Evolution: A View from the 21st Century (paperback)

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Features

A truly "21^st century" view of evolution: a powerful synthesis of new advances in molecular biology, complexity, and evolutionary science.

• Leading biologist James Shapiro presents a new paradigm in evolutionary thought, supported by current molecular and genomic research.
• A unified, information- and systems-based approach that integrates symbiogenesis, epigenetics, and saltationism.
• An argument with deep implications for information science, evolutionary computation, and the synthesis of physical and biological sciences.

Description

James A. Shapiro proposes an important new paradigm for understanding biological evolution, the core organizing principle of biology. Shapiro introduces crucial new molecular evidence that tests the conventional scientific view of evolution based on the neo-Darwinian synthesis, shows why this view is inadequate to today's evidence, and presents a compelling alternative view of the evolutionary process that reflects the shift in life sciences towards a more information- and systems-based approach in Evolution: A View from the 21^st Century.

Shapiro integrates advances in symbiogenesis, epigenetics, and saltationism into a unified approach that views evolutionary change as an active cell process, regulated epigenetically and capable of making rapid large changes by horizontal DNA transfer, inter-specific hybridization, whole genome doubling, symbiogenesis, or massive genome restructuring.

Evolution marshals extensive evidence in support of a fundamental reinterpretation of evolutionary processes, including more than 1,100 references to the scientific literature. Shapiro's work will generate extensive discussion throughout the biological community, and may significantly change your own thinking about how life has evolved. It also has major implications for evolutionary computation, information science, and the growing synthesis of the physical and biological sciences.

Sample Content

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments    
• About the Author    
• A Note on Reading This Book for Individuals with Different Backgrounds     
• Introduction: Taking a Fresh Look at the Basics of Evolution in the New Century    
• Part I: Sensing, Signaling, and Decision-Making in Cell Reproduction    
• Part II: The Genome as a Read-Write (RW) Storage System    
• Part III: Evolutionary Lessons from Molecular Genetics and Genome Sequencing    
• Part IV: A New Conceptual Basis for Evolutionary Research in the 21st Century     
• Glossary     
• References    
• Index    

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