(Part 2) Best genetics books according to redditors
We found 165 Reddit comments discussing the best genetics books. We ranked the 77 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
Someone wrote a book about this. Basically there are a number of case studies. You might find it interesting, look it up. They're called shipwreck societies.
EDIT: Wow this blew up during thanksgiving! The name of the book is Blueprint by Nick Christakis. The link is here
Enjoy all, happy thanksgiving!
You can read a sample of Carey's book, which appears to contain very little on Hepburn. Instead it talks mostly about children who were still in the womb during the famine (Hepburn was born in 1929). There doesn't seem to be any specific assertion of genetic effects on Hepburn due to the famine.
Stop citing the Daily Mail, you fucking idiots.
About 20% of all known pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion. The shocking part is that some estimates are as high as 50%. Many times, women never know they were pregnant, and never find out that the pregnancy was terminated.
Shitty Citation
edit: I accidentally a grammar.
Copying from my other comment:
Ok so there was a really interesting book I read about biology once that talked about how bloodletting might have worked at one point, because people with hemocromatosis lived through the Black Death at a MUCH higher rate than others, so after like a third of western Europe's population was wiped out a large portion left had hemocramatosis. It was a such an interesting book- talked about different biological explanations for pop culture, current events, politics, etc. I'm going to try and find it and will edit when I do.
EDIT: Found it! Would recommend. I read it years ago in high school and still think about every once in a while - https://www.amazon.com/Survival-Sickest-Surprising-Connections-Longevity-ebook/dp/B000OI0E6I
Hello! I have lots of recommendations for you, though, I can't think of much for ethics off the top of my head, except for textbooks. I did take an online class that teaches students about genetic counseling offered by South Carolina and some ethical issues were discussed there. Like you, I also love reading and have found a variety of resources. For starters, this subreddit posts decent articles from time to time, so lurk here!
Textbooks
A Guide to Genetic Counseling: This is like the book for genetic counseling programs. It offers a comprehensive overview of counseling and most ethical things I've read about are through this text.
Facilitating the Genetic Counseling Process: This book is designed to help you learn how to communicate effectively with clients/patients.
There are more textbooks to read about genetic counseling that you can find via Amazon. If you want to learn more about diseases, maybe check out Smith's Recognizable Patterns of Human Malformation.
Online
I have found a few things to read online. In case you haven't heard of it The DNA Exchange is excellent. The writers are great and they tackle a whole host of issues. Two magazines I really enjoy are Genome and Helix.
Also, if you're not familiar with GINA, the National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics (NCHPEG) has a web page that explains it nicely.
Also, Unique has the cutest comic ever that explains rare diseases to siblings. Not to mention, that website has a lot of handouts on rare disorders!
Books
I found out about 90% of these books through the online class I took, which I mentioned at the beginning of this comment. I decided to link and give a few lines of each Amazon description to you so you don't have tab fatigue. Of these books, I have read Waiting with Gabriel and Before and After Zachariah. Both are excellent and raise great discussion points.
Choosing Naia: A Family's Journey by Mitchell Zuckoff - A dramatic and carefully detailed account of one family's journey through the maze of genetic counseling, medical technology and disability rights.
Babyface: A Story of Heart and Bones by Jeanne McDermott - When Jeanne McDermott's second child, Nathaniel, was born with Apert syndrome-a condition that results in a towering skull, a sunken face, and fingers webbed so tightly that hands look like mittens-she was completely unprepared for it. In this extraordinary memoir, McDermott calls on her dual roles as science journalist and mother to share her family's traumatic yet enriching experience.
Waiting with Gabriel by Amy Kuebelbeck - This memoir is the true story of parents who were told that their unborn baby had an incurable heart condition, confronting them with an impossible decision: to attempt risky surgeries to give their baby a chance at a longer life, or to continue the pregnancy and embrace their baby's life as it would unfold, from conception to natural death.
Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth and Everyday Magic by Martha Beck - Expecting Adam is an autobiographical tale of an academically oriented Harvard couple who conceive a baby with Down's syndrome and decide to carry him to term.
Spelling Love with an X: A Mother, A Son, and the Gene that Binds Them by Clare Dunsford - Spelling Love with an X is the first personal memoir about living with fragile X and a reflection on the fragility of human identity in the age of the gene. Recalling the psychic wound of learning that she is genetically "flawed," Dunsford wonders: What do you do when you discover that you are not who you thought you were?
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman - The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down explores the clash between a small county hospital in California and a refugee family from Laos over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong child diagnosed with severe epilepsy. Lia's parents and her doctors both wanted what was best for Lia, but the lack of understanding between them led to tragedy.
Give Me One Wish by Jacquie Gordon - This is the story of a remarkable mother and daughter and their love as they make sense of life, and their relationship, in the face of a deadly disease. Jackquie Gordon cannot cure her daughter Christine's cystic fibrosis, but she can teach her to follow life's gifts wherever they lead so that she grows up eager to discover the world and her place in it.
Before and After Zachariah by Fern Kupfer - The heart-wrenching story of one couple's courageous decision to have their severely brain-damaged son cared for in a residential facility.
Anna: A Daughter's Life by William Loizeaux - Born with a number of birth defects known as VATER Syndrome, Anna Loizeaux’s chances for survival were uncertain.
Old Before My Time by Hayley Okines - In medical terms her body is like that of a 100-year-old woman. Yet she faces her condition with immense courage and a refreshing lack of self-pity.
Pretty is What Changes: Impossible Choices, the Breast Cancer Gene, and How I Defied my Destiny by Jessica Queller - Eleven months after her mother succumbs to cancer, Jessica Queller has herself tested for the BRCA gene mutation. The results come back positive, putting her at a terrifyingly elevated risk of developing breast cancer before the age of fifty and ovarian cancer in her lifetime.
There's also Lisa Genova's books. You've probably heard of Still Alice, which is about a woman who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. That was a good read! Her other books also deal with various medical diagnoses and I've heard Inside the O'Briens is quite good as well.
I hope this all helps. I apologize for the length, but I really wanted to share what I could! If you're interested, I could give you some ethical dilemmas to think about. I remember a few from interviews and reading about genetics. Good luck. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about applications/interviews!
With regard to textbooks, these are the ones I used during my undergraduate career (UCSD Bioinformatics major):
I think out of these, the key ones for Bioinformatics are the genetics and molecular biology portions of the General Biology book, then the Genetics book, then the Molecular Biology book. Cell Biology can be useful for understanding the downstream pathways certain "big-name" genes are involved in, but it's information that's very easily google-able. Biochemistry isn't too relevant unless you specifically want to go into metabolomics or something
EDIT: And with regard to reviews, I'm not too sure what "good sources" are; I usually read the Nature Review Journals, but hopefully someone else can chime in!
Genome by Matt Ridley, the Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters.
50 Genetics ideas you really need to know. by Mark Henderson.
The Roots of Life, A Layman's Guide to Genes, Evolution, and the Ways of Cells
The Mystery of Heredity, by John J. Fried.
All these books are clear and simple, written for the layman’s enjoyment.
Heya. I'd start with introductory literature to get a decent grasp on genetics in the first place. At least to the point where you understand structures of genes, structure and function of enhancers and such, and how the enzymes play a role to perform the tasks with DNA. You can find much of that in a book like Concepts of Genetics.
Afterward, there is a great book, Human Molecular Genetics. This outlines much of what we know about the human genome and the mammoth amount of complexities. I believe it has all recent concepts of modifying the human genome and all of the stem cell research in there, along with how it works. It's not going to make a whole lot of sense without some basics, though.
A lot of the GC textbooks will be pretty pricey, since they're textbooks lol.
