Context is all

Anti-reductionists will enjoy Genetics and the Manipulation of Life: The Forgotten Factor of Context (Lindisfarne, $14.95, ISBN 0 940262 77 0) by Craig Holdredge. This is well-trodden territory, but apart from the odd unconsciously funny lapse—”The feet we walk on when we are seven are not the ones we inherited”—his argument, that genes and organisms can only be understood in the context of their surroundings, is worth repeating.