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Evolution in Four Dimensions Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb
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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 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. |
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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'
point. Eva Jablonka 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 |
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