Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life (Life and...

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 474 pages
• Published by: The MIT Press October 1, 2006
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0262600692
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0262600699
• Book Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Weighs: 1.4 pounds

Product Review
"An individual's personal experience can influence the characteristics of his or her offspring. Some of the ways in which this happens would have seemed heretical in the past. Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb's stimulating new book successfully challenges some of the old orthodoxies. I recommend it warmly to anybody with a serious interest in developmental and evolutionary biology."
—Sir Patrick Bateson, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, author of Design for a Life: How Behavior and Personality Develop

"As this important book by Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb shows, the twentieth-century 'neo-Darwins' told the evolutionary story in their own particular way, and some of the richnes of evolution that their forebear had described fell into neglect."
— The New Republic

"Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb have been challenging orthodoxy and promoting heresy in genetics and evolution for twenty years. Their systematic and comprehensive perspective on genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbolic inheritance in evolution is backed up with detailed empirical data, illustrated in a wide survey of phenomena, and presented in clear and forthright prose. Engaging illustrations as well as instructive and entertaining philosophical dialogues help make Evolution in Four Dimensions accessible to students and interested general readers. Those intent on following the path of genetic orthodoxy will now have to work harder than ever to ignore evolution's other three dimensions."
—James Griesemer, Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Davis

"There have been rumblings for some time to the effect that the neo-Darwinian synthesis of the early twentieth century is incomplete and due for a major revision. . . . Evolution in Four Dimensions is the most recent addition to this genre, and contributes yet another valuable perspective to the discussion."
— Massimo Pigliucci, Nature

"With courage and verve, and in a style accessible to general readers, Jablonka and Lamb lay out some of the exciting new pathways of Darwinian evolution that have been uncovered by contemporary research."
—Evelyn Fox Keller, MIT, author of Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors and Machines

Product Description
Ideas about heredity and evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. New findings in molecular biology challenge the gene-centered version of Darwinian theory according to which adaptation occurs only through natural selection of chance DNA variations. In Evolution in Four Dimensions, Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb argue that there is more to heredity than genes. They trace four "dimensions" in evolution—four inheritance systems that play a role in evolution: genetic, epigenetic (or non-DNA cellular transmission of traits), behavioral, and symbolic (transmission through language and other forms of symbolic communication). These systems, they argue, can all provide variations on which natural selection can act. Evolution in Four Dimensions offers a richer, more complex view of evolution than the gene-based, one-dimensional view held by many today. The new synthesis advanced by Jablonka and Lamb makes clear that induced and acquired changes also play a role in evolution.

After discussing each of the four inheritance systems in detail, Jablonka and Lamb "put Humpty Dumpty together again" by showing how all of these systems interact. They consider how each may have originated and guided evolutionary history and they discuss the social and philosophical implications of the four-dimensional view of evolution. Each chapter ends with a dialogue in which the authors engage the contrarieties of the fictional (and skeptical) "I.M.," or Ifcha Mistabra—Aramaic for "the opposite conjecture"—refining their arguments against I.M.'s vigorous counterarguments. The lucid and accessible text is accompanied by artist-physician Anna Zeligowski's lively drawings, which humorously and effectively illustrate the authors' points.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology) (Hardcover) The Grand Synthesis of Mendelism and Darwinism, involving such greats as Haldane, Fisher, Wright, Maynard Smith, Mayr, Hamilton, Dawkins, Dobzhansky and many more, is one of the greatest achievements of modern science. Like every great theory, the Grand Synthesis has had its prominent critics, but most of the charges laid against it have failed to take root. By the 1970's and 1980's such critics were widely dismissed as crackpots and minds were closed against their ideas. Subtitling their 1995 book "The Lamarckian Dimension" was about as in-your-face a flaunt on orthodoxy imaginable, and I was surprised that the book turned out to be quite a credible review of our understanding of epigenetic inheritance. Their new book is on the same topic, but is much more considerate of the reader, mature, and self-assured than the author's previous foray. Genetic (DNA), epigenetic (non-DNA chemical), behavioral (learning/assimilating), and symbolic (language, theory) information transmission are important in many levels of biological organization, from the structure of the cell to the social organization of masses of ants and humans. This much was clearly laid out in a number of recent books, including those of Maynard Smith and Szathmary, Keller, Michod, Durham, Boyd and Richerson, and others. But, this book is unique in being both accessible to the interest lay reader and having great breadth, covering many of the important levels in "multi-level selection." I remember the first time it hit me that the problem of regulating the behavior of errant cells in a multi-cellular organism is the same, in principle, as regulating the behavior of an individual member of a social species. I also remember clearly when it first occurred to me that all of evolutionary theory consists of models of information transmission and behavior modification across time. Both of these are well illustrated in this book, sometimes in an almost poetic manner. It is common for objectors to the Grand Synthesis to have some ideological agenda, such a Marxism, Post-Modernism, or Transcendental Holism, to put in the place of evolutionary theory. It is a great relief to find authors who express the new age of evolutionary biology without falling into these common traps. It just tells the truth, unembellished, but with a light tone.