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Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology)

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• ISBN13: 9780262600699
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Kindle version review

Buy this wonderful, illuminating work for your e-reader and you will improve it and yourself! You will soon wish that you had all your other great books there as well, available for rereading, scanning and searching at any time. I will not duplicate material in the other, informative reviews, but just want to express surprise that there are not more such works on epigenetic evolution (in all its forms, using "epi" in a broad sense).
I was doubtful at first about the "discussions", expecting quick straw-man knockdowns a la Simplicissimus, but they really add to the exposition. I read it on a Kindle II and only the illustrations suffered, which I figured was OK, as I didn't much care for the style, but on reviewing them on an iPad I found them engaging. Improvements would include links to the notes at the end and return links from there. Some publishers are not fully committed to this e-book thing. Buy the Kindle version for your iPad - it is not (yet?) available as an i-Book.

The noumenal 'dimension'

At a time when Darwinian fundamentalism is almost a church dogma of scientism, this book deftly and cogently shows that the 'post natural selection' era is upon us, with a clear extended framework, its four dimensions of evolution. I think that this extension is, however, completely clear as to the place of epigenetics, but not so clear as to the behavioral and linguistic so-called dimensions. The question of human evolution, and of the evolution of consciousness and of language are not explained, it would seem, in the context of the added two dimensions given in the book, and remain as yet mysterious to science, and perhaps their evolutionary dynamics are beyond simple observation.
We should consider Wallace's insight that man's potential could not have evolved in any simple way, since it has no contact with the environment, as if it were in an extra dimension, perhaps even beyond space and time.
A Kantian framework suggests that the psychology of man/animal confects the space-time categories a priori, suggesting that the mind is in part a higher dimensional, or non-dimensional entity.
The evolution of language, and the consciousness behind, is an entire mystery andb science can't even describe the systems it claims has evolved. The noumenal aspect here becomes, perhaps, dominant.
Naturally scintists always claim to have the explanation of everything. That is hype, and a bluff, not to be taken seriously.

Nontheless, a fascinating, must-read, and a warning the 'natural selection does all' era is over.

Check out also _The Extended Synthesis_, a new book on evolution and the reigning synthesis, to which the authors contribute an essay, next to many others in a coming postdarinism mode, on the manifold dimensions of evolution.

Noone will quite say so, but monolithic Darwinism is kaput.

Thought provoking

A recent biotechnology trade publication wrote that "epigenetic research surges on many fronts", and a study of textbooks in molecular biology that have been published in the last few years reveals that epigenetic mechanisms are relevant in biological systems. This book could be considered a definitive summary of what is known about epigenetic mechanisms in evolution, but also goes beyond it by arguing behavioral and "symbolic" variation also plays a significant role. Readers will get in-depth discussion of these terms and also get exposed to some speculation from the authors on how all four mechanisms, genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbolic drive the evolutionary process. However the authors are careful to note the difference between speculation and facts, and this intellectual honesty is refreshing and motivates the reader to consult some of the many references given in the book. At various places in the book, readers are expected to have a solid background in molecular biology in order to follow the discussion, but non-experts in this field, such as this reviewer, can with some concentrated effort appreciate what the authors are talking about.

Some of the highlights in the book include:
1. The reminder that genes are not "simple causal agents" with traits being the result of interactions among a collection of genes. Along these lines, gene regulatory networks have become a significant area of research in the last few years.
2. The point made that the Darwin theory of natural selection is a general theory of evolution, and does not make specific assumptions on the mechanisms behind heredity or variability. This assertion motivates the reader to search for different representations of Darwinian theory, this book being one of them, and further, ask the question as to how many such representations are possible, given the constraints of observation and experimentation. Are there for example, any "higher dimensional" versions of Darwinian theory (greater than 4)?
3. The discussion on information theory and its use in genetics.
4. The discussion on the ability of genomes to compensate for the lack of activity of a particular gene. This is very relevant to current methods in genetic engineering, which sometimes have their goal the "knockout" of certain genes.
5. The reminder that there is much that is unknown in molecular biology. One example given is the nature of the regulation of splicing.
6. The discussion on the advantages of sexual reproduction versus mere cloning.
7. The discussion on self-sustaining feedback loops in gene activity. This has connections with the field of mathematics called nonlinear dynamics, and a large amount of research in this field is devoted to understanding these feedback loops.
8. The view of the authors that RNA interference is a cellular immune system. This is an interesting idea, and motivates the reader to do further reading on whether it is an idea that is viable in immunology and molecular biology.
9. The discussion on "real-time" genome modification in the Sciara fly, wherein chromosomes are eliminated in both somatic and germ-line cells. The astute reader will naturally wonder how many other biological organisms are able to do this.
10. The role of methylation in transgenic strategies. This discussion is very important to those readers who want to understand the risks involved in genetic engineering. Transgene flow is considered to be a risk by some, but methylation apparently would assist in alleviating this risk.

