Lamarck's Signature: How Retrogenes Are Changing Darwin's Natural Selection Paradigm

Steele, E. J.; Steele, Edward J.; Lindley, Robyn A.; Blanden, Robert V.; Blanden, R. V.

ISBN 10: 073820014X / ISBN 13: 9780738200149

Published by Perseus Books, Reading, Massachusetts, U.S.A., 1998

About this Item

VG+/VG. First edition. 286 pp. DJ lightly rubbed. Shallow edge curling, creasing. Spine square, tight. Interior bright, clean. No marks. Nice reading/research copy.

Seller Inventory # 0914

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Lamarck's Signature: How Retrogenes Are Changing Darwin's Natural Selection Paradigm
• Publisher: Perseus Books, Reading, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
• Publication Date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 073820014X
• ISBN 13: 9780738200149
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

What if Lamarck, whose theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics was blown apart by Charles Darwin over a century ago, was partly right after all? In this daring book, Steele and company reveal their ground-breaking research that has uncovered strong molecular genetic evidence that aspects of acquired immunities developed by parents in their own lifetime can be passed on to their offspring. The book gives new life and scientific credibility to the Lamarckian heresythe notion of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. }This controversial book challenges the accepted theories on the genetic mechanism of evolution. The story these three biologists have to tell may very well upset the whole field of biology.The traditional view of evolutionwhich grew out of the work of Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin and is strongly supported by present-day scientists like Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gouldassumes we are at the mercy of our genes, which we inherit largely unchanged from our parents, except for rare random mutations which accumulated and lead to change over evolutionary time. Those genes are coded in the chromosomes of the sperm and egg cells of the parents, and so only changes to those two types of cell have any chance of being passed down to the parents' offspring. Any changes, accidents, or surgery to the rest of the parents bodies are not transmitted to the newborn.The theory of inheritance of acquired characteristicsif you build up your muscles your kids will be born with a propensity toward great strengthon the other hand, favored by Jean Lamarck in the nineteenth-century, was brought down by nineteenth-century science. But now, as this challenging and thrilling book shows, it looks as though, at least for certain structures in the bodys immune system, Lamarck may have been right after all.Based on their own ground-breaking work over the past two decades, as well as that of other molecular biologists, Steele, Lindley, and Blanden argue that for one adaptive body system there is strong molecular genetic evidence that aspects of acquired immunities developed by parents in their own lifetime can be passed on to their offspring. Certain to stimulate lively debate, Lamarcks Signature gives new life and scientific credibility to the Lamarckian heresythe notion of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. }

From the Publisher

Promises to be the most controversial science book of the year.