Will we be able to move past our stalled adaptation to Pleistocene life, our needlessly complicated body, and our excessive lode of useless DNA – among other things? Well, we’ve survived up until this point against some incredible odds and our own faulty designs. I enjoyed this look at a selection of the things about us that ought to have eliminated us eons ago along with the other Hominini and marveled that we’ve made it to the stage where we are able to write and read books about ourselves. B

I found this to be both an informative and entertaining read. While the author doesn’t delve very deep into details (each subject in each chapter would probably warrant a book of its own), and although I wish there had been more developed explanations at times, I’m also aware that one book couldn’t tackle everything in one go—and he nevertheless provides enough information for a reader to go on research some more later on a given topic.

I already knew some of the ‘human errors’ presented in the book (such as junk DNA and mutations), but definitely not others, such as why we get so many headcolds (our sinuses placed the wrong way), why we do actually make our own B12 vitamin but can’t use it (same with other vitamins—and this is why we need a varied diet, with all the problems it entails), or why our ways of procreating are, in fact, very inefficient compared to those of other mammals. So, discovering all this was fascinating, and the explanations provided also satisfy the unavoidable ‘why’ questions that rose immediately after (I’m very much a why person; every physician who attended me since I’ve learnt to speak can testify to this). For instance, we lost the ability to make our own vitamin C, whose absence will lead to scorbut and kill us; but the mutation that led to this defect wasn’t erased through evolution because it happened in areas where fruit was easily available, and a diet of fruit would compensate for our rotten GULO gene… until the latter stuck, happily passed around to descendants.

I liked that some explanations went a bit further: it’s not only about this or that physical defect, but also about how we’re still wired for survival techniques and reactions dating back to prehistoric times, and how some of our modern behaviours are thus impacted. An extended example would be gambling, and why people in general have irrational reactions such as ‘now that I’ve lost ten times in a row, I -must- win, there’s no other way’ (though statistically, you could lose an 11th time), or will bet more and more when they’re on winning streak, and risk losing it all or more, rather than save those earnings. Those would go back to the way we interpreted situations to learn from them and survive (man sees a lion in a bush, concludes bushes often hide a lion, and then avoids bushes). Same with optical illusions, due to our brains’ ability to ‘fill in the blanks’.

On the side of actual errors, I noticed a few (redundant words or phrases, that a last editing pass would probably remove). Nothing too bad, though.

Conclusion: Due to the lack of deeper details and general simple writing, this book is probably more for laypeople rather than people with a strong scientific background—but even then, there’s still a chance that some of the ‘human errors’ may still be of interest to them.

We;; researched and really interesting. I've enjoyed this book, it answered lots of questions that I had about why certain things about the human body and how it operates,

Anyone who knows me (or follows me on Instagram) knows I'm obsessed with anatomy (and by extension to a lesser extent, physiology). It borders on pathological. I have anatomical charts and skulls as decoration all over my apartment, and an entire bookshelf devoted to various anatomy texts across a lot of timespans. (But to be fair, I was a TA for college anatomy classes for five years, so it's not like it's a completely random interest). So when this showed up in my Netgalley options, I snagged it. I will read anything pertaining to anatomy.

I was pleasantly surprised. Usually, I know 99% of information in these types of books. But, this one focused on the flaws of our anatomy and physiology, so it was a new spin and dove deeply into things I had certainly thought about in my years of biology coursework, but had never really investigated.

I also like that this is generally accessible, but there were a few issues. It could have had better editing (I found myself rolling my eyes every time he said something to the extent of "no engineer would design a structure this way", because it happens at least three times per chapter). Early on in the book (chapter two-ish? or maybe the latter part of chapter one?) I was really annoyed by his sentence structure, too. It was overly simple, and reminded me a lot of the pre-meds I teach who are brilliant scientists but do admittedly struggle with the flow of their writing, particular non-academic/non-scientific writing. While this is a book about science, it's targeted to the average Joe, so there were opportunities for improvement. But, it got better as it went on (or I got used to it and blocked it out. Not sure which). There's also times where he gets a little more technical than I expected, particularly around some of the gene stuff. I've have my share of genetics courses and I was able to follow along, but there were some things that made me really think back to my college classwork to remember and understand, which for many readers may be bordering on too scientific. But generally, he does a nice job of explaining complex topics for the non-science reader.

