Evil Genes

Have you ever met a person who left you wondering, How could someone be so twisted? So evil? Prompted by clues in her sisters diary after her mysterious death, author Barbara Oakley takes the reader inside the head of the kinds of malevolent people you know, perhaps all too well, but could never understand.

Starting with psychology as a frame of reference, Oakley uses cutting-edge images of the working brain to provide startling
support for the idea that evil people act the way they do mainly as the result of a dysfunction. In fact, some deceitful, manipulative,
and even sadistic behavior appears to be programmed geneticallysuggesting that some people really are born to be
bad. But there are unexpected fringe benefits to evil genes. We
may not like thembut we literally cant live without them.

Oakley deftly ties together the big picture implications of
revolutionary neuroscientific and genetic discoveries, showing
the eerily similar behavioral tics of Mao, Stalin, Hitler, and Slobodan
Milosevic. The dramatic recent scientific findings presented in Evil Genes shed light not only on dictators far afield, but on politics at home, as well as business, religion, and everyday life. In fact, history itself has been shaped by the strange confluence of genes and environment that science is just now beginning to understand.

Oakley links the latest findings of molecular research to a wide array of seemingly unrelated historical and current phenomena,
from the harems of the Ottomans and the chummy jokes of Uncle Joe Stalin, to the remarkable memory of investor Warren Buffett. Throughout, she never loses sight of the personal
cost of evil genes as she unravels the mystery surrounding her
sisters enigmatic lifeand death. Evil Genes is a tour de force of popular science writing that brilliantly melds scientific research with intriguing family history and puts both a human and a scientific face to evil.

well-written and organized and carefully researched. Even though it includes some fairly complex scientific explanations, these sections are well-written and understandableI recommend this insightful and helpful book to anyone who deals with 'difficult people' in their work or in their personal relationships.
-Living the Scientific Life, a SEED ScienceBlog, reviewed by GrrlScientist, March 27, 2009