Y : The Descent of Man - Softcover
Language:Chinese.Paperback. Pub Date: 2003-8-1 Pages: 280 Publisher: Little Brown Men. towards the end of the last millennium. felt a suddentightening of the bowels with the news that the services of theirsex had at last been dispensed with Dolly the. . Sheep - conceivedwithout male assistance - had arrived Her birth reminded at leasthalf the population of how precarious mans position may be Whatis the point of being a man For a brief and essential instant heis a donor of DNA; but outside that glorious moment his role. ishard to understand This book is about science not society;... aboutmaleness not manhood The condition is. in the end. a matter ofbiology. whatever limits that science may have in explaining thehuman condition Todays advances in medicine and in genetics meanat last we understand why men exist and why they are so frequent.We understand from hormones to hydraul...
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Steve Jones is Professor of Genetics at University College, London and has worked at universities in the USA, Australia and Africa. He gave the Reith Lectures in 1991 and presented a BBC TV series on human genetics and evolution in 1996. He is a columnist for the Daily Telegraph.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
1
Nature"s Sole Mistake
Ejaculate, if you are so minded and equipped, into a glass of chilled Perrier.
There you will see a formless object, but look hard enough — or at least so
eighteenth-century biologists believed — and a baby appears: the male"s
gift to the female, whose only job is to incubate the child produced with so
much labor by her mate. So central seemed a husband"s role that his wife
was a mere seedbed, a step below him in society, in the household, and,
most of all, in herself.
Foolish of course and quite wrong, for biology proves that man,
and not woman, is the second sex. His sole task is to fecundate his
spouse, but quite why he does it remains a mystery. To divide is more
efficient than to unite, and everyone has a history of a single sexual event
when sperm met egg, followed by billions of cell divisions without its benefit.
Untold numbers of species manage without even that masculine moment and
for most of the time do not seem to mourn its absence.
Why men and why so many? Surely a few or even one would do,
yet males are everywhere and do not always behave well. As Lady Psyche
in Gilbert and Sullivan"s operetta Princess Ida sings, "Man is coarse and Man
is plain — /Man is more or less insane — /Man"s a ribald, Man"s a rake —
/Man is Nature"s sole mistake!" Much of modern biology is an affirmation of
her claims.
Man"s state can be defined in several ways, but most are
frivolous. Those who claim it are indeed plain, and coarse, and possessed
of a penis. None of those qualities is very significant, given the bizarre
appearance of half the members of many species and the many ways
invented by evolution to deliver their sex cells. Men themselves have a
special structure that shunts them toward their fate. As well as the twenty-
two chromosomes shared by each sex, women have two large X
chromosomes, while their partners have a single X chromosome paired with
a smaller Y. Fundamental as it might seem, the Y is not the root of
maleness, as other creatures gain the state without chromosomes at all.
Even ribaldry and rakishness are not peculiar to one partner, for plenty of
animals leave the husband to hold the baby while a wife searches for a new
mate.
To biologists, masculinity turns only on the size of the sex cells.
Such things come in large and small varieties, and the males make the
small ones. They put their bets on an outsider: on a single winner among
billions at the post, each stripped down ready to face a risky gallop to the
line. Their partners, in contrast, stake their all on a few more or less safe
bets. Every egg has a fair chance of a plod around the sexual racecourse,
but each carries, as a massive weight penalty, the goods needed to make an
embryo. Those who make sperm take a free ride at the expense of their
opposite numbers, for men do not — by definition — give birth. Instead, they
use female flesh to copy their own DNA.
Males act in their own interests but as an incidental perform a
vital role in evolution, for they act as conduits through which genes move
between females. Without their help, all new mutations would be confined to
the direct descendants of the individual in which they arise and life would at
once become a multitude of clones rather than a set of unstable biological
alliances formed anew each time sperm meets egg.
Men bring women together. They make links between families and
allow genes to be tested against nature in new and perhaps fruitful
coalitions. Expensive as they are, once evolved such creatures are almost
impossible to get rid of. A certain group of tiny freshwater animals managed
to do away with males a hundred million years ago, but for all others a burst
of masculinity is needed now and again.