I also strangely found the section on behavioral economics, particularly the "why we suck at managing currency and gamble away our money" fascinating. I'm glad that was included.

Generally, a solid read. I'd definitely recommend it to my students (and anyone with a passing interest in the human body), pre-meds and non-pre-meds alike.

Thanks to Netgalley for the free review copy!

Human Errors got burned badly by expectations. When I saw the title and blurb on Netgalley, it suggested a very specific and narrow focus to me. I was looking forward to some very medical discussions, even some interesting evolutionary discussions. Unfortunately, the bulk of this book did not focus on the things I was expecting.

That's not to say that the opening chapters didn't have some fascinating medical and evolutionary discussions, because they did. I loved learning about the eye and its structure, for example. That was fascinating and even moreso because this eye type evolved twice and in wildly different animals. There was talk of our wrist and ankle bones and other structures that seem foolish or redundant or just poorly designed. Sometimes it was accompanied by discussions of evolution and why certain things might have been selected for even when they were bad (like sickle cell anemia and its relationship with malaria). These parts were my favorites.

But, when the book began discussing things in terms of how an engineer might design and then arguing that something was an error because an engineer wouldn't design it that way, it gradually began to lose me. The curious discussions about the flaws in the human reproductive system were interesting, but the author never makes the kinds of intellectual jumps I would have expected. The discussion on out digestive tract, our diet needs, and how evolution ended up selecting things that could be considered detrimental (like that we can't make all the enzymes, proteins, etc that we need to survive) was interesting. But again, it lacked any real discussion about how or why this may have been selected for. He doesn't even explain why this is an error beyond the idea that it is just poorly engineered.

And then he gets into ways the brain is fooled. It was at that point that I mostly checked out. That isn't a defect or wrong or whatever you want to call it unless you want to argue, as he does, that all humans should be perfectly logical at all times. And what exactly is the definition of perfectly logical, you might ask? Well, it appears to be what the author thinks is logical.

In the end, it appears that the book was little more than a set up for his epilogue: a discussion on whether this is other life in the universe and whether we will adapt or kill ourselves. I was deeply disappointed because I wanted way more of those opening bits and way less of the judgmental and, in my opinion, arguable discussions in the lat roughly 2/3 of the book.

I did learn some interesting things, notably about the eye, and am grateful for it. In that sense, the book was good. But the rest of it seemed difficult to accept at face value when so many value judgments were being put on it as opposed to just facts. I did like the illustrations that accompanied some of the examples.

HUMAN ERRORS

I’ve always thought of the human body as a wonder of biology. Surely, it isn’t perfect; yet everything appears to just be...where it’s supposed to be, and the sum total of what our bodies are capable of certainly outweighs their many limitations.

However, reading Nathan Lents’ book Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, From Pointless Bones to Broken Genes gave me pause to reconsider this perspective.

For starters, to say that our bodies are wonders of biology is incomplete–they are equally wonders of evolution, too. Consequently, if one looks closer, from an evolutionary perspective our bodies are chock full of anomalies.

Such is the point of Human Errors: Lents goes into detail about all these “mistakes” that abound in the human body. We have bones that serve no apparent purpose, for instance. We require vitamins because our bodies cannot produce them. Our genetic code replicates plenty of non-functioning genes. Our immune systems often go haywire, in many instances even attacking the body itself. Etcetera, etcetera.

Human Errors shines as Lents takes readers through these odd characteristics of the human body, many of which cannot be entirely explained by evolution. Indeed, it’s almost impossible to miss the glee with which Lents expounds on the subject, adeptly taking readers on a crash course on what evolution is supposed to mean (and, by necessity, what it doesn’t). These are certainly the best parts of the book, which very late also branches out to specific quirks of human behavior. This latter departure does not quite hit the same high notes as the rest of the book, but only because many other authors have already covered the same ground in their own work.

