Ryan (Virus X), a British physician, attempts to find a common explanation for much in our natural world. Ranging widely from the origin of life to the creation of human civilization and from the origin of sex to the root causes of many mental illnesses, Ryan turns to symbiosis ("an association between different species that persists for a long period") as the natural force responsible for all of this and much more. Additionally, he claims that Darwin and most modern-day "neo-Darwinists" ignore this basic premise of nature. Although there is some interesting information presented—particularly the possibility of diverse genomes interacting directly with one another through viral and bacterial intermediaries—the book's lack of biological and ecological sophistication greatly hampers its argument. Ryan's premise that "today all too many scientists assume that natural selection is the only mechanism of evolution," for example, is overstated. The concept of symbiosis is not nearly as novel as Ryan would have readers believe, and the modern view of evolution—and Darwin's original view as well—is a great deal more complex and interesting than Ryan portrays. (Dec.)
