Agile Gene : How Nature Turns On Nurture

Armed with extraordinary new discoveries about our genes, acclaimed science writer Matt Ridley turns his attention to the nature-versus-nurture debate in a thoughtful book about the roots of human behavior.

Ridley recounts the hundred years' war between the partisans of nature and nurture to explain how this paradoxical creature, the human being, can be simultaneously free-willed and motivated by instinct and culture. With the decoding of the human genome, we now know that genes not only predetermine the broad structure of the brain, they also absorb formative experiences, react to social cues, and even run memory. They are consequences as well as causes of the will.

“Ridley is simply one of the best science writers in the business.”

“Fascinating and important information from the world of science.”

“An engrossing study of what makes us who we are … conveyed with insight and style.”

“Thoughtful and entertaining.”

“Terrific popular science.”

“NATURE VIA NURTURE proposes a new way of looking at an ongoing debate.”

Matt Ridley is the author of several award-winning books, including Genome, The Agile Gene, and The Red Queen, which have sold more than 800,000 copies in twenty-seven languages worldwide. He lives in England.

Distributor: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: 07-06-2004
Pages: 352
Measurements: 8in X 5.3125in X 0.792793in X 9.20oz