Its humble task flies in the face of tradition, which has long seen
man as the bearer of the human heritage and his mate as, at best, a
tiresome detail. At Karnak, in Upper Egypt, the god Amun gave life to the
world by masturbating over it. In a more decorous myth, Genesis allows
Eve a mention, but by chapter five she too has gone: "And Adam lived an
hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his
image; and called his name Seth." After her moment of glory in the first book
of the Bible (one of the few written before the emergence of an all-male
priesthood), her sex fades away.
Eve"s consort could not, of course, reproduce without help, as he
was (ribs apart) a blind alley. What makes Adam and his descendants what
they are?
Physics was transformed in 1905 with the theory of relativity.
Everyone knows who thought of that idea, but Nettie Maria Stevens, the
Albert Einstein of manhood, is forgotten. Like Einstein, she started outside
science and turned late to research. In the year of relativity, when sex
chromosomes seemed no more central to masculinity than a mustache,
Miss Stevens explained how they work. Flour beetle sperm came, she
found, in two types, one with a large version of a certain chromosome, and
the other with a small, the famous Y. The truth about maleness was revealed.
Two centuries earlier, the secretary of the Royal Society had
recorded a remarkable case: "A country Labourer, living not far from Euston-
Hall in Suffolk shewed a Boy (his Son) about fourteen Years of Age, having
a cuticular Distemper. His mother had received no fright . . . his Skin was
clear at birth — by degrees it turned black, and in a little time afterwards
thickened, and grew into that State it appeared at present." The boy,
Edward Lambert, exhibited himself in London: "To be seen at the George in
Fenchurch Street a Man and his Son, that are cover"d from Head to Foot
with solid Quills, except their Face, the Palms of their Hands, and Bottoms
of their Feet." He had many children and grandchildren. They, too, were
exhibitionists, although some found it necessary to decorate their story:
"The young man is . . . covered with Scales . . . nearly half an inch long, and
so hard and firm that with the touch of a finger they make a sound like stones
striking together . . . the great-grandfather of the singular family to which
this young man belongs, was found savage in the woods of North America."
The Lamberts are much quoted as an example of a condition that
passes from fathers to sons. Even Darwin mentions them. Sadly, the
records reveal scaly daughters, too, as proof that their state was not in fact
coded for on the Y chromosome.
Several genes have professed that noble home, but not for almost
a century after its discovery did one earn it. Some of the false claims arise
because, in small families, a trait may appear by chance in sons alone.
Others are due to mere bias, as a history of maleness has, for men, a great
allure. In a certain Indian lineage, all the men — but none of the women —
have points of hair (sometimes waxed by their proud bearers) on their ears.
I once met a hairy-eared African who, when I asked whether any of his
relatives shared it, told me his mother did. Most other supposed cases of
Y-based inheritance also collapse on closer inspection.
Now everything has changed. The Y has come into its own.
Biology no longer needs freaks of nature to track down genes. Instead it
can go straight to the DNA. The completion of the entire human gene
sequence, with its great string of chemical bases of four distinct types, has
transformed the image of men. Our biological heritage, the Human Genome
Project showed, is filled with parasites, redundancy, and decay. The
chromosome unique to men is a microscopic metaphor of those who bear it,
for it is the most decayed, redundant, and parasitic of the lot.
The male badge of identity is small indeed — just a fiftieth of the
total genome, with 60 million or so of the 3.3 billion base pairs in the entire
sequence. Three quarters of the double helix as a whole consists of spaces
between genes, and the genes themselves contain hundreds of redundant
sections. Much of the DNA exists as duplicates, multiplied again and
again, with the copies diverged into families. It is also marked by innumerable
segments of foreign material that have elbowed their way in. They are
matched by internal hangers-on and by other great portions that have gone
to rack and ruin. As a result, just a few parts in a hundred bear useful
information.
Masculine decadence is such that, on the Y chromosome, a
mere one part in thousands does so. Every gene has a molecular signature
that sets it apart from the material around it. The Y has but seventy or so
elements that code for proteins, compared to ten times as many on the X.
More than half consists of multiples of two uninvited guests, and most of its
duplicated sections are no more than corpses. In spite of some local hints
of order, man"s defining structure is a haven for degenerates.
