Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the...

Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life ... | Eva Jablonka, Marion J. Lamb | A wonderful eye-opener regarding epigentic inheritance

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Evolution in Four ...

	Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life ... Eva Jablonka, Marion J. Lamb The MIT Press, 2006 - 474 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

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.

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The opposite of the opposite conjecture

I loved the book's treatment of genetic and epigenetic inheritance systems (dimensions 1 and 2). I appreciated the discussion of behavioral inheritance systems (dimension 3). I wasn't sold on the fourth dimension (symbolic inheritance systems) being fundamentally different than the third.

All that aside as an undergraduate psych student, without a ton of genetics under my belt, this was an enlightening read.

A wonderful eye-opener regarding epigentic inheritance

I was floored by this book. I've had to abandon (or rather enlarge) the gene-centered view of inheritance and evolution that I'd become comfortable with and embrace this new perspective. Nature is far more complex and subtle than the textbooks would indicate.

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Well written, but unnecessarily long

This book provides a comprehensive but not overly technical survey of our state of knowledge as to how evolution proceeds and, in particular, why change is not totally random. They point out that there is an evolutionary bias to select organisms whose DNA is conducive to evolution, because they are more likely to have "random" mutations which are favorable; that mutation rates increase under stress such as a change in the environment; that the folding properties of DNA insure that it is the more active sections of DNA that are likely to have mutations.

The thrust of this book, however, and the material most likely to be unfamiliar to lay students of the subject, is in support of a neo-Lamarckian viewpoint, in which environment can more directly impact inheritable change. There is one beautiful experiment which illustrates the neo-Larmarckian view, with flies: stress causes genetic mutation resulting, in some flies, in a particular deformity; if these flies are selected for further breeding (as if that mutation were a successful adaptation), and this is done for 16 generations, you finally get flies which have this deformity in the absence of the stressor. The theory is that organisms accumulate genetic differences which do not impact phenotype, in fact phenotypes tend to be insensitive to many mutations, but once there is sufficient environmental stress these genetic differences manifest themselves.

While epigenetics is a hot topic in the study of development, this book makes a case for epigenetic mutation as a basis for evolution. It also talks about what I would term a generalization of cultural inheritance wherein the inherited behavior does not depend on teaching or watching: for example, a young rabbit learns what is good to eat through the effects in the womb of what his mother eats, and what is in the mother's feces while the youngster is in the burrow.

The authors write very well, and are clearly mindful of the reader's comprehension. The discussion of the material at the end of each chapter is a wonderful idea. Still, I would have preferred a shorter work, without so much emphasis on philosophical subtleties: an idea like the "selfish gene" is not a scientific theory to be debated, but a way of looking at things which can be suggestive and lead to new findings, but of course has its limitations. A picture, or an experiment, is worth a thousand words. Currently, unfortunately, the evidence to support the book's ideas is often thin, in fact one objective of the authors is certainly to encourage more research. In one very interesting case they seem to make too little of the evidence: the author's accept that a young bonobo, watching experimenters teaching language to his mother, developed the understanding of a 2.5 year old human, including word order and other grammatical structures, but did not mention this in their initial discussions of language or really come to terms with it.

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Evolution in Four Dimensions

With this book the authors expand the conventional 20th century view of the theory of evolution to include epigenetic, psychological and sociological evolution. The most interesting "inherited" addition for me is epigenetic evolution: the theory that many of our human qualities were passed down from ancestors without involving genetic variation. I can myself think of candidate markers that would best fit into the authors's theory. All in all, the book is very well written; my only criticism is that I could have done without some of the stick-figure drawings. But it is still a very good read for anyone who thinks evolution is a well-established scientific fact and who is not afraid to intellectually challenge the majority-held belief in the "absolute" truths of religious doctrines and dogma.

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A hic-up revision

The refreshing part of the book is that Darwin is postulated to trump the Modern Synthesis by offering a broader and vaguer model. Mostly however, allusions and overinterpretations of re-hashed phenomena and a few recent twists like siRNA, are offered as still-unconvincing examples in a systematic attempt to argue epigenetics as having important biological and evolutionary roles. Yes, some aspects of biology and evolution are somewhat complex, but vague hand waving about epigenetics does not clarify them.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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