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

~ (Author), Marion J. Lamb (Author) "The content and format of this book are a little unusual, so we want to begin by explaining what it is about and how it..." (more)
Key Phrases: interpretive mutations, chromatin marks, genetic astrology, Modern Synthesis, John Maynard Smith, Herbert Spencer (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An individual's personal experience can influence the characteristics of his or her offspring. Some of the ways in which this happens would have seemed heretical in the past. Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb's stimulating new book successfully challenges some of the old orthodoxies. I recommend it warmly to anybody with a serious interest in developmental and evolutionary biology."
—Sir Patrick Bateson, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, author of Design for a Life: How Behavior and Personality Develop

"Another valuable perspective to the discussion... I found it refreshing to read a science book that is a conscious attempt at good literature."
— Nature

"As this important book by Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb shows, the twentieth-century 'neo-Darwins' told the evolutionary story in their own particular way, and some of the richnes of evolution that their forebear had described fell into neglect."
— The New Republic

"Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb have been challenging orthodoxy and promoting heresy in genetics and evolution for twenty years. Their systematic and comprehensive perspective on genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbolic inheritance in evolution is backed up with detailed empirical data, illustrated in a wide survey of phenomena, and presented in clear and forthright prose. Engaging illustrations as well as instructive and entertaining philosophical dialogues help make Evolution in Four Dimensions accessible to students and interested general readers. Those intent on following the path of genetic orthodoxy will now have to work harder than ever to ignore evolution's other three dimensions."
—James Griesemer, Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Davis

"With courage and verve, and in a style accessible to general readers, Jablonka and Lamb lay out some of the exciting new pathways of Darwinian evolution that have been uncovered by contemporary research."
—Evelyn Fox Keller, MIT, author of Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors and Machines

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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Product Details

• Hardcover: 474 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; illustrated edition edition (May 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262101076
• ISBN-13: 978-0262101073
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #790,975 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

79 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Evolution Beyond the Grand Synthesis: This Book is Completely Accurate and Highly Informative, August 3, 2005

By	Herbert Gintis (Northampton, MA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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The Grand Synthesis of Mendelism and Darwinism, involving such greats as Haldane, Fisher, Wright, Maynard Smith, Mayr, Hamilton, Dawkins, Dobzhansky and many more, is one of the greatest achievements of modern science. Like every great theory, the Grand Synthesis has had its prominent critics, but most of the charges laid against it have failed to take root. By the 1970's and 1980's such critics were widely dismissed as crackpots and minds were closed against their ideas.

Subtitling their 1995 book "The Lamarckian Dimension" was about as in-your-face a flaunt on orthodoxy imaginable, and I was surprised that the book turned out to be quite a credible review of our understanding of epigenetic inheritance. Their new book is on the same topic, but is much more considerate of the reader, mature, and self-assured than the author's previous foray.

Genetic (DNA), epigenetic (non-DNA chemical), behavioral (learning/assimilating), and symbolic (language, theory) information transmission are important in many levels of biological organization, from the structure of the cell to the social organization of masses of ants and humans. This much was clearly laid out in a number of recent books, including those of Maynard Smith and Szathmary, Keller, Michod, Durham, Boyd and Richerson, and others. But, this book is unique in being both accessible to the interest lay reader and having great breadth, covering many of the important levels in "multi-level selection."

I remember the first time it hit me that the problem of regulating the behavior of errant cells in a multi-cellular organism is the same, in principle, as regulating the behavior of an individual member of a social species. I also remember clearly when it first occurred to me that all of evolutionary theory consists of models of information transmission and behavior modification across time. Both of these are well illustrated in this book, sometimes in an almost poetic manner.

It is common for objectors to the Grand Synthesis to have some ideological agenda, such a Marxism, Post-Modernism, or Transcendental Holism, to put in the place of evolutionary theory. It is a great relief to find authors who express the new age of evolutionary biology without falling into these common traps. It just tells the truth, unembellished, but with a light tone.

