17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Important book, but too much history and not enough new data, September 26, 1999
This review is from: Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes, and the Emergence of Species (Hardcover)
Schwartz spends most of his book on the history of evolutionary theory, which is fine from the perspective of a historian of science, but then there isn't much of the book left for development of newer ideas. Pages are spent on Linnaeus but next to nothing on cladisitics; much detailed attention is given to detailed reports of the first hominid fossils found, even to Piltdown, but more recent findings are hardly mentioned, surprising given that he is even now editing an authorative volume with Tattersall on hominid fossils. However, credit is due for developing the thesis that the discontinuous fossil record is due to the relatively sudden emergence of species from changes in regulatory molecules such as the homeobox genes. Rudolph Raff, in The Shape of Life (an excellent book which Schwartz quotes) previously developed the thesis that macroevolution of body plans was dependent on these genes, but did not emphasize the discontinuous fossil record. Although we don't get to a discussion of the new ideas until the last 10% of the book, nonetheless, this whole area of evolutionary developmental genetics is of such fundamental importance that the book is worth reading. In the relatively near future, with new fields such as comparative genomics (comparing entire DNA sequences of one organism to another), and computerized analysis of developmental expression of complete sets of cellular proteins analyzed on biochips, the promise of reconstructing, at a molecular level, the evolutionary history of life on earth has begun. I'd also like to take issue with the reviewer who thought Schwartz "savaged" Darwin. He does not, though as part of his detailed review of the early debates on evolution he quotes scientists who do attack Darwin's ideas. And although it's true that actual research details on speciation and changes in homeobox genes are at an early stage, and that Schwartz is not a researcher himself in this area, again I think he's on the right track. For example, see the article by Ting et al. (Science 1998 282:1501)about a rapidly changing homeobox gene linked to speciation in Drosophila. Overall, I think the book is an important one, but could have been much improved as a scientific text by giving a broader picture of newer data and less emphasis on historical personalities, though as written it is designed to appeal more to an educated lay audience than to the professional.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sits atop an important trend, but maybe too history-heavy, December 27, 2000
This review is from: Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes, and the Emergence of Species (Hardcover)
This is an excellent book that provides a reasonable introduction and much historical context to the concepts behind a class of theories of speciation that are gradually becoming less controversial.
The notion of cumulative gradual change in allele frequencies as the only source of variety has been a thorn in the side of serious biology for some time. Not least because it leaves the door open to claims that speciation itself is "improbable" in higher species. Richard Dawkins' brave attempts to rescue biology from "Mount Improbable" may very well turn out to be partly an exercise in futility.
Schwartz joins a number of recent authors and researchers to face head on the challenge of improving our understanding of evolutionary biology by recognizing that it makes perfect sense of much otherwise confusing data to allow for sudden "saltational" changes in species. As hard as it remains for many to swallow, S.J. Gould was probably right about much of this, and deserves credit for bucking the "received" view of Darwinism.
This book is disappointing however, in that it seems to revel in telling the history rather than describing the new concepts. There's just so much politics behind this issue that authors can't seem to avoid the temptation to add their own spin to the history in every book. But that part has been done already. Sterlny and Griffiths' "Sex and Death" does a great job of discussing all of the various chinks in the armor of the received view of how evolution works, without spending so much time interpreting intellectual history yet again.
The new part that is most exciting is the details of how regulatory genes work, their duplications and mutations, and the role they play in speciation. There is sadly relatively little of that in Schwartz's otherwise useful presentation.
A very recent release in the U.K. by Mark Ridley, "Mendel's Demon," looks like it handles similar deep questions but goes far more deeply into the genetics that forms the foundation for theories of sudden origins and other alternatives to simple cumulative gradual interpretations of Darwinism.
One point I wanted to make as a comment to a previous review. It was claimed at one point that this kind of theory is more congenial to the way many people view creation by God. That's something I think is a welcome sign. But they also commented that "creationists" is a meaningless label, and it seems to me that claim is simply nonsense. "Creationists" deny that speciation occurs at all, at least in the origin of humans. They don't argue that it could only occur suddenly. Whatever else they may accept or reject from evolutionary biology or genetics or paleoscience, it seems to me that they cannot accept that humans were not special creations of God separate from other animals. The United States is divided into those who find the close relationship of humans and apes ridiculous and those who pretty much take it for granted. That's not an easy line to cross, much less pretend it doesn't exist.
It would be very heartwarming and reaffirming to my faith in human reason of some people who consider themselves "creationists" were to find the theory of sudden origins in this book an acceptable version of evolutionary theory, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to happen.
The difference is critically important scientifically because the power of evolutionary thinking is not in whether we happen to be related to apes, but in the value of being able to apply adaptational thinking to species characteristics and describe and predict how characteristics relate to environments. Creationist interpretations deny the central concept of evolutionary thinking, that natural selection explains adaptation. The details of how it works and where other explanations supercede adaptational ones is what is left to ongoing research to discover.
That's where Schwartz contributes best to the literature, by placing "sudden origins" into its rightful historical context, (though I don't agree with some of his intellectual history in the medieval period). This is not something that creationists can honestly take any credit for, or honestly use in support of their agenda it is a theory of speciation not a denial of speciation.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hox genes, and the new origin of the species, December 23, 2000
This is a very important source of information both as to the history of the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis and the recent discoveries of regulatory hox genes and the light they throw on the riddles of speciation and large scale evolutionary change. The realization that major morphological changes do not in fact occur in the fashion of microevolution (as presented by traditional Darwinists), due to the effect of homeobox genes, is a revolutionary discovery and confirmation of the importance of the developmental tradition moving in parallel to standard Darwinism. This data creates a foundation for the various theories of macroevolution and punctuated equilibrium proposed almost a generation ago but still sidelined by the Darwinian mainline. The book contains an invaluable review of paleoanthropological theories, issues of neotonous evolution, and the various genetical theories of Mendelism, from de Vries and Bateson, to Haldane, Wright, and Fisher. The views of Goldschmidt, and his near miss of this new perspective, is also treated. This confusing history of Mendelism sorted out is invaluable, and shows how cogent (in part) where the intimations of Bateson and Morgan. The new perspective both confirms the concept of 'macroevolution' while suggesting this can be seen as a microevolution of regulatory genes, a point open to debate perhaps. The next mystery is the evolution of these complex sequences of development. But that does not distract from the great usefulness of this account. One can dispense with much of the erroneous literature on evolution, a great saving in brain space. The endless debate over the slow evolution of the eye, etc, that went on and on and drove all parties batty is hopefully over if we know the right combination of homeobox genes will control the development of this and other organs. Times are changing in Darwin land. Highly recommended.
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