It has a single redeeming feature. To half the human race the Y is
the prince of chromosomes, for it gives the embryo a testis. There resides
the noblest of all genes, the sine qua non of maleness. The crucial piece
sits near the structure"s tip, and in its absence a fertilized egg becomes a
female. It is — at first sight — simple.
The key to man"s nature came from some unusual men. Armed
with penises though they are, such people lack a discernible male
chromosome and carry (like women) two copies of the X. Their predicament
comes from a genetic accident. A tiny portion of their father"s Y was broken
off when his sperm was made, and became attached to his own X
chromosome. Eggs fertilized by X-bearing sperm are expected to develop
into girls, but in this case the uninvited passenger brought as a guest an
extra length of DNA. It includes the gallant structure that impels a baby into
boyhood.
The SRY gene itself (the initials stand for Sex-determining Region
of the Y) was tracked down in 1990 after a hunt through that nomadic
fragment. It contains fewer than a thousand DNA bases, which code for a
mere two hundred and four amino acids (the units bolted together
end-to-end to build proteins). Unlike most genes it has no inserted
sequences of useless material. SRY is small but potent. When a copy was
injected into a normal XX mouse egg, the young animal that emerged (Randy,
by name) was anything but female. His sisters gladly accepted him as a
mate, to give a consumer"s seal of approval for the power of that tiny gene.
Modern genetics takes place not just in animals (in vivo, as
biologists say), or even in vitro, in test tubes, but in silico, inside computers
able to match DNA sequences with each other. A search for genes with
some resemblance to the master of manhood reveals a host of relatives,
with the most similar of all upon the X, where it is active in the young brain
(which might have interested Freud).
The monarch of maleness belongs, the computers show, to a
large and diverse family. Its members do many things (they are, for
example, in charge of the reproductive lives of mushrooms). Each controls
some aspect of development, and all share a special sequence of eighty or
so amino acids. This forms a groove in the molecule, which allows it to bind
to a variety of DNA sequences. As it does, the double helix bends, and
somehow the change in shape turns on a target gene. At once the machinery
of growth springs into life.
SRY is a switch that directs other genes onto their allotted path.
Like the railway points outside a large terminus, the testis-determining
element guides, with a single tiny shift, the sexual express train toward one
destination rather than another. It is (with a few rare exceptions) the sole
gene absolutely necessary for a testis to be made, although to construct
the organ itself and the other useful structures that decorate all males needs
hundreds of others, scattered all over the genome. SRY kicks into action
four weeks or so after the egg is fertilized. In its brief moment of glory it
sends billions of babies on a masculine journey. Quite how it does so,
nobody knows, as its prime target — the leading wheel, as it were, of the
embryonic locomotive — has not yet been found.
Most of its fellow passengers are associated with maleness. In
guppies the gaudiest animals attract the most mates — and the genes for
bright color share a home with SRY. Our own version of the chromosome is
involved in the manufacture of sperm, in the rate of growth, in the formation
of teeth and of certain brain proteins, in left-handedness, and — if mice are a
guide — in aggression. Its few other useful sections do the day-to-day jobs
needed by all cells.
Outside the segments devoted to these small tasks, most of the
Y is filled with decay. It has degenerated because it abjures the messy
business of sex.
To biologists, that pastime is simple. It adds statistics to nature,
for without it every child would be an exact copy of its parent. Copulation
causes random noise in the world of the double helix, because it mixes up
genes. Without it evolution could hardly happen.
Chromosomes are present in double copy in most cells, but
sperm and egg each contain just half the DNA of the person who made
them. As a result, just one member of each chromosome pair can get in
(which is why half of all sperm — made as they are by XY individuals — have
an X and half a Y). By chance, a child may receive its mother"s edition of
some chromosomes and its father"s of others. The process (recombination
as it is called) goes further, as it reorders the very material of chromosomes.
The members of each pair line up as sperm and egg are made and then
intertwine, break, and rejoin in novel ways.
