Adam's Curse: A Future without Men

"I discovered this book sitting in my local library as a set of CDs & thought it an excellent way to revise some rusty genetics, the author being a thoroughly reputable biologist with high academic standing - not to mention a gift for writing.

Adam's Curse will be a source of wonder, enlightenment & amusement to anyone who is male or female & doesn't come from a science background. It is also an indispensable & thoroughly enjoyable aid to understanding or revising genetics at anything from A-level to postgrad studies.

The story revolves around the most fundamental difference between male & female humans: the 2 strings of DNA that are known as the sex (X & Y) chromosomes, one inherited from each parent. A human XX is female & an XY male.


I am endlessly amused by the prospect of many males of my acquaintance having Genghis Khan Y chromosomes (which explains a lot) & the possibility of the extinction of the Y chromosome in a relatively short period of evolutionary time, if left to its own devices. It won't be, of course, & we should be thankful that genetic medicine will be able to correct mistakes in DNA coding in the not too distant future - if not for the sake of men then for the sake of those inheriting DNA abnormalities that too often give brief & painful lives.

Everyone should read Adam's Curse & find out a bit about what really makes a man a man & for the thoroughly stimulating & enjoyable book that it is.


"
~ Written on 2010-06-08

"Adam's curse: A Future without Men promised so much and delivered so little. It did little to inform and was packed full of pointless (and rarely amusing) anecdotes. I bought the book to learn something new and yet I can honestly say I learnt nothing. Not only was the book full of irrelevant anecdotes, it had no direction or focus.
The lack of direction made it a very frustrating read as I was constantly having to attempt to piece together the thread form the pointless packing information and having to do so without any real science backing up the claims. The scientific explanations are simplified to a point which renders them basically useless.
Readers with a little knowledge in biology, biochemistry like myself should steer clear of a book so lacking in clear scientific evidence.
The only place this book deserves to be is in the recycling bin and thats exactly where my copy is going."
~ Written on 2009-07-17

"I picked up this book as a normal person sho has no special knowledge of genetics and was a bit flooded with genetic jargon and terms. I got a B in my Leaving Cert. Biology (similar to the A Levels in UK)so therefore had a basic knowledge of DNA, RNA, etc. which is more than I can say for the vast majority of the population. The beginning made sense, but it thickened and I was lost by 2/3 into the book. I assume ths book makes sense to avid genetic specialists but to the layperson... it's a curse!"
~ Written on 2008-01-12

"The punchline is that the Y chromosome is doomed - but this applies to pretty much all mammals - so what's the news? We occupy the same playing field don't we?

Before the punchline Sykes explores why the Y chromosome in humans may be especially at risk. Point the finger at the rabid dispersion of gender bending chemicals into the environment such as pthalates from plastics and oestrogen type chemicals including vast amounts of contraceptive hormones that leak into sewage and don't break down affecting fish and perhaps us? Sperm counts are going down apparently, but this is not necessarily associated with the punchline, which is on the basis of the Y chromosome not undergoing chiasma formation with the X - leading to an accumulation of mutant mistakes.

Overall the book is good at answering from the secular selfish gene point of view such obvious questions as "Why does sex exist? Why are there two sexes?". Sykes believes in William Hamilton's theories popularised by Dawkins that the gene is the ultimate unit of selection.

Despite the "triumph" of this idea according to Sykes, scientists still debate about whether it is the gene, the individual or the species that is selected. There is in fact evidence for all three. In this book, one sort of also realises that chromosomes too can be units of selection. American evolutionists generally don't like the gene centric approach. The war between mitochondrial DNA and the Y as described in this book seems to be somewhat hollow.

I don't agree that agriculture per se led to a diminution of the status of women and the establishment of a patriarchal set of civilisations epitomised by the masculinisation of the figures of the divine as men seemed to realise that they had an upper hand in procreation.

The most interesting observations of this book is facts about how the Y chromosome spreads and how it can help trace your line of decent - and how this may contradict the line of decent through the female line.