42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book. Wish it Were Better., September 25, 2006

By	John E. Mack (New London, Minnesota United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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

This is such a good book, I wish it were better. In particular, I wish that the authors had not spent so much time discussing the effects of informational and symbolic transmission on evolution (most of which is fairly obvious) and spent more time on the fascinating topics of epigentic transmission and genetic control systems, which are extremely complex and difficult issues, and go by too fast.

The authors pose a question that evolutionary scholar rarely broach: If evolution produces and preserves adaptive traits, why does it not produce the trait that is the most adaptive of all -- the ability to directly transmit acquired adaptive characteristics to offspring? Ironically, despite their qualified claim that organisims do have such an ability, the authors provide an excellent Darwinian reason why this trait is so limited -- because a species which possesses it (like, say, humans) is so likely to "crash and burn" if it mistakenly adopts a trait which turns out to be maladaptive.

Jablonski and her co-author are neo-Lamarkians; that is, they believe (or want to believe) in the inheritance of acquired characterists. Lamarkism is deeply distrusted by evolutionary biologists for two very good reasons: there is not much evidence for it, and a mechanism for transmitting acquired characteristics seems biochemically impossible. The authors present some good arguments why this might not be so. Particulary impressive is their discussion of epigenetics -- biochemical processess not involving genes which nonethelesss affect an organism's development. Epigenetic processes pretty clearly can be affected by environmental factors, and so environmental factors do have a direct impact on bodily devlopment, and hence evolution. More relevantly, epigentic developments can apparently be directly incorporated into the organism's germ line (the system which involves reproduction), and hence heredity, without the necessity of mutation. This issue is deep and difficult probably deserved a whole book of its own.

The writing is clear and the illustrations are helpful, if a bit "cute." This book is a wonderful introduction to a problematical subject. Persons who are suspicious of classical Darwinism, but suspect that intelligent design theory is nonsense will love this book.

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A ground breaking book, June 17, 2005

By	M. Brener (Jefferson, Louisiana USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book should make a significant impact on the direction of biologic research and theory. If it does not, the fault will lie in the tenacity of the human tendency to cling to accepted dogma and to simplicity, not to any shortcomings of the book.
For almost a hundred years, biologists have clung to the `modern synthesis' as the sole explanation for all evolution. Evolution, according to its core tenet, results from accidental, random errors in genetic copying in cell division. A few of these mutations give the organism an advantage over other members of the species, and, hence, greater survivability and opportunity for producing offspring. Hence all hereditary characteristics are said to result from this process which is `directionless,' `blind,' and pure chance. To many laymen and to more than a few scientists, this creed may be understandable as one cause of evolution. But as the sole cause it runs contrary to common observation, and common experience, and is difficult to accept.
That difficulty is undoubtedly one factor, though only one, feeding life into ideas of totally unscientific `creationism,' intelligent design, literal acceptance of the Biblical story of creation, and/or the dogma of Bishop Usher for a world created suddenly 6000 years ago.
Yet in the past five or six decades have come increasing reports in the scientific journals of instances of rapid evolution in various species, both in the laboratory and in nature, following change in habitat or in environment. These changes were too adaptive to the new milieu, and too rapid to be attributable to chance mutation. Further, intriguing hints of heritable change through various biological processes, have appeared. These include among other processes, `epigenesis,' the interaction of the environment with the genome; and the role of the largest part of the genome (the genes forming only a small part of it) in determining which genes shall be expressed and when.
The accumulating body of evidence is large and is growing. This volume collects substantially all of the important evidence and presents it in an understandable, coherent, manner, with intelligent explanation and interpretation. It contains scientific evidence and explanation for inherited change that is not entirely genetic, not entirely random, nor undirected. It explains how organisms, seeking to adapt and hence to survive, can react to new circumstances in ways that are targeted to specific threats, ways that ultimately become inherited by future generations. It speaks to the specialists, but in language any interested layman, such as myself, can understand. It should be widely read by all who are interested in evolution, particularly those grappling with the obvious shortcomings of the `modern synthesis.'