I finally got Jonathan to pull out his undergrad text on genetics for me (it was sitting on the bookshelf with GENETICS written down the spine...duh). It's pretty awesome. It's clearly written and has tons of diagrams and riveting examples. It's nice to read an undergradate text book after having slogged through so many graduate level math text books. It's just less dense and there's a focus on clarity that's refreshing.
Anyways, I hope you'll read along! The book is called Genetics: A Conceptual Approach (second edition) by Benjamin A. Pierce. The ISBN is 0-7167-8881-0 for text only and 0-7167-6836-4 for the text and solutions manual CD. Jon does have a solutions manual that comes with a CD, but I haven't looked at that yet. You might get that too if you're very interested. I looked on Bookfinder.com, and you can find the text book (used) for about $5 including shipping. Amazon seems to have about the same pricing.
I've already read Chapter 9, which is about chromosome mutations. It was really interesting. Did you know wheat has 6 sets of chromosomes while we only have 2? Crazy. I'm now reading Chapter 17 on gene mutations.
The book has clarified a lot of the vague ideas about mutation that I had before. In particular, it's clarified for me the distinction between selective breeding for characteristics in order to accentuate recessive genes versus breeding to select for novel mutations that crop up. I think this distinction is very important for understanding natural selection and evolution.
The book does have a couple chapters devoted to evolution, and I'm excited about reading those, too. I imagine it will cover the precise genetic mechanisms by which natural selection and evolution occur. I imagine those chapters will stick in your craw a little bit, as will all the sprinkled references to evolution in the rest of the book. I hope those things won't get in the way of you seeing this book for what it is: a text book explaining genetics (that is used at one of the best undergrad biology departments in the world). I think that with a better genetic vocabulary, you and I will be able to better debate the evolution issue.
I'm also excited about reading chapter 2 which describes the form and function of chromosomes in detail. I also clearly don't know (or remember?) enough about the stages of meiosis and mitosis (prophase 1?? disadjunction??). So I look forward to reading about those. Also, the shapes of the chromosomes kind of intrigue me. I mean, what a funny shape for something that's basically a really long tape of 4 letters! Why does the DNA wrap itself up in this funny bar shape, and why do two bar shapes connect with each other at a "centromere" to make an X shape? And on another tack completely, if only one X chromosome is read in each of our cells (and the other X chromosome shuts itself down into a "bar body" in women), why does only having one X chromosome give men their distinctive features? There's so much to learn! Very exciting.
Later,
Brandon
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