Besides, everyone already knows the human race is a little loopy to begin with. But I digress.

It’s particularly interesting how Lents walks readers through evolutionary perspectives for these biological and behavioral mistakes. It’s precisely this frame of reference that allows him to classify such-and-such characteristic as a “mistake,” especially when that characteristic appears like a dead-end (junk DNA and excess bones come to mind). On the one hand, it makes for a convincing thought process, and one that can arguably be applied in other fields, too. On the other hand, I couldn’t help but remain even a little bit skeptical, contemplating that just because we couldn’t explain these peculiarities didn’t necessarily make them mistakes. Absence of evidence of underlying reasons or purpose isn’t evidence of absence, after all.

It’s when I realized that I was actively evaluating Lents’ explanations that I came to understand just how much I was enjoying the book. I’m sure others will, too.

In sum, I have to say that Human Errors is a little gem: a science book that will make readers appreciate all that is—and is not—quite right with the human body.

We’ve all heard countless ways our bodies are marvels of engineering, how the various systems work so well and are miracles, from the cellular level to the observable. But in this book, Nathan Lents goes the other direction and explains many ways in which the human body is not designed so well. It’s an exploration of how our bodies have evolved over thousands of years from early ancestors that needed certain functions to now when our bones, our brains, our very DNA show signs of not needing those functions anymore, for example — and in many cases, those early still-remaining designs now hamper us from ideal functioning.

Lents puts design flaws of the human body into three categories: first, “aspects of our design evolved in a different world than the one we now inhabit.” What worked for us then doesn’t work now. Second includes flaws of “incomplete adaptation.” Lents cites how the knee changed over the years as people began walking upright but “not all the kinks were worked out.” Third, some of our defects are just from the “limits of evolution.” Evolution has done some amazing things over thousands of years, but by its very nature, since it changes just one tiny trait at a time, it can only do so much. The body, Lents says, would be different if it had been designed all at once for what we need in our environment today.

A few examples: I knew that our retina gets an image upside-down and our brain inverts it for us to see right-side-up. But that’s not necessarily a flaw. What is a flaw, and what I did not know, is that the receptors on our retina are essentially backwards, and the way they are fed through our retina to the brain creates a blind spot.

While we all are aware of the bad design of our breathing and food tubes being together (who hasn’t choked plenty of times over their lives?), which Lents discusses, many of us probably don’t realize that the laryngeal nerve (which helps us make and control sounds) doesn’t just come down from the brain into the neck: it actually is packaged with the vagus nerve, which goes down the spinal cord down into the upper chest, loops under the aorta and goes back up to the neck. It’s an “anatomical oddity” that seems to have no functional reason.

And don’t even mention the fact that humans have to eat a complex diet to get the many nutrients we need (that our bodies can no longer make on their own) from many sources. Most other species have no need to eat more than a few basic things; their bodies make the nutrients they require. Evolution did us a disservice in the dietary department.

This is a fun little book, with the science explained in simple layman’s terms so anyone can appreciate the flaws the author has outlined. It’s educational and entertaining. I’ve been sharing some of the items listed with my family as I’ve read. Those who enjoy human anatomy and the workings of the brain and of DNA (do you know how much junk is in the human genome?) will be particularly satisfied with Lents’ collection of human flaws.

This was an interesting read with a lot of information about quirky things that have happened during the course of human evolution. Some chapters were more interesting than others, but overall, I enjoyed it.

I received a free Kindle copy of Human Errors by Nathan H. Lents courtesy of Net Galley  and  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus pages.

I requested this book as the desription sounded fascinating. It is the first book by Nathan H. Lents that I have read.

This book is a very good read. The subtitle of the book provides a good synopsis - a panorama of our glitches, from pointless bones to broken genes. The author presents the subjects in an easy to understand and read fashion. While it addresses how hard it is for evolution to correct itself once a change has been made (whether purposeful or by accident), a little more of the science and/or research behind it would have been helpful.

