Freaks of Nature: And what they tell us about evolution and development - Softcover

Blumberg, Mark S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199213054 ISBN 13: 9780199213054

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2009

Synopsis

Two-legged goats, conjoined twins, 'Cyclops' infants with a single eye in the middle of their forehead, double-headed snakes, and Laloo, a man with a partially formed twin attached to his chest... In Freaks of Nature, Mark S. Blumberg turns a scientist's eye on these unusual examples of humans and other animals, showing how a subject once relegated to the sideshow can help explain some of the deepest complexities of biology.

These examples of extreme bodily anomalies are in fact the natural products of development, and it is through such developmental mechanisms that evolution works. And Blumberg shows how 'freak' deformities can provide valuable windows on the intimate connections between genetics, development, the environment, and evolution. In taking seriously a subject that has often been shunned as discomfiting and embarrassing, Freaks of Nature takes the perspective of evolutionary developmental biology to shed new light on how individuals―and entire species―develop, survive, and evolve.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Blumberg is Professor of Psychology and Starch Faculty Fellow at the University of Iowa. He has written on a wide variety of topics in the fields of biology, psychology, and development, including articles on sleep, animal behavior, animal mind, and communication. His previous books include Basic Instinct: The Genesis of Behavior (2005) and Body Heat: Temperature and Life on Earth, (2003). He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the APA journal Behavioral Neuroscience and President of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199213054
• ISBN 13: 9780199213054
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352