Cloning for Dummies

I wrote a couple of weeks ago a comment on this blog about THE book to read before commencing any cloning activities. Seeing that a woman have cloned her favourite dog five times over, I feel the need to highlight this literature recommendation one more time, but this time in a more commonly practised language…

The book is called “The Evolution of Sex” (ISBN: 0521293022) and was written by one of the greatest biologists of the last hundred years John Maynard Smith. He explains very throughly in his book why most species nowadays have abandon the strategy of reproducing by cloning in favour of reproducing by sex. Moreover, he looks at the positive and negative sides of both strategies of reproductions, which should supply the reader with some “dos” and “don’ts” before giving in to the urge of cloning the favourite pet or a family member.

The only downside with the book is that Maynard Smith was a brilliant mathematician (it was he that in the 1970s came up with the ESS, the evolutionary biological counterpart to the Nash equilibrium), which shines through by the many and sometimes complex equations in some of the chapters. But it is still possible to grasp the main message without any mathematical schooling. Enjoy!

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