From a gene"s point of view, reshuffling of this kind is a great
restorative, as it allows it to escape from its neighbors — and to move
house can be a great help when the individual next door is a feeble character
who might, when exposed to the rigors of the world, drag a whole block down
to his own level. Recombination means that sex, not death, is the great
leveler. It allows new and hopeful blends to appear each generation and can
get rid of several damaged pieces of DNA at once if they get into the same
sperm or egg. The recipient becomes a scapegoat, for his demise purges
several inborn sins at the same time. In his lonely fate he rescues many of
his fellows who might otherwise be condemned by inferior genes.
The Y, in its solitary state, disapproves of such laxity. Apart from
small parts near each tip which line up with a shared section of the X, it
stands aloof from the great DNA swap. Its genes, such as they are, remain
in purdah as the generations succeed. As a result, each Y is a genetic
republic, insulated from the outside world. Like most closed societies, it
becomes both selfish and wasteful. Every lineage ...
Nature"s Sole Mistake
Ejaculate, if you are so minded and equipped, into a glass of chilled Perrier.
There you will see a formless object, but look hard enough — or at least so
eighteenth-century biologists believed — and a baby appears: the male"s
gift to the female, whose only job is to incubate the child produced with so
much labor by her mate. So central seemed a husband"s role that his wife
was a mere seedbed, a step below him in society, in the household, and,
most of all, in herself.
Foolish of course and quite wrong, for biology proves that man,
and not woman, is the second sex. His sole task is to fecundate his
spouse, but quite why he does it remains a mystery. To divide is more
efficient than to unite, and everyone has a history of a single sexual event
when sperm met egg, followed by billions of cell divisions without its benefit.
Untold numbers of species manage without even that masculine moment and
for most of the time do not seem to mourn its absence.
Why men and why so many? Surely a few or even one would do,
yet males are everywhere and do not always behave well. As Lady Psyche
in Gilbert and Sullivan"s operetta Princess Ida sings, "Man is coarse and Man
is plain — /Man is more or less insane — /Man"s a ribald, Man"s a rake —
/Man is Nature"s sole mistake!" Much of modern biology is an affirmation of
her claims.
Man"s state can be defined in several ways, but most are
frivolous. Those who claim it are indeed plain, and coarse, and possessed
of a penis. None of those qualities is very significant, given the bizarre
appearance of half the members of many species and the many ways
invented by evolution to deliver their sex cells. Men themselves have a
special structure that shunts them toward their fate. As well as the twenty-
two chromosomes shared by each sex, women have two large X
chromosomes, while their partners have a single X chromosome paired with
a smaller Y. Fundamental as it might seem, the Y is not the root of
maleness, as other creatures gain the state without chromosomes at all.
Even ribaldry and rakishness are not peculiar to one partner, for plenty of
animals leave the husband to hold the baby while a wife searches for a new
mate.
To biologists, masculinity turns only on the size of the sex cells.
Such things come in large and small varieties, and the males make the
small ones. They put their bets on an outsider: on a single winner among
billions at the post, each stripped down ready to face a risky gallop to the
line. Their partners, in contrast, stake their all on a few more or less safe
bets. Every egg has a fair chance of a plod around the sexual racecourse,
but each carries, as a massive weight penalty, the goods needed to make an
embryo. Those who make sperm take a free ride at the expense of their
opposite numbers, for men do not — by definition — give birth. Instead, they
use female flesh to copy their own DNA.
Males act in their own interests but as an incidental perform a
vital role in evolution, for they act as conduits through which genes move
between females. Without their help, all new mutations would be confined to
the direct descendants of the individual in which they arise and life would at
once become a multitude of clones rather than a set of unstable biological
alliances formed anew each time sperm meets egg.
Men bring women together. They make links between families and
allow genes to be tested against nature in new and perhaps fruitful
coalitions. Expensive as they are, once evolved such creatures are almost
impossible to get rid of. A certain group of tiny freshwater animals managed
to do away with males a hundred million years ago, but for all others a burst
of masculinity is needed now and again.
Its humble task flies in the face of tradition, which has long seen
man as the bearer of the human heritage and his mate as, at best, a
tiresome detail. At Karnak, in Upper Egypt, the god Amun gave life to the
world by masturbating over it. In a more decorous myth, Genesis allows
Eve a mention, but by chapter five she too has gone: "And Adam lived an
hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his
image; and called his name Seth." After her moment of glory in the first book
of the Bible (one of the few written before the emergence of an all-male
priesthood), her sex fades away.