A Guide to Genetic Counseling, is like the Genetic Counseling bible. It's pretty expensive, but I think a lot of programs use it, so it probably wouldn't go to waste. I think it's also available online in a journal, but I don't remember which one since I have the physical copy.
Ethical Dilemmas in Genetics and Genetic Counseling, I read this before interviewing and found it really interesting. It's only $40 and has some case examples and makes you think a lot about how the field functions. I haven't taken the ethics course yet, so I'm not sure if my program uses it.
Facilitating the Genetic Counseling Process: A Practice Manual, we also use this one a lot. It's available online from Springer if you have access to a journal subscription.
I like Robin Hobb too! (But I haven't read Farseer.)
I'm reading this monstrosity and very trashy romance novels on my Kindle when I get the time. No spare brain-space for literary novels right now..
The point is, traits are not '100 percent genetic'.
Give this textbook a read.
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Population-Genetics-Theory-Applications/dp/1605351539
I have a much better understanding of population genetics and genes after reading textbooks like this and others.
All household hamsters in the world descended from one original hamster; the Eve of hamsters, if you will.
http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Daughters-Eve-Science-Ancestry/dp/0393020185
> I think it's a core part of an individual
I disagree. I think it is more or less important to any given individual and that assuming it's not only present but also extremely important to everyone's sense of self is harmful. There is nothing wrong with not having a strong sense of gender and suggesting there is can make people feel not-trans-enough and delay or prevent them from getting help. Even more, it's needlessly stressful to anyone to feel like they're failing at their gender b/c they're apathetic about it or not meeting whatever criteria their culture tells them their gender should be.
> Everything that we are exists in the brain, the body is only there too keep the brain alive and let us interact with the world.
This I disagree with utterly. Brains are a body part. I can't speak of my body and not include my brain. Medication that affects my body affects my brain, and vice versa. Bodies are meatsacks, but they're extremely important meatsacks. If they weren't we wouldn't go through all this shit to change them because we wouldn't have to.
I don't think Cartesian dualism is a particularly helpful way to view the self. Its most basic premise puts a person at odds with themselves and constantly forces false choices. As well, there's the sexist association made at the time (and still prevalent) of males with brains and superiority and logic, and females with gross squishy bodies that makes, in my opinion, treating the brain as separate from and "above" the body a suspect position.
> Since our brains are sexually dimorphic
I'm not up to diving into the particulars of this right now. But I'm extremely skeptical of studies that presume difference and find it in ways that so happen to line up with current assumptions about gender/sex differences. I just recently got Sex Itself by Sarah S. Richardson but haven't had a chance to start it yet. It looks to be the most interesting analysis on the topic since Sexing the Body. I think that in fields of science that are closely concerned with social conditions it is important not to conflate empiricism with truth.
Mainly what I took issue with in your original comment was the generalization. I totally understand that you feel that it would change you too much to be an acceptable choice. I don't think it's a stretch to say most trans people feel that way. But there are enough agender, gender-neutral, neutrois, or even apathetic or ideological cis people who don't consider gender a core part of their identity that I don't think it's a great assumption to make. And my stake is also personal, of course. Nothing made sense until I stopped assuming my gender was innate and I'd find my "true self" if I just looked hard enough. If this meme weren't so prevalent in trans discussions it might have saved me several years of emotional misery.
> I'm not entirely sure what male and female are anymore.
Male and female are not very strictly defined things, even in terms of "biological sex" (which I assume what you mean by "male and female"). There are multiple traits that have been observed in pretty much any configuration, and that's just in humans. If you're interested and up for some relatively dry, academic reading, I recommend the book Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome.
Gender (if that's what you meant by "male and female") is obviously very dependent on the cultural context of each individual, and also does not have much in the way of a universal meaning.
