Endurance of Life, The Implications of Genetics for Human Life

presenting overviews of diagnosis, slow viruses, and immune function as applied to schizophrenia. The major benefit of reading these conference proceedings, however, is learning, by the kind of data presented and questions asked, what experts in these fields actually do in their work. This gives the reader a much better sense of the concepts involved in, and the criteria used for, establishing facts in a given discipline than could be provided by a simple statement of current knowledge. It is perhaps one of the prerogatives of pre-eminence in a given field that a scholar may give us his opinion on a variety of other subjects as well, and be assured of an attentive audience. As one of the founders of the modern science of immunology, and as a man whose intellectual standing is unassailable, Sir Macfarlane Burnet takes full advantage of his position to range over a wide variety of subjects, and to put forward many thought-provoking ideas. The book is ostensibly about ageing, and much detailed biological research, perhaps too much for a popular work, is examined to support the thesis that ageing is primarily caused by the accumulation of genetic and metabolic errors in somatic cells. Errors in repair processes and in the immune system are particularly stressed. The author discusses various genetic diseases and there is an entire chapter devoted to Xeroderma Pigmentosum which is thought, owing to its effect on DNA repair mechanisms, to be an analogue of normal ageing. Other possible mechanisms of ageing get a shorter treatment, and there is an almost unreasonable neglect of the idea that viruses may cause deleterious long-term changes in cells. From talking about genetic defects as a cause of ageing, and genetic defects in general, the author steps into more tenuous territory by advancing a rather extreme genetic determinism for individuals as well as for society. Aggression and the desire for dominance, according to Burnet, are innate in men and hence so is evil conduct. These constantly need to be held in check by rational virtue though women being innately less aggressive may also be innately good. It is an argument that will without doubt infuriate "liberated" women, and men may be no less annoyed. Also since evil conduct is genetic, so is crime, and all attempts to significantly reform individuals or society are doomed according to the author. Reading such passages one wonders whether pessimism and the …