The light's on, but nobody's home

Matt Ridley is a gifted science writer who specialises in exploring evolutionary themes. The trigger for 'Nature via Nurture' was the media attention given to the Human Genome Project in 2000. Instead of the expected 100,000 genes, the researchers could only identify about 30,000. This leaves humans undistinguished in terms of our genetic library - we have parity with the mouse, less genes than a mustard weed and much less than a rice plant. Questions are being asked about what really makes us human.

David Tyler