I ultimately ended up deciding that it's all kind of bullshit and doesn't change whether I need to transition anyway.
https://www.amazon.com/At-Our-Wits-End-Intelligent-ebook/dp/B07M8NG2CN/
Buy a physical copy and get the ebook 70% off!
https://www.amazon.com/Organumics-Epigenetic-Re-framing-Consciousness-Evolution-ebook/dp/B07ZMKMVSW/
>But if it is indeed a proposal you're making, its undoubtably evil.
Ouch!
>See Gattaca for what I'm talking about.
Read this book to learn why the genetic engineering of the human species may very well be inevitable.
Have you read (or listened to) The Selfish Gene? Such a good book if you're interested in this concept!
Hello! A friend of mine referred me and was wondering if you happen to have this or even the 8th edition should be okay.
Digital Inclusive Essentials Of Genetics, 9 Edition, 9780134592589
https://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Genetics-9th-William-Klug/dp/0134047796
https://www.amazon.com/ISCN-2016-International-Cytogenomic-Nomenclature/dp/3318058572
> So what is your evidence then?
It's hard to discuss such a broad topic. Amazon has hundreds of books on this subject from dozens of authors, many with PhD's in various sciences and theology: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Or if you enjoy video, I thought John Lennox did an excellent job of presenting the Christian position in his debate with Richard Dawkins.
But for me, these are the critical pieces:
If you'd like to narrow it down from here, we can discuss further.
> And how rare do you think that is among christians?
I have no idea.
From a book by some random quack. If it were true it'd be interesting, but I doubt it.
http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Daughters-Eve-Science-Ancestry/dp/0393020185
seven daughters of eve was a very good book and pointed out the two migrations out of Africa.
and I love the yellowstone/lake toba kinda supervolcanos the imagination reels.
that being said I was born in the sixties and the changes in science facts since I was a child has been impressive. . .remembering of course in school your are taught with books that are at least 10 yrs old and the information in them is probably another 5 yrs older than that.. .
I feel we are still trying to piece together a crime with VERY limited evidence. . .and we are probably still very wrong.
In the episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Nicholas Christakis about his new book, Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society.
Nicholas Christakis is a sociologist and physician known for his research in the areas of social networks and biosocial science. He is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University, where he directs the Human Nature Lab. His books include Death Foretold: Prophecy and Prognosis in Medical Care and Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives (coauthored with James H. Fowler). He was on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2009.
Website: humannaturelab.net
Twitter: @NAChristakis
The fact that we can have this discussion and debate over reason and primal urges is to me proof of the power of our reasoning. That does not mean it is absolute nor are we never incorrect. Fundamentally, we may be disagreeing about human nature. There was and still is a debate on whether human nature is greedy, selfless, or a mixture. I tend to side more on humans, on average, being good. There is a recent book by Yale professor Nicholas A. Christakis titled Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society, which attempts to argue that natural selection pre-wires us for peaceful co-existence.
As for the desire to eat, as I mentioned, humans are able to choose not to eat. They, of course, cannot suppress the desire. You may have heard of the event that occurred in Pavlovsk Experimental Station during WWII. 12 scientists died of starvation while being surrounded by edible berries and seeds in order to protect the valuable collection for genetic variation and scientific knowledge. By explaining greed as genetics and protective nature as genetics, this explanation has explained nothing at all, at least to me. In other words, for genetics to be both altruistic and selfish does not get into the underlying substance. Again, this is the tendency towards over-reduction. I believe inexperienced researchers and scholars tend to over-reduce the world down to their respective fields, viewing the world in overly chemical terms, economics terms, biological terms, historical terms, and etc.
We are also dancing around the topic of free will. If I have gathered correctly, we disagree on this topic as well. For me, as long as a being is sentient and can choose between various actions, then it has free will. Just because there are physical limitations does not mean there is no free will. You may believe the opposite. That is, you may be firmly in the deterministic camp--at least biological determinism.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0134047796/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483986899&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=essentials+of+genetics+9th+edition&dpPl=1&dpID=51vQ0knIF9L&ref=plSrch
Let me know if you can find this