This book is sheer brilliance. The fact that it is taken from lectures may be the reason behind its clear and unpretentious language. But while clear and unpretentious, Professor Keller's reflections shows philosophy, or for that matter academics, in its simplest yet most currently significant form: rather than bombarded with theoretical jargon (read nonsense if you wish), the reader is presented with a history of a specific knowledge (the biologist's explanation of "life" in the early and mid 20th. century). The preface serves as an outline of how to read this book, and, when effective, sets the context for reading any similar epistemological analysis. Unlike many other "postmodern" philosophical works, this book fits beautifully in the context it sets. It is multi-dimensional - feminists, philosophers, biologists, and others will benefit from incisive commentary which is extremely pertinent to their field. As a work which is set (and sets itself) in the context of epistemological relativism, it has one drawback: within the next few years, I expect its relevance to shift, from work of contemporary genius and immediate relevance to harbinger of new epistomological foundations. Still, it is refreshing to read a work of genius by a living person; if you have not realized this yet, I recommend you take a few days to read this book and be enlightened . . .

This book was recommended to me (a male) by a PhD candidate (female) in enology (wine studies) in response to my locating and handing her a somewhat-difficult-to locate copy of James Watson's admittedly painful-to-read but otherwise sincere memoir of the Cambridge scene surrounding the elucidation of the structure of DNA by two guys and a gal. I searched extensively for the McClintock book, out of loyalty to my friend, read it, and found it enormously informative, lyrically sustaining and theoretically stimulating, but ultimately frustrating as a coherent book because it really wasn't a conscienciously documented biography, its "scientific" diagrams of meiosis/mytosis and the corn cycle were confusing, it mixed basic explanations with unexplained terminology, and its theoretical claims concerning the whole organism weren't really thought through - the alleged necessity of including cytogenetic, holistic evidence was by its own revelations undermined by the conclusion that the self-regulation of genes was entirely genetic, rather than influenced by the cytologic or protein-containing environment. I simply don't know who this book was written for - perhaps "the widest possible audience." Conclusion: this book, full of wonderful anecdote, compelling presentation of genetic theory and its historical development, and terifically stimulating discussion of the nature of scientific and gender-limited communication, is ultimately marred by an apparent impatience to bring it to press (and profitability and reputation-enhancing publication) without due regard to biographical standards, clear integration of tri-partite intent (biography, feminist panegyric, popular science), and fundamental clarity of presentation. I learned from it, but grudgingly.

All in all, this was not a bad book. It contained valuable information on the life of Barbara McClintock. For any of you not familiar, she is a geneticist who devoted her life to studying corn plants. She discovered transposable elements (jumping genes) which won her the nobel prize. Her work is inspiring, and this book has fairly good coverage of the details, but not the best. Still one I will add to my library.

Imagine being devalued simply because you are a woman in a man's career at a time when that made you an oddity. Then imagine having a mind brilliant enough to identify and understand transposable elements at a time when your science is so far ahead of everyone else's work that they cannot understand you or take you seriously. Put those two factors together and imagine how much confidence and courage it took for her to stick with her studies of maize genetics until everyone else caught up with her. Even if you're not interested in her science, you can't read this book and not be inspired by the woman. Dr. McClintock is my hero on many levels.

I chose this book to begin my Gender and Science class because it deals with language in more than one scientific field. Keller helped open my students' eyes to gendered language they were previously unaware of. The early chapters were easy to read but conceptually challenging for a class full of science majors. The later chapters use more technical (scientific) language and were perhaps not appropriate for my class. As we went on to read the work of other feminist scholars, the students began to recognize that in places Keller's analysis is inadequate (though essential) -- some of my students felt this was frustrating, but I thought it was really good for them. Overall, it was a good experience for my students and I would use it again, though I might not use as many of the later chapters.

This is a very concise and readable historical review of the gene concept from its origins in the nineteenth century to the live debate which is taking place now due to some fascinating work done by cutting edge contemporary researchers. Keller is an excellent writer and a thought provoking thinker. Her analysis is thorough but easily accessible by anyone with a high school knowledge of the biological sciences. It's not ground breaking philosophy of science but it's a refreshing change from the kind of superficial analysis of this trendy issue provided by the mass media. An excellent weekend read for the thirsty mind.

An excellent introduction to its subject. The book provides a clear explanation of the idea of the gene and how genes "work". I particularly like the focus on the history of genetics, showing how the research inspired by the fruitful idea of the 'gene' leads us to the conclusion that the very concept has outlived its time. The importance of issues involving genetics--biotechnology, explanations of 'genetic' differences among people, patents on life forms, etc.--require the average citizen to make a little effort to understand the science involved. This book provides a good introduction to those issues and to some of the complexities. For example, if genes don't exist, then what are private companies trying to patent? The book is a short, accessible window on some of these questions.

It is quite telling that shortly after this book's release, the scientific community was humbled by the relevation that the human genome is made up of about 1/3 the number of genes previously thought. Keller deconstructs the very notion of a thing called a gene, and instead presents to us a molecular world where vast networks of processs interact to produce the phenomena convenionally attributed to genes.

Even better, she presents her critique within a historical context that allows the reader to see how the current myopic model of gene primacy came to be, and how information conflicting with that model has very gradually moved from the periphery toward the center of mainstream genetics research.

Overall, I found the book to be well-written and sobering with respect to the parade of biological and behavioral attributes and conditions attributed to these things called genes.

I was rather disappointed in this book. Keller's view of 'explanation' is that it is relative to the needs of each particular culture and their historical time (p. 5). As such, she does not really critique or analyze the various historical concepts to any degree. Essentially, she presents what happened, and who did it, and how some things fell in or out of favor at a given time.

The result is that this book is essentially a narrative of approximately the last century of the history of biology. In that regard, it does succeed somewhat at attempting to condense the efforts of 100+ years of biology into about 300 pages. That is why I gave it two stars.

However, as Keller is a MIT philosopher of science and also trained in theoretical physics, I had expected more analytic depth, and some kind of "edge" - some thesis or thread or some other kind of thematic reason for her to be telling us all this history. Even on the most fundamental question of biology, "what is life?", Keller equivocates, calling it "a historical question, answerable only in terms of the categories that we as human actors choose to honor, and not in logical, scientific or technical terms." (p.294) Indeed, she does not even mention Schrodinger's 1943 lecture, "What is Life?"

The chapters on AI/AL are quite weak, focusing heavily on cellular automata (she mentions Wolfram several times). These tinker-toy computer games are about as close to life as a simulation of an earthquake is to an actual earthquake, in my opinion. Keller, however, describes computer simulations as being part of the 'revitalized' mathematical biology program.

She recounts the 'original' mathematical biology program as the one primarily led by Rashevsky, but also mentions Waddington and Turing. I find it odd that she did not mention Robert Rosen at all, considering he continued on after Rashevsky. I admit I am an admirer of Rosen's works, but her failure to even mention him seems odd considering she devotes an overly large number of pages to Turing's addition to mathematical biology.

Further, had she read Rosen's _Essays on Life Itself_, she would see that mimetic attempts at creating life with computer simulations is utterly ill-conceived. But, then again, since Keller engages in no analysis anyway, I should not be surprised at this.

Finally, Keller claims she shares some similarity to the philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright in believing that there is no set of universal laws of physics (and hence, in Keller's view, no universal set of laws of biology). Cartwright (who's books I admire) makes a good case for there being ontological reasons for this view (see Cartwright's _The Dappled World_). By contrast, Keller sees it as an epistemological problem, because the world is "irreducibly complex" and because of the "disunity of human interests". (p. 301) I think Keller misconstrues Cartwright completely when Keller contrasts her position with one alleging "an underlying incoherence" to the world. Cartwright never supposed, or proposed, 'incoherence' of nature in her writing; rather, Cartwright attempts to make sense of the ontological basis for the patchwork manner of physical laws.

The title _Making Sense of Life_ is misleading, for this book does no such thing, nor even attempts to cobble together an approach to doing so. It may be worthwhile as a history of efforts in biology, but even in that regard I'd prefer a polemic narrator, rather than this one.

Keller's book is a fascinating read about genetics today, but just as fascinating about the intellectual developments that preceded today's thinking. She appreciates the thrill of the chase, but also provides the longer view, showing how scientific explanations that were satisfying to the scientists of a given day have frequently turned out to have little bearing on subsequent science-as our museums, T. Kuhn and Keller herself show. And the explanatory nuggets that scientists mine, which put science at the head of society's power train, often turn into the dusty errata of ensuing decades for reasons connected with researcher's attitudes. (This seems to be a factor some ambitious scientists resent contemplating.) She tracks the inclination of researchers and thinkers to project intentions on the gene-an ingrained "agentic" factor. Particularly interesting is what happened when physicists (she's one herself) tried to apply their particular skills and world view on biology-it seems that the powerful, overall formulas of physics, so brilliant in particle analysis and thinking about the universe on a grand scale, simply don't reach down to the particular instances of biology (Turing's theoretical description of the development of Drosophilia may be highly elegant and efficient, but as it turns out the fly, like Frank Sinatra, prefers to do it its own way). Keller writes clearly and well about her subject-her book also gives a rundown of future directions for genetic research-but for me the fun is in Keller's tracing how the search for knowledge is shaped differently from era to era; Keller's book gives us a glimpse of the waters that knowledge swims in.