Steven Rose offers a response to those enthusiasts of the gene who insist that all aspects of human life are in our genes and the inevitable consequences of natural selection. He argues that life depends on the elaborate web of interactions that occur within cells, organisms and ecosystems, in which DNA plays a part among many. If we are to understand life, we must recapture an understanding of the entire organism and its trajectory through time and space - it is these trajectories that Rose calls "lifelines".