Some of the disappointments in the book include:
1. The use of thought experiments to argue some of the main points. This is not a major detraction, but this use can degenerate into philosophical speculation if one is not careful, and it seems the authors are aware of this.
2. The authors should have included more discussion on why they think the "four categories" of epigenetic inheritance are not independent.
3. The assertion made without elaboration that when humans imitate they always intend to do so. Along these lines the authors need to elaborate in more detail what they mean by a "modular system of imitative learning." Their thinking on this would be very interesting to those readers involved in the field of artificial intelligence. Indeed, the authors' assertion that "imitation is a context- and content-sensitive process, not mere copying" is very important to those who are attempting to implement cognitive processes in non-human machines. This is further exemplified in the authors' discussion on "radical" evolutionary psychology and its view that the brain is a collection of modules, each having a particular cognitive task. The authors are clearly skeptical about the existence of these modules, and it would be interesting to know whether they would find the concept of "entangled" modules, i.e. those where task sharing is the defining characteristic, useful for their conception of symbolic inheritance systems.
4. Since plants do not exhibit complex or intentional behaviors, the authors need to show why behavioral inheritance systems are not relevant, or weakly so, in the evolutionary biology of plants. This point is naturally made at the place in the book where the authors discuss the difficulties of showing the relevance of behavioral inheritance systems in animals, i.e. showing the existence of animal traditions and so on. This question can also be asked in their discussion on symbolic inheritance systems: plants do not interpret symbols or have symbolic grammars. Here again, the authors point to the absence (or purported absence) of symbolic systems in animals. Humans therefore seem to have a multi-dimensional inheritance system, and are therefore unique in this regard.
5. In their discussion of symbolic inheritance systems, the authors place too much emphasis on generative theories of grammar, and do not take into account other theories, such as cognitive grammar. How would these other theories be integrated into their thinking on the role of symbolic inheritance systems?

More Dynamic, Information-Rich View of Evolution

Jablonka and Lamb pull together many ideas about evolution to suggest that the Modern Synthesis prevalent since the 1930s is due for a reconceptualization. They argue that evolution involves not one but four kinds of inheritance systems: genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and (in humans) symbolic. Epigenetic systems involve cellular variations appearing in the course of development, so that cells with the same DNA can develop in quite different directions. Since this information is preserved when cells divide, it can also be inherited in the reproduction of unicellular or asexually reproducing multicellular organisms. (Inheritance by sexually reproducing organisms is tricker but also possible.) Behavioral inheritance among organisms occurs through the transfer of behavior-influencing substances and through imitative and non-imitative learning. Human symbolic communication is an especially rich inheritance system, with features such as the capacity to share imagined behaviors never before tried. The genetic and non-genetic inheritance systems work together in evolution, with non-genetic changes often becoming genetically assimilated. For example, if a human population domesticates cows and starts relying on dairy products, genetic variations in the ability to digest lactose become relevant to natural selection, and so gene frequencies can change as a result of the change in customs. Jablonka and Lamb suggest that non-genetic changes often lead the way in animal evolution, with genetic changes playing catch-up.

Not only is this book a far cry from the simplistic genetic determinism that characterizes many popular discussions of evolution, but it is also a departure from 20th-century Darwinian orthodoxy. While genetic changes are usually blind to outcomes, the variations that are transmitted epigenetically, behaviorally or symbolically are often more targeted, arising in responses to signals from the environment. The environment plays the dual role of inducing as well as selecting variations, and the variations are more like educated guesses about what will work than random shots in the dark. The fact that these acquired innovations can be inherited (one way or another, though not by direct modifications of genes) means that evolution is partly Lamarckian after all, at least in a broad sense of the term.

Orthodox Darwinism has always been a philosophically puzzling doctrine. For a theory of change, it has placed a surprising amount of emphasis on the continuity of being, with change appearing as an accident that only occasionally happens to contribute to that continuity. For a theory of information, it has been surprisingly preoccupied with blind, completely uninformed variation. Jablonka and Lamb's understanding of evolution is both more dynamic and informationally richer. Inherited information is no longer confined to the genome, but can include information acquired and used in the course of development. Organisms participate in evolution not just as vehicles for the transmission of fixed information units (genes or their imagined cultural counterparts, memes, a notion J & L critique vigorously), but as active acquirers and interpreters of information. This is consistent with Stuart Kauffman's contention that life is even more complex and creative than biologists have realized.

The book is extremely well written and documented, so that the arguments are easy to follow by readers with a limited background in biology. Highly recommended for biologists and non-biologists alike.

Ways ahead

Jablonka and Lamb have written an impressive, incisive book, with a light touch and an personal approach. They demonstrate ways (genetic, epigenetic, behavioral and symbolic) in which organisms "inherit" from their predecessors. One does not have to agree with all their positions to profit from way they consider general developmental issues. Our culture has taken a step forward through their symbolic creation---it's not the "memes" they provide, but their way of laying the basis for interacting evolutionary processes.

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.
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