That said, I do recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in why our bodies are not the perfect biological machine (and far from it).

Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes by Nathan Lents admits from the get-go that there are more than enough books about how great and wondrous the human body is. Lents takes a whole different tack: how human bodies have huge design flaws, from big system like our bones to the DNA in every cell.

Why do we have a blind spot in each eye? It is because the retina is wired backwards. Why are the drains for our sinuses in the wrong place? To make room for our oversized brains. Is it really a good idea to take in food through the same opening that we use for breathing? Lents thinks definitely not. The wrist has way too many bones, grouped “...like a pile of rocks,” a turn of phrase that produces a vivid mental image.

Human Errors brings up ideas about vitamins that I had never remotely considered. Why don’t dogs and other animals need vitamin C in their diets? Because they can make it themselves. Why can’t we? Because, through a genetic mutation, we lost that ability. Minerals, which always have to be consumed, cause us problems because we have trouble absorbing them. Calcium absorption gets worse as we age, and iron deficiency is the number one nutritional deficiency both in the US and in the world. Obesity is also a natural fallout from poor design.

Focusing in on human DNA and running the numbers, Lents demonstrates that DNA are enormously wasteful, with 97% of DNA not “saying”anything. These include strings called pseudo genes, one of which causes us to not be able to generate our own vitamin C. Other strands of DNA are discarded bits of ancient viruses, and even pieces of our own genetic material, copied over and over like an office printer run amok.

There are a myriad of problems with human reproductive systems, from the fact that the Fallopian tubes are not even connected to the ovaries (!) to the fact the sperm can only turn in one direction. Autoimmune diseases are just ongoing mistakes made by your body, plain and simple. Allergic reactions to poison ivy and bee stings fall in this same category.

Memory is another area where we have big problems. Given only some information about an event, our brains try to fill in the gaps. In the case of gambling, our imperfect brains try to find patterns where there are none. Kudos to Human Errors for shining a light in dark places, providing me with new insights into how the body works (and doesn’t).

Some Problems with Human Evolution

Evolution is a marvelous process. It allowed humans to reach status of the preeminent species on earth, but it came with a cost. Evolution is driven by mutations. They create new genes that allow for additional functionality, but it’s impossible to get rid of the old patterns. This leads to problems like backwards retinas, bad knees, swallowing and breathing through the same narrow channel and more.

The book is witty and although it presents a great deal of technical information, the presentation is clear and amusing, suitable for a general audience. I enjoyed the book and learned about some problems with the human body I had never heard of before. I didn’t agree with everything he said, but that made the book more fun.

The chapters are relatively short and the illustrations make it easy to understand some of the technical discussion. The notes section is extensive and whether you agree with his ideas or not provides references for future study.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in biology or nutrition. There is a good chapter on why humans need such a varied diet based on some evolutionary problems.

I received this book from Net Galley for this review.

-Netgalley Review-

This is a sharp and clear read; I have never read anything by this author before, but I was interested in medical writings, and tales of the human body intrigues me as a layman with no medical expertise. This book offers a broad look into the defect of the human body, the imperfect and haphazard nature of natural evolution, and what the future have in store for us as individuals and as a collective.

The book describes humans as, to paraphrase lightly, imperfect creatures that are not exempt from evolution’s grasps. Just because of the efficiency in curing preexisting ailments and improving living conditions had skyrocketed, humanity has yet to reach past evolution as we are change with each passing generation. The author delivered on the premise and presented a well-reasoned conclusion that humanity have both the ability to better oneself and the ability to bring forth mutually assured destruction. The writing was not confusing nor is it filled with jargon, yet it conveys the point and delves deeply into analysing what exactly, biologically speaking, we are and whether we are truly the best evolution can do.

Would recommend to readers interested in Medical sciences and and/or philosophy in relation humans especially with the advent of transhumanism and the influx of revolutionary medical techniques being developed at this very moment such as CRISPR or prothetic limbs that would ultimately be more powerful than our biological ones.. This is an easy read with simple and often humorous language that is bound to fascinate.

