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“Acquiring Genomes” by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan challenges in 205 pages how the evolution as we know it is wrong and far more complex. This book is written by a member of the National Academy of Sciences and recipient of the 1999 Presidential Medal of Science, Lynn Margulis who is a Professor at the University of Massachusetts. Dorian Sagan is an author of Biospheres and a co-author of Up from Dragons: The Evolution of Human Intelligence. They passionately explains that inherited variation causes new species to arise. Leading the reader to question what exactly makes a specie a specie. Their thinking of evolution actually goes beyond the dogmatic think that has dominated the 20th century. This book is definitely for well-informed reader in biology, mainly in evolution.
Perhaps the most notable features of “Acquiring Genomes” is the rather dominate tone the authors use to challenge the basic and over simplified concepts of evolutions. For example, the word “species” is mainly used to describe morphological differences, but the problem arises when two similar animals, like coyotes and dogs, mate and do not produce fully fertile offspring. Therefore organisms that can interbreed belong in the same species, but this only applied to zoologist and botanist. The authors do state that this definition should actually be renamed “zoological-botanical concepts of species”.
The authors passionately go on about evolution and how everyone who studies biology is a Darwinist. They do sat that there is a difference between neodarwinism and Darwinist, such as natural selection. Natural selection is a way to express the concept that most life does not persist through time, the authors state that is essentially “differential survival”. This differential survival lead into inherited variation can help the organisms, which Darwin wrote that “only variation that is inherited is important for “decent with modification”’.
The reason that the definition of species only works for plants and animals is because they are embryo forming, which need fusion of an egg with sperm. Professional evolutionary theorist tend to have ignored microbiology, paleontology and symbiosis even though life originated with bacteria. Bacteria exchange genetic material with multiple recipients. Bacteria can even uptake DNA material from the surroundings. Individuality doesn’t come exclusively from diversification and branching like neodarwinist believe but also comes from integration and differentiation, such as species by symbiogenisis. According to the authors it is the creative force of symbiosis that produced eukaryotic cells from bacteria.
An example of eukaryotic and prokaryotic symbiosis is V. fischeri and the Hawaiian bobtail squid. These squid hatch from their eggs without the bacteria, but soon the bacterial inhabit the squid’s underdeveloped light organ through occupying crypts. With the bacteria, the light organ develop and allow the symbiosis to commence. Within 4 days, a death signal kills epithelial cells of the ciliated surface and the welcome organ is gone. Bacterial genes that code for “adhesion” promotes the light organs maintenance. The bacteria gets food and protection while the squid gets camouflage through the bioluminescent of the bacteria which generates the same color, intensity and angular distribution as moonlight. The bioluminescence the bacteria emits allows the Hawaiian bobtail squid to blend in the ocean at night avoided predators.
This book wasn’t an easy read because of the complicated concepts of biology and evolution, which I would recommend to a reader who is familiar with the subject. This book did do a good job on laying out the purpose of pushing the limits of evolution, but is was confusing as some part of the book seemed to have come from nowhere, such as the explanation on chromosomes. The book lacks the ability of continuity and transitioning from subject to subject smoothly, regardless it does try to display the information as easy as it an by being broad about evolution and speciation in the beginning.
It was refreshing to read the immense passion the authors had on the subject of evolution as their bias for certain words were apparent. The authors talk about “competition” and its misuse in evolution. According to them, competition has no place in describing evolution because competition implies a mutual understanding of a winner and loose. The author fails to acknowledge that when first teaching evolution, simple term are used to help learner understand the concept of evolution. In the wild, the winner is the organism that survives and the loser is the one that dies. Over all, this book pushed readers to think beyond the accepted thinking for evolution and truly question the evolutionary theory.
- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Basic Books; First Edition edition (June 19, 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0465043917
- ISBN-13: 978-0465043910
- Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1 x 9.5 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Average Customer Review: 39 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#1,500,828 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #8573 in Evolution (Books)
- #975 in Biotechnology (Books)
- #10973 in Biology (Books)
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