The Genetic Book of the Dead
Richard Dawkins ;
The late, great evolutionary biologist William Hamilton apparently used to correspond on second-hand postcards, writing over the original script in different-coloured ink, sometimes at right angles. In The Genetic Book of the Dead: A Darwinian reverie, his colleague Richard Dawkins describes this as a kind of palimpsest – “a manuscript in which later writing has been superimposed on earlier (effaced) writing”. This, he says, is a metaphor for the biological traits of living organisms, which contain traces of their ancestors overwritten by later additions. We can therefore read the past in the present.
Yes, indeed. But the metaphor quickly breaks down – as Dawkins admits. Strictly defined, palimpsests are completely erased before being overwritten. It isn’t a great start, and unfortunately this is symptomatic of the conceptual dog’s breakfast at the heart of the book. But it is still an absorbing, interesting and gorgeous thing, with much to recommend it.
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Dawkins is a giant of science writing and a prolific one too. This is his 18th book. He has written two of the greatest popular science volumes of our time, The Blind Watchmaker and The Selfish Gene, as well as a foundational text for scientific materialism, The God Delusion. The Extended Phenotype, which explores how genes can exert effects on an organism’s wider environment, is also worth a read.
Conceptually, at least, this latest effort isn’t in the same league. At its heart is a simple and rather obvious idea: every living thing carries a record of the environments its ancestors lived in, going back to the origin of life. On some levels that is evident to the naked eye, such as in the desert horned lizard (Phrynosoma platyrhinos), which is exquisitely camouflaged to blend in with its dusty environment.
But information about the past also suffuses organs, cells, metabolisms, DNA and more. Which brings me to the title, The Genetic Book of the Dead, which Dawkins feels the need to justify. The book is partly about the genetics of long-dead individuals, but there is much more to it, and the title is open to at least five misinterpretations that Dawkins dispels one at a time. I was minded of the famous quote about election campaigns: “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.” The book’s subtitle, A Darwinian reverie, would have worked better.
Despite all that, there is much to enjoy. At its best, this is an Attenborough-esque romp through some of the wonders of the natural world, often reprising some of Dawkins’s greatest hits, like selfish genes and extended phenotypes.
Did you know, for example, there is a snake (Pseudocerastes urarachnoides) with a spider-shaped lure at the end of its tail that it uses to trick birds into approaching so it can prey on them? Or that female cuckoos belong to tribes called gentes that always parasitise nests of the same species, and produce almost perfect egg mimics? Illustrations by Jana Lenzová are also delightful.
Ultimately, The Genetic Book of the Dead is a nice collection of biology writing crammed into an ill-fitting box, with an unfulfilled promise. There is much to learn about the biological past by scrutinising its present. But as Dawkins writes early on, most of the (sort of) palimpsest can’t yet be read, and may never be. He gamely says that part of his purpose here is to inspire other scientists to develop ways of doing so. But that hardly sets up a satisfying read, and Dawkins even notes that it is a “disappointing revelation”.
My advice, ignore the misfiring grand theme and enjoy the wonders of the endless creativity of the blind watchmaker, described by its foremost advocate. Roll on Dawkins’s 19th book.
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