Eve"s consort could not, of course, reproduce without help, as he
was (ribs apart) a blind alley. What makes Adam and his descendants what
they are?
Physics was transformed in 1905 with the theory of relativity.
Everyone knows who thought of that idea, but Nettie Maria Stevens, the
Albert Einstein of manhood, is forgotten. Like Einstein, she started outside
science and turned late to research. In the year of relativity, when sex
chromosomes seemed no more central to masculinity than a mustache,
Miss Stevens explained how they work. Flour beetle sperm came, she
found, in two types, one with a large version of a certain chromosome, and
the other with a small, the famous Y. The truth about maleness was revealed.
Two centuries earlier, the secretary of the Royal Society had
recorded a remarkable case: "A country Labourer, living not far from Euston-
Hall in Suffolk shewed a Boy (his Son) about fourteen Years of Age, having
a cuticular Distemper. His mother had received no fright . . . his Skin was
clear at birth — by degrees it turned black, and in a little time afterwards
thickened, and grew into that State it appeared at present." The boy,
Edward Lambert, exhibited himself in London: "To be seen at the George in
Fenchurch Street a Man and his Son, that are cover"d from Head to Foot
with solid Quills, except their Face, the Palms of their Hands, and Bottoms
of their Feet." He had many children and grandchildren. They, too, were
exhibitionists, although some found it necessary to decorate their story:
"The young man is . . . covered with Scales . . . nearly half an inch long, and
so hard and firm that with the touch of a finger they make a sound like stones
striking together . . . the great-grandfather of the singular family to which
this young man belongs, was found savage in the woods of North America."
The Lamberts are much quoted as an example of a condition that
passes from fathers to sons. Even Darwin mentions them. Sadly, the
records reveal scaly daughters, too, as proof that their state was not in fact
coded for on the Y chromosome.
Several genes have professed that noble home, but not for almost
a century after its discovery did one earn it. Some of the false claims arise
because, in small families, a trait may appear by chance in sons alone.
Others are due to mere bias, as a history of maleness has, for men, a great
allure. In a certain Indian lineage, all the men — but none of the women —
have points of hair (sometimes waxed by their proud bearers) on their ears.
I once met a hairy-eared African who, when I asked whether any of his
relatives shared it, told me his mother did. Most other supposed cases of
Y-based inheritance also collapse on closer inspection.
Now everything has changed. The Y has come into its own.
Biology no longer needs freaks of nature to track down genes. Instead it
can go straight to the DNA. The completion of the entire human gene
sequence, with its great string of chemical bases of four distinct types, has
transformed the image of men. Our biological heritage, the Human Genome
Project showed, is filled with parasites, redundancy, and decay. The
chromosome unique to men is a microscopic metaphor of those who bear it,
for it is the most decayed, redundant, and parasitic of the lot.
The male badge of identity is small indeed — just a fiftieth of the
total genome, with 60 million or so of the 3.3 billion base pairs in the entire
sequence. Three quarters of the double helix as a whole consists of spaces
between genes, and the genes themselves contain hundreds of redundant
sections. Much of the DNA exists as duplicates, multiplied again and
again, with the copies diverged into families. It is also marked by innumerable
segments of foreign material that have elbowed their way in. They are
matched by internal hangers-on and by other great portions that have gone
to rack and ruin. As a result, just a few parts in a hundred bear useful
information.
Masculine decadence is such that, on the Y chromosome, a
mere one part in thousands does so. Every gene has a molecular signature
that sets it apart from the material around it. The Y has but seventy or so
elements that code for proteins, compared to ten times as many on the X.
More than half consists of multiples of two uninvited guests, and most of its
duplicated sections are no more than corpses. In spite of some local hints
of order, man"s defining structure is a haven for degenerates.
It has a single redeeming feature. To half the human race the Y is
the prince of chromosomes, for it gives the embryo a testis. There resides
the noblest of all genes, the sine qua non of maleness. The crucial piece
sits near the structure"s tip, and in its absence a fertilized egg becomes a
female. It is — at first sight — simple.
