Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior

by Jonathan Weiner

Hardcover, 1999

Status

Available

Call number

591.5

Genres

Collection

INACS

Publication

Knopf (1999), Edition: 1, 320 pages

Description

The story of a biologist's search for the foundations of behavior. Looking over the shoulder of some of the premier scientists in the field, biologist Weiner takes us into their laboratories to show us how pieces of DNA actually shape behavior. He focuses on the work of Seymour Benzer, who, decades ago, with James Watson and Francis Crick, helped to crack the genetic code. Then, in a simple experiment using a few test tubes, a light bulb, and 100 fruit flies, Benzer invented the genetic dissection of behavior. Now we see how he and his students find and study genes that build our inner clocks, genes that shape the way we love, and genes that decide what we can (or cannot) remember. These breakthroughs help explain secrets of human behavior and may lead to advance treatments for behavioral disorders ranging from rage to autism to schizophrenia.--From publisher description.… (more)

Media reviews

Nature

Weiner's book is well written and fun to read, although the question arises, who is the audience? This is scientific reportage and as such should not be expected to provide in-depth analysis of tenets and conclusions. Therefore, those who wish to find a critical assessment of neurogenetics should

look elsewhere.

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— 1 more

The New York Times

Weiner's book is a fascinating history of the effort, led by Benzer, to find the specific genes that regulate time, love and memory in fruit flies and therefore to demonstrate something larger about the connection between genes and behavior. Benzer was dealing with what Weiner calls one of the

ultimate questions, like the origin of the universe.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member FKarr

amusing, informative, and somewhat melancholy biography of Seymour Benzer; nice history of early genetics and genetic mapping

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LibraryThing member breic2

This is a bad book. The author quotes philosophers gratuitously throughout, filling pages with it and often putting together three or four random quotes in one paragraph. He does not to understand what he is writing about. He seems to believe that the research he is writing about, focused on

Benzer's study of fruit fly genetics at Caltech, is deeply connected to philosophical questions. For example, when he comes to the discovery of a gene that regulates fruit fly sleep cycles, he waxes rhapsodically on how molecular biology has discovered the nature of time. He ends by talking about how understanding genetic effects on behavior will let us solve the problem of free will. However, this is all clearly nonsense. None of the people he is writing about believe in any of it, so he is always reduced to quoting more random philosophers.

The book is useful for its story of the history of early behavioral genetics research, but it does an extremely poor job describing the progression of the research techniques and we are left with almost no idea of what the current research situation is.

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LibraryThing member SeriousGrace

time, Love, Memory is Seymour Benzer's story. While Charles Darwin was obsessed with finding the origins of species, Benzer was obsessed with figuring out the origins of behavior. He dedicated his research to finding out the riddle of both animal and human behavior. He wanted to dig deeper into the

concepts of nature and nurture, knowing that life was a balance of both. The the diea of reading a book about genes, fruit flies and DNA sounds boring, don't worry. Weiner's style of writing adds a warm and humorous texture to the otherwise scientific plot.

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LibraryThing member pbirch01

Jonathan Weiner takes a well known personality in science and introduces him to the rest of the world in a very pragmatic way in "Time, Love, Memory". Seymour Benzer is a scientist studying fruit fly genetics and Weiner is able to tell his story as well as tell the story of the development of

modern genetics in a way that is easy for all to understand. He does this through steady character development and patient detailing or research and methods. A good book for anyone interested in science, history or the fusion of the two.

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LibraryThing member Cheryl_in_CC_NV

I've read books on evolutionary biology and other sciences, but for some reason found this one a little confusing. Maybe my natural biases of the role of genes in behavior influenced how I understood the progression of the research's varying interpretations of the nature-nurture debate. Still, not

a difficult or long read, and recommended to anyone with a natural interest.

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