This is an interesting and hopeful time in which to live.... Genes, it turns out, are simple. But the processes of life ... do not yet seem to be. Until we can develop a deep, broad, and sensitive understanding of those processes ... we'll continue to suffer the unintended consequences of alterations.

Hubbell's brief, appealing book provides a pleasant way ...

Customer Reviews:

4 of 5 found this review helpful:
Incorrect information, 2006-03-20
Genetic engineering was not possible before "we knew about genes". The public often confuses genetic engineering with selective breeding, but the author of this type of book has no excuse for doing so.

Selective breeding works exactly the same way as natural selection (aka "survival of the fittest"), with humans providing the selection pressure (deciding which animal or plant is "fittest" - and gets to reproduce).

Genetic engineering involves combining genetic material on the molecular level - allowing combinations that would otherwise be impossible. Genes from fish being spliced into tomato plants to create a more freeze resistant tomato is one example.

Not incidentally, domestic cats (felis catus) originated from species that are about the same size as domestic cats (felis sylvesterus - the European wildcat, and the North African subspecies). No "shrinking" was involved.

It is interesting to note that the effects of selective breeding as practiced by humans "before we knew about genes" is not always as lasting as we might think. For instance, myriad pigeon and poultry breeds exibit an amazing array of variety in color, feathering, and build, (an internet search will provide examples). However, if allowed to breed amongst themselves with no human selection, the offspring will resemble the original "wild" species within a very few generations.




9 of 10 found this review helpful:
Once over very lightly, 2002-12-13
(2 1/2 stars) This is a quick, pleasant, light read that turns out to have very little substance. Hubbell's central thesis appears to be that genetic engineering is nothing to be worried about, since we've been doing genetic engineering - better known as breeding and horticulture - for thousands of years.

There's a good deal to be said for that thesis (as well as a good deal to be said against it), but "Shrinking the Cat" doesn't get around to saying very much of it, since the bulk of the book consists of leisurely digressions. There are a few brief, half-hearted, very elementary science lessons, for those who have forgotten everything they might have heard in high school biology class. They scarcely convey enough information to convey why people ought not be alarmed over "frankenfoods", and certainly not enough information to understand the reasons why (as Hubbell acknowledges) some scientists are nevertheless worried about the implications of genetic engineering. Not a word about the sort of gene-jumping encouraged by certain G.E. techniques (like plasmids), nor about the increasing dangers of monocultures, nor about the potential damage to wild stocks by inadvertent interbreeding with engineered organisms, nor the long term danger posed to food supplies when Monsanto engineers crops to be sterile, so that farmers must return to the corporation for each and every year's supply of seeds. Though she is correct about many of the public's fears being groundless, her book will not be of any appreciable use in helping anyone understand the real technical or policy issues in any depth.

If you aren't expecting to learn anything serious, though, her randomly chosen facts about the history of domestication, concentrating on the beneficial development of corn, silkworms, cats, and apples, are sufficiently diverting to justify the short time it will take to browse through them. It's nice to get a two-page spread showing just where the Silk Roads ran; to be told just when and where Golden Delicious and Macintosh apples first turned up; to learn that the Egyptian word for cat was "miaw", and that Johnny Appleseed was a devout Swedenborgian, with a knapsack full of other such agreable trivia.

2 of 8 found this review helpful:
Not persuasive, 2002-11-16
By reading the prologue I assumed the author was going to ease a reader's concerns about "FrankenFoods." Instead, it turned into a history book, detailing how our first bio-engineered foods and species came about. It did not address some of the questions I had hoped an advocate for today's technology would challenge: about commodifying seeds used the world over, and forcing people to use them by removing those that are unpatented; about allergies and the need for labeling. In short, I thought it avoided the issues I hoped to consider.

5 of 6 found this review helpful:
A Fascinating Read, 2002-05-12
This is a wonderful book. I was fascinated from cover to cover. I have never read this author before and went right out and got more of her books. Many of my friends responded to my enthusiasm by telling me that had known and loved her writing for years. How could I have missed it?
The book is very well written and clearly very well researched. It captures your attention and holds it.
The author has very cleverly chosen to illustrate her subject with three species that have changed because of their connection with humans. By limiting her scope, she is able to cover her subject thoroughly. I was fascinated from start to finish.

5 of 5 found this review helpful:
Lots of fun facts seen in a new light, 2002-04-09
I have to admitt that I first picked up this book because the title jumped out at me, but I'm glad I did. Shrinking the Cat is a wonderful little book crammed full of the sort of lucious tidbits of scientific knowlege that I love. As I read the book I just couldn't wait to work the ideas I was picking up into conversations with my friends. This is one of those books that can make you look at things you already know in a whole new light, and that is a rare thing. I already knew a lot of the facts that Hubbell covered in this book, but I had not looked at them the way Hubbell does. I really enjoyed the way she wove the history of Man's creation of Silkworms, Domestic Cats, and Apples in to a single story tied together the Silk Road linking Asia and Europe.