The key to man"s nature came from some unusual men. Armed
with penises though they are, such people lack a discernible male
chromosome and carry (like women) two copies of the X. Their predicament
comes from a genetic accident. A tiny portion of their father"s Y was broken
off when his sperm was made, and became attached to his own X
chromosome. Eggs fertilized by X-bearing sperm are expected to develop
into girls, but in this case the uninvited passenger brought as a guest an
extra length of DNA. It includes the gallant structure that impels a baby into
boyhood.
The SRY gene itself (the initials stand for Sex-determining Region
of the Y) was tracked down in 1990 after a hunt through that nomadic
fragment. It contains fewer than a thousand DNA bases, which code for a
mere two hundred and four amino acids (the units bolted together
end-to-end to build proteins). Unlike most genes it has no inserted
sequences of useless material. SRY is small but potent. When a copy was
injected into a normal XX mouse egg, the young animal that emerged (Randy,
by name) was anything but female. His sisters gladly accepted him as a
mate, to give a consumer"s seal of approval for the power of that tiny gene.
Modern genetics takes place not just in animals (in vivo, as
biologists say), or even in vitro, in test tubes, but in silico, inside computers
able to match DNA sequences with each other. A search for genes with
some resemblance to the master of manhood reveals a host of relatives,
with the most similar of all upon the X, where it is active in the young brain
(which might have interested Freud).
The monarch of maleness belongs, the computers show, to a
large and diverse family. Its members do many things (they are, for
example, in charge of the reproductive lives of mushrooms). Each controls
some aspect of development, and all share a special sequence of eighty or
so amino acids. This forms a groove in the molecule, which allows it to bind
to a variety of DNA sequences. As it does, the double helix bends, and
somehow the change in shape turns on a target gene. At once the machinery
of growth springs into life.
SRY is a switch that directs other genes onto their allotted path.
Like the railway points outside a large terminus, the testis-determining
element guides, with a single tiny shift, the sexual express train toward one
destination rather than another. It is (with a few rare exceptions) the sole
gene absolutely necessary for a testis to be made, although to construct
the organ itself and the other useful structures that decorate all males needs
hundreds of others, scattered all over the genome. SRY kicks into action
four weeks or so after the egg is fertilized. In its brief moment of glory it
sends billions of babies on a masculine journey. Quite how it does so,
nobody knows, as its prime target — the leading wheel, as it were, of the
embryonic locomotive — has not yet been found.
Most of its fellow passengers are associated with maleness. In
guppies the gaudiest animals attract the most mates — and the genes for
bright color share a home with SRY. Our own version of the chromosome is
involved in the manufacture of sperm, in the rate of growth, in the formation
of teeth and of certain brain proteins, in left-handedness, and — if mice are a
guide — in aggression. Its few other useful sections do the day-to-day jobs
needed by all cells.
Outside the segments devoted to these small tasks, most of the
Y is filled with decay. It has degenerated because it abjures the messy
business of sex.
To biologists, that pastime is simple. It adds statistics to nature,
for without it every child would be an exact copy of its parent. Copulation
causes random noise in the world of the double helix, because it mixes up
genes. Without it evolution could hardly happen.
Chromosomes are present in double copy in most cells, but
sperm and egg each contain just half the DNA of the person who made
them. As a result, just one member of each chromosome pair can get in
(which is why half of all sperm — made as they are by XY individuals — have
an X and half a Y). By chance, a child may receive its mother"s edition of
some chromosomes and its father"s of others. The process (recombination
as it is called) goes further, as it reorders the very material of chromosomes.
The members of each pair line up as sperm and egg are made and then
intertwine, break, and rejoin in novel ways.
From a gene"s point of view, reshuffling of this kind is a great
restorative, as it allows it to escape from its neighbors — and to move
house can be a great help when the individual next door is a feeble character
who might, when exposed to the rigors of the world, drag a whole block down
to his own level. Recombination means that sex, not death, is the great
leveler. It allows new and hopeful blends to appear each generation and can
get rid of several damaged pieces of DNA at once if they get into the same
sperm or egg. The recipient becomes a scapegoat, for his demise purges
several inborn sins at the same time. In his lonely fate he rescues many of
his fellows who might otherwise be condemned by inferior genes.
