Shaping Life: Genes, Embryos and Evolution
Language: English
Published by Orion Publishing Co, 1998
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: World of Books Inc, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.World of Books Inc
AbeBooks seller since March 23, 2026
Condition: Used - Good
£ 72.89
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
Based upon the Darwin seminars given at the LSE, this volume is one in a series of books drawing on the content of one of the seminars. This book discusses the development of the human embryo and its evolutionary context.
Seller Inventory # CIN0297841386G
- Title
- Shaping Life: Genes, Embryos and Evolution
- Author
- John Maynard Smith
- Publisher
- Orion Publishing Co
- Publication year
- 1998
- Condition
- Good
- Binding
- Hardback
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0297841386
- ