biological sciences

What an exciting subject! A theory about the dispersal of humanity through the Earth, all who descended from one man -Adam. Honestly presented by a very qualified geneticist. Good humor and "down to Earth" insights throughout. Semi technical yet understandable. Written with the passion of the author, who has analyzed DNA from blood around the world in theorizing that all of mankind originated in Africa some 2000 generations ago. The theory accounts for EVERYBODY alive today. The author accepts the evidence as it comes in, controversial or not - for instance he finds that female genetic markers predate Adam making "Eve" older than "Adam," not exactly biblical.... Who knows: Maybe Well's "Adam" in the book was really Noah.... A good read.

I first heard the author speak at the Smithsonian on the genetic odyssey of mankind, in the best talk I've ever heard, and I go to many talks every year. Then I read the book and watched the two-hour PBS presentation by the same title. The author does a great service by summarizing much scholarship in genetics, archaeology, and linguistics, to paint a family portrait of the human race based on analysis of the Y chromosomes of peoples all over the world--an intriguing story, well told and accessible to the non-specialist, if not the general reader with a minimal background in college biology and biochemistry. The author's sense of humor adds to the delightful tale of mankind's journey. This is the most interesting book I've read since Jared Diamond's best seller, "Guns, Germs, and Steel," and encourages me to read more books in this area. Dr. Wells, who refers to himself in the PBS show as a "lab rat," has done a great service both to his field and to the public by sharing the results of detailed and laborious scientific research with the larger human race whose ancestors are the subject of this fascinating history.

One doesn't learn a lot about evolutionary genetics from this book. When the author talks about how statisticians arrive at a result he does a really poor job of explaining the calculation for a layman. He presents almost nothing at all, just stating results. The book contains a lengthy list of results from many different fields. Most people want to know a lot more about how the various quantities are deduced, even a newspaper article goes more in depth. Science via inductive logic is a little sketchy, but you get the impression that the author doesn't understand that what he studied in grad school is inductive. One receives the impression that the author doesn't question much of anything at all.

This is a book about everything he learned as a post-doc, all the people that he met, and all of their theories. But, I don't think that many people will take anything away from The Journey of Man - it lacks the substance that readers of layman's science books desire.