The Y, in its solitary state, disapproves of such laxity. Apart from
small parts near each tip which line up with a shared section of the X, it
stands aloof from the great DNA swap. Its genes, such as they are, remain
in purdah as the generations succeed. As a result, each Y is a genetic
republic, insulated from the outside world. Like most closed societies, it
becomes both selfish and wasteful. Every lineage ...
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherTime Warner Books Uk
- Publication date2003
- ISBN 10 0349113890
- ISBN 13 9780349113890
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages256
- Rating
Buy New
Learn more about this copy
US$ 7.04
Shipping:
US$ 5.63
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Other Popular Editions of the Same Title
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
Y: The Descent of Men
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Y: The Descent of Men Brand new item sourced directly from publisher. Packed securely in tight packaging to ensure no damage. Shipped from warehouse on same/next day basis. Seller Inventory # 1111-9780349113890
Buy New
US$ 7.04
Convert currency
Stock Image
Y : The Descent of Man
Published by
Time Warner Books Uk
(2003)
ISBN 10: 0349113890
ISBN 13: 9780349113890
New
Softcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. Buy with confidence! Book is in new, never-used condition. Seller Inventory # bk0349113890xvz189zvxnew
Buy New
US$ 17.96
Convert currency
Stock Image
Y
Published by
Little, Brown 2003-08-07, London
(2003)
ISBN 10: 0349113890
ISBN 13: 9780349113890
New
paperback
Quantity: 5
Seller:
Rating
Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9780349113890
Buy New
US$ 12.38
Convert currency
Seller Image
Y: The Descent Of Men (Paperback)
Published by
Little, Brown Book Group, London
(2003)
ISBN 10: 0349113890
ISBN 13: 9780349113890
New
Paperback
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Men, towards the end of the last millennium, felt a sudden tightening of the bowels with the news that the services of their sex had at last been dispensed with. Dolly the Sheep - conceived without male assistance - had arrived. Her birth reminded at least half the population of how precarious man's position may be. What is the point of being a man For a brief and essential instant he is a donor of DNA; but outside that glorious moment his role is hard to understand.This book is about science not society; about maleness not manhood. The condition is, in the end, a matter of biology, whatever limits that science may have in explaining the human condition. Today's advances in medicine and in genetics mean at last we understand why men exist and why they are so frequent. We understand from hormones to hydraulics how man's machinery works, why he dies so young and how his brain differs from that of the rest of mankind. An objective look at masculinity - from bodies to brains, from genes to genitals. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780349113890
Buy New
US$ 20.12
Convert currency
Stock Image
Y: The Descent Of Men
Published by
Little, Brown Book Group
(2003)
ISBN 10: 0349113890
ISBN 13: 9780349113890
New
Paperback / softback
Quantity: 5
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. * An objective look at masculinity - from bodies to brains, from genes to genitals. Seller Inventory # B9780349113890
Buy New
US$ 10.58
Convert currency
Stock Image
Y: The Descent of Men
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. BRAND NEW ** SUPER FAST SHIPPING FROM UK WAREHOUSE ** 30 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. Seller Inventory # 9780349113890-GDR
Buy New
US$ 12.51
Convert currency
Stock Image
Y : The Descent of Man
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 42e728c0c539cae0250efc1cb9d2fbf0
Buy New
US$ 15.51
Convert currency
Stock Image
Y : The Descent of Man
Published by
Time Warner Books Uk
(2003)
ISBN 10: 0349113890
ISBN 13: 9780349113890
New
Softcover
Quantity: 2
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. In. Seller Inventory # ria9780349113890_new
Buy New
US$ 13.07
Convert currency
Stock Image
Y: The Descent of Men
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 256 pages. 7.56x4.96x0.94 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0349113890
Buy New
US$ 13.10
Convert currency
Stock Image
Y: The Descent of Men
Published by
Abacus 2003-08-07
(2003)
ISBN 10: 0349113890
ISBN 13: 9780349113890
New
Paperback
Quantity: 10
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 6666-HCE-9780349113890
Buy New
US$ 12.32
Convert currency