Human Errors by Nathan H Lents is an interesting and very readable look and human frailties through the lens of evolutionary biology. I found the subject matter enlightening with a "WOW! I didn't know that!" factor. Highly recommend!

The science behind our bodies’ imperfections
No thinking person can escape awe at the wonders of the human body and how smoothly it works(most of the time), coordinating so many parts, from muscles to neurons to blood cells, to produce our minds, our skills, and our physical achievements. You have probably heard this theme before, so in Human Errors biology professor Nathan Lents delves into the other side of the human body: the parts that do not work as well as we might have hoped or, in many cases, as well as they work in other animals. He explores elements that most people would agree are problems, like our pesky knees. He also explains other problems that people know only too well but whose cause they do not realize, like the fact that our mucus drains are located near the top of our sinus cavities. He introduces still others that we may not be aware of at all, like the fact that our retinas are installed backwards and what this means to our vision. And these are all in the first chapter!
Human Errors is a FASCINATING read for the right audience. This is science, and Lents delves into the details of the aspects of our bodies that are not exactly optimal to a degree that some readers will find excessive…and others will find entrancing. You need not be a scientist to enjoy it, but this is definitely a book for science buffs. For example, Lents discusses allergies as an example of a human system gone wrong that is being compounded by well-intentioned social practices, also known as the “hygiene hypothesis”, and he gives us the foundation for allergic reactions:
“A fledging embryo develops immune cells while in utero. The very first thing these cells do is participate in a phenomenon called clonal deletion. Clonal deletion is the process by which the developing immune cells in a fetus are presented with small bits of chewed-up proteins from the fetus’s own body. The immune cells that react to those bits of self-protein are then eliminated; they are “deleted” from the immune system. This process goes on for weeks and weeks, and the goal is to eliminate every single immune cell that has the potential to react to its own body. Only then is the immune system ready for action. “
If this description made you say “Wow”, then you will probably love this book. If it is more than you really wanted to know, then you might be happier with a different choice.
There is a lot of great stuff here, but I would emphasize “a lot”. I do not think this is a good choice for a “binge read” session. For maximum enjoyment, I would recommend a chapter or so at a time. At such doses you will emerge from each session enlightened, stimulated, and with a broadened appreciation for your wonderful human body, even the human errors.

I tore through this fun and fascinating look at human flaws, both physiological and mental, especially enjoying the physiological, since it was almost wholly new to me. Backwards retinas? Incomplete adaptation to walking upright? Extra bones? Broken-down Vitamin C production? The flaws in our thinking were more familiar to anyone who's studied any psychology, but it was still interesting. My family was subjected to many, "Did you know...?"-type comments out of the blue, so I'm sure they're relieved I'm done.

This book is going next to my teenage son, and many thanks to the publisher for the opportunity to review it.

Thank you to netgalley for the advance copy of Human Errors for an honesty review.
Human Erros by Nathan H. Lent is the biology book I wish I had head in school. The authors makes human biology fun, humors and fun.
Several quote that stuck with me because of cancer in the family. “You cannot have sexual reproductions, DNA and cellular life without also having cancer."
My children have eye issues and have to wear glasses so learning about the human eyes was beyond fascinating.
I learned by I get so many sinus infections and the flaw in the design of the human body. Which isn't a flaw but more a reason we are created to have struggles physically.
Humans are so different from the rest of the animal kingdom and again another quote that I loves was.
"It’s survival of the fittest, not the perfect.

My 11 year old son loves this book and can't get enough of it. I can't wait for this to be published to buy a physical copy for my kids.

Really enjoyed this book- it answered lots of questions that I had about why certain things about the human body and how it operates, some things that simply don't make sense.
The research is thorough and the writing is entertaining.
It's helpful to know, fascinating to learn and fund to read. Recommend.

