern science, its profile has risen spectacularly within the scientific community over a period of not many years, so I expect there must have been a fair amount of updating to do. Nevertheless this is explicitly a book for beginners, the approach taken is chronological in recounting the successive discoveries, the author is a leading and eminent expert who presumably would not have countenanced reprints of any statements he wished to retract, so I have to suppose that the text as I have it remains valid as far as it goes. We beginners have to begin at the beginning, this is the beginning, reviews here are almost non-existent, and it may be helpful in that case if I give my fellow neophytes some idea of what to expect, even if I am not fully up to date.Professor Steve Jones of University College London is well known, at least in Britain, from television. Everyone has heard of DNA these days even if they do not know what those letters stand for (see my caption above). We have clearly opened another Pandora's box by dabbling in this matter, and in my edition Jones concludes by touching on the ethical and political issues that our new discoveries raise. Whatever additions or amendments he may have added in retrospect, his remarks reflect his mindset, which is level-headed and humane, and his media appearances have not suggested to me that he has espoused any significantly new views in these respects.The main narrative is historical, in the simple chronological sense. Jones really starts with Mendel and his experiments on peas, having given Darwin only a cursory mention before that. Other major figures are given what I take to be their due mention, the main actors are, expectedly, Crick and Watson the discoverers of the double helix, and subsequent research is also noted in my edition up to `the 1990's'. The picture I gained was much what I would have thought - advances in research have shown the matter to be enormously more complex than even Crick and Watson, let alone Mendel, envisaged. However the basic models that these pioneers created seem to have stood the test of time and look likely to continue to. The tedious debate over creationism is mercifully ignored, although the author readily admits that the phenomenon of being alive, whereby living tissue creates new tissue, remains a mystery, at least so far. Science can now trace the processes at work in detail, but what these processes ultimately are seems unidentified.The original text is credited to not just Steve Jones but also to the illustrator Borin Van Loon [sic]. Every page from start to finish, or at least until we reach Jones's `footnote', is larded with illustrative matter, mostly cartoons. Whether some readers may find this style patronising I don't know, but if so I for one was quite happy to be patronised. For all the clarity of Jones's exposition the main text can't avoid being slightly heavy going here and there, and I found that the illustrations lightened my own going very successfully. It all seems very simple to start with, but here and there new terms creep in without prior explanation, although they are usually clarified before too long. The style is basically that of a good lecturer with a sense of how to keep the audience's attention without diluting or over-simplifying the message.Jones comments wryly that while for scientists the four letters of the genetic `alphabet' are G C T A, now that the subject has got well and truly into the public and tabloid domain H Y P E might sometimes seem to characterise the discussion better. Genetics explains much, and it opens up enormous possibilities in real life, whether these be seen as promises or as threats. In the text as I have it, he hedges his bets and does not over-commit himself to either side of the argument. However he permits himself some down-to-earth observations to the effect that whether or not genetically modified crops may be in some way dangerous, there is no `whether' about it when the food in question is cheeseburgers; and whatever may be said about human cloning the phenomenon is not new but as old as the first ever pair of identical twins.As an introduction I found this book admirable. We all have, it seems to me, a responsibility to inform ourselves as best we can about subjects as important as this is. When the matter is set out for us as clearly as it is here it is something approaching irresponsible not to take the opportunity we are given, and worse than irresponsible to promote points of view from a basis of culpable ignorance.

The author did a basic overview of genetics and used public domain antique graphics to add a bit of punch. It's a really good idea even tho I sometimes found myself quite distracted by the graphics

I downloaded this book on KIndle in order to update my knowledge on micro-biology as it applies to generics. I knew this book was going to be simplistic, but I hoped it would at least be current overview.. Unfortunately, this scientific field is advancing rapidly and this book was more than twenty years behind the times. It wasn't much help.

This book enabled me to gain incite and knowledge on genetics that I did not previously have. I wish proteins were discussed in more detail.

Not a serious book on genetics for those with any understanding at all of the subject. Like many museums, the content seems to be suitable for children.

A good basic introduction. The illustrations are easier to see in the printed version than in the kindle version.

Okay for education

Este libro, como todos los que conozco de esta serie, es excelente, pero me temo no al alcance de cualquiera. Las ilustraciones, al menos a mí, no me parecen curiosamente lo más útil ni atraynete, aunque soy un profesional de la sanidad. En este sentido, los ilustradores españoles aventajan a los británicos o americanos y ahí está el inefable "Simiocracia". Pero este pequeño libro, y ahí reside su dificultad, intrioduce a una enorme cantidad e conceptos genéticos en muy poco espacio. es muy comprimido y los conceptos gençeticos, leyes de mendel incluidas, que en sí son sencillas, requieren, creo, un poco más de espaci para ser entendidas. Si se conoce ya algo, el libro es smuy bueno, pero debe leeerse con atenció. No es una divulgación tan fácil, y no todo medico general o biólogo sabe todos los conceptos genéticos que contiene, algunos, bastante actualizados. Añadamos que este librito, como casi todos los de esta colección, contiene además unas consideraciones político- morales sobre el tema que tratan En este caso, se inicia con las opiniones de tres hombres muy diferentes como G. Bernard Shaw, Wisnton Churchill y Adolf Hitler, sobre las ideas genéticas y eugenèsicas de su tiempo, con el resultado, cierto por otro lado, de que los tres opinaban algo muy parecido: los sujetos inferiores sobran en la sociedad. De ahí a ciertas practicas como las del nazismo, por supuesto hay un paso muy grande, porque esos tres hombres fieron prácticamente contemporaneos y estonces este tipo de doctrina eugenésica estaba de moda, seguramente porque entonces la natalidad en los paises industrializados era muy grande y no se tenía gran respeto al niño, que se reproducía fácilmente si moría, mientras una nueva máquina era el mayor de los bienes. Hoy, estas opiniones han cambiado aunque algunos las mantienen.

The book is fine and accurate in most regards. However, the book seems to have ignored the important field called Epigenetics.Epigenetics is a vast study that is an essential aspect of modern genetics.