Biased Embryos and Evolution

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Cambridge University Press, 27.05.2004 - 233 Seiten
What determines the direction of evolutionary change? This book provides a revolutionary answer to this question. Many biologists, from Darwin's day to our own, have been satisfied with the answer 'natural selection'. Professor Wallace Arthur is not. He takes the controversial view that biases in the ways that embryos can be altered are just as important as natural selection in determining the directions that evolution has taken, including the one that led to the origin of humans. This argument forms the core of the book. However, in addition, the book summarizes other important issues relating to how embryonic (and post-embryonic) development evolves. Written in an easy, conversational style, this is the first book for students and the general reader that provides an account of the exciting new field of Evolutionary Developmental Biology ('Evo-Devo' to its proponents).
 

Ausgewählte Seiten

Inhalt

The microscopic horse
1
What steers evolution?
9
Darwin pluralism with a single core
26
How to build a body
40
A brief history of the last billion years
54
Preamble to the quiet revolution
67
The return of the organism
76
Possible creatures
88
Action and reaction
140
Evolvability organisms in bits
152
Back to the trees
159
Stripes and spots
175
Towards the inclusive synthesis
191
Social creatures
201
Glossary
211
References
223

The beginnings of bias
105
A deceptively simple question
117
Developments twin arrows
128

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Autoren-Profil (2004)

Professor Wallace Arthur is in the Integrative Biology Group at the University of Sunderland, UK. He is the author of six previous books.

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