Survival of the Sickest Book Report Due Date 02/04/08

Moalem, Sharon. Survival of the Sickest. New York, NY. HarperCollins: 2007

I picked this book through a friend that was doing a book report on it 2 weeks ago and I decided to do this week's book report on Survival of the Sickest as well. It is an informational book with ties to medicinal techniques used in history up to recent discoveries of how the human body and evolution works.

Survival of the Sickest doesn't have any particular plot except that it goes through one humanitarian issue after another dealing with evolution.

As with characters there is none except those that are told as examples in part of the problem of human evolution.

I found this book to be very interesting, partly because it is so similar to Freakonomics, one of my favorite books i've read all time and i think just because of the fact that Survival of the Sickest is written in that sense made the book that much better. The book taught me that human evolution is no longer what it is assumed to be, random change in one in a million odds, but that it is constantly changing and that genetics can change no matter how much it is embedded in to your being.

Also, the book using actual events and historical references tied to the revolutionary discoveries with evolution and medicine makes it an important book that i think everyone should read.

Dr. Sharon Moalem, the auther of the book isn't well known, I don't know anything about her except that she is a doctor, but if another book was written by her, i think i would pick it up just because this book has a lasting impression on the way you see yourself in the world, like freakonomics.