Better still is the evidence suggesting strong assymetry in the natal balance of the sexes in some families leaving aside the obvious cultural bias (in some countries) of sons over daughters. In short, certain families have skewed tendencies to have too many boys or girls which does not add up statistically. But is the explanation presented correct? There is here food for thought.

This book is fascinating though weak in places. I'm not too worried about the punchline and not sure if it is true but I have been somewhat enlightened by reading this book in that it clarifies points raised in books like the Selfish Gene. I feel the truth overall is not as clear cut as the book tries to show and therefore am not going to end up story telling about why exactly there are two sexes. There is plenty here to have conversations with for sure.

Does the gay gene exist? Is it to do with your older brothers training the mother's pregnant body to attack your masculinity if you are a younger brother? There is now some evidence for this just out.

A good read, attacking men, unfairly at times, but a good read none the less.
"
~ Written on 2006-08-23

"According to Bryan Sykes, a 300 million year long experiment is about to conclude. The experiment is mammalian sex. The investigation into how best to reproduce and extend the species is running out of material - the Y chromosome. In a beautifully written, if somewhat suspect, work, Sykes surveys how sex became the driving force of evolution and what that means for humanity today - and tomorrow.

He describes the years of research, including many false starts, leading to the identity of the chromosomes determining our gender. Knowledge of the chromosomes came soon after Darwin's revelation of evolution by natural selection. Darwin realized that sex played a fundamental role in the mechanism of evolution, but the details remained an enigma. Unaware of genes, he still managed to envision the role of sexual selection among animals. When the process of cell division was understood, it led to searching for the means by which traits were transmitted through generations. "Dark blobs" observed by a Canadian military physician began the quest for their identity and significance. The find led to identity of the X-chromosome that forms females. The Y-chromosome, which drives a foetus to become a male, was a later discovery.

In Sykes' view, the human male's chromosome has been the major factor in human evolution and cultural development. Not only determining gender, it acts through a feedback loop. More powerful, aggressive males tend to reinforce their role in selecting mates and propagating traits in offspring. While the Sykes' progenitor has nearly ten thousand descendants, the MacDonald clan, long dominant in Scotland, has proliferated around the planet with nearly half a million progeny. The most numerous progeny, however, has resulted in 16 million descendants of Asia's Ghengis Khan scattered throughout Eurasia. The Khan is the most extreme example of the male's propensity for war, conquest, and, in Sykes' view, the "enslavement" of women. His descent into the depths of "political correctness" is brief and shallow, but telling for his thesis.

Today the planet is carpeted with humanity, the result of a society dominated by the Y-chromosome. When hunter-gatherer societies took up agriculture, it "chained women" to "serial pregnancies", depriving them of the "relaxation of a sedentary existence" while producing additional farm workers. The resulting population explosion ultimately drove the creation of our industrialized, polluting society. This condition, in Sykes' view, is now leading to a depletion of the Y-chromosome's prowess. Ultimately, he argues, human males will be replaced by a society of women. Whether men will be kept as breeding stock he doesn't predict.

A practiced adept at metaphor, Sykes' finesse in describing cellular mechanics is unusual in a scientist. He portrays a slow-motion ballet, with chromosomes gently finding their opposite number to "delicately lie alongside each other" until "they are entwined". It's very sensuous genetics. The tone changes when he portrays the head of a sperm entering an egg. The ensuing scene is a battle reminiscent of a Hollywood war film. Mitochondria launch vicious assaults on invaders, slaughtering whatever can be attacked. One wonders how conception ever occurs. It does, of course, but he makes clear that a decline in success is inevitable.

Although Sykes builds a compelling case for the roots of our society's ills, there are too many ignored aspects. He challenges the recent paper by a team demonstrating the Y-chromosome's prowess at self-repair. His arguments require further study, but his adamant insistence smacks of desperation, not evidence. Although this book is a valuable study, there's more work to do. With so much of human evolutionary history to be assessed, we can consider this an important, but not a final, step. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]"
~ Written on 2004-06-24