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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 of evolution 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.
Eva Joblonka is Professor at the Cohn
Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and
Ideas at Tel Aviv University. Marion J. Lamb was Senior
Lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London, before
her retirement. Jablonka and Lamb have collaborated on a
number of journal articles and books, including Epigenetic
Inheritance and Evolution (1995).
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