Five stars out of five.
Curiously, a book about the failures of evolution like this wonderfully proves the validity of evolution. Lents, who is an expert in his field, inadvertently perhaps undermines all belief in intelligent design by destroying the "intelligent" part of that argument. We are full of defects, inefficiencies and actual deficiencies due to natural selection's mindless way of evolving us. This book clearly and enjoyably describes these mistakes and along the way teaches a lot about such areas as nutrition, disease and even culture. Especially useful are the elegant illustrations. They aren't elaborate or colorful, but they are beautifully succinct and informative and, better yet, they come out perfectly in the e-book version.
The author ends the book with an eye to the future and I think this somewhat detracts from the effect of the rest of the book and even steps over into species-centered bragging, which was avoided in the rest of the book. But perhaps for most people this won't matter.
If you want to really understand how evolution works and read an engaging and well-written account of how even Mother Nature has messed up, this book would be just the ticket.

Fun book about what can go wrong in the human body

If you are wondering how a book can be fun when discussing something morbid, you should read this book. Nathan Lents describes several built-in flaws in the human body, based on natural selection, where a change doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be a little better than what was there before. This can lead to all sorts of havoc, which Lents discusses in an enjoyable and clear way. His tone is conversational and he uses humor to good effect. I loved the book and recommend it to anyone interested in biology.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes.

To Err is Human

Human Errors is a page-turner of a biology book. Nathan Lents focuses on mistakes, redundancies and weaknesses that make life a constant gamble for humans. From genetic code destruction to pointless bones, overtaxed muscles, meandering nerves and backward designs, the book combines a million years’ worth of wrong choices, errors, flukes and plain bad luck that is the human body. At several points, Lents ventures that no engineer would design such and such a system this way – it’s just wasteful, inefficient or crazy.

The human body is the sum of all its travels through time. It has vestiges of other forms it took, corrupted DNA that was not immediately fatal (so it was able to be passed on) and evolutionary benefits that have outlived their usefulness. The result is a being that needs an outsized amount of care and feeding, technology and medicine. We are the only animal with this need.

-Our sinus cavity drainage (from the top!) gives humans headcolds far more often than any other animal.
-Our backs are optimized for four-legged living.
-Human eyeballs are built backwards, causing a large blindspot in each eye that is more or less overcome by having two eyes and therefore stereo-vision. Cephalopods got our kind of eye right, among the two dozen totally different kinds of eyes, each adapted to the bearers’ environment.
-Our procreation equipment is so inefficient, both mother and child are at risk of death from the act of birth, unlike any other primates. Lents says primates will continue to care for other offspring while giving birth, something unimaginable for women. Cows often barely notice they are giving birth.
-There is an entire a la carte menu of autoimmune diseases unique to humans, and often only to women, for which we have no cures and no idea why they occur. Our own cells attack our systems until they kill us. Another unique feature of humans.

One recurring theme is food. We are both blessed and cursed with the need for a variety of food. Most animals eat the same thing day in and day out all their lives, but have finely balanced metabolisms, because they produce whatever they need internally. Humans need constant interventions with different vitamins, minerals and meds. That humans could subsist and thrive on multiple foods started out as a giant Darwinian advantage. Now that we actually need that variety for a balanced diet, it is a liability. We are the only animal with this need, too. Our DNA is so corrupted we now require this variety and intervention – or die.

Our failing DNA gets its own chapter. The GULO gene in humans is the stub of something that was once very useful. GULO produces vitamin C – just not in humans. Somewhere along the way, an ape had a gene mutation that disabled GULO. It must have lived in an environment filled with citrus, because it didn’t die off, but produced offspring that also had the gene disabled. As animals dispersed from those food sources, scurvy killed off those who had no access to citrus. Today, we have vitamin supplements and imported fruit all year. Lents says our bodies will simply never be able to accidently repair and restore what’s left of GULO to active duty. There are now too many missing factors for such a complex mutation to occur.

“You cannot have sexual reproductions, DNA and cellular life without also having cancer,” Lents says. It is a natural bug in our design. He says there is a 100% chance of developing cancer if something else doesn’t kill you first, because “cell division is dangerous game” and innumerable mutations can trigger uncontrollable tumors.

As he says in the epilogue: “It’s survival of the fittest, not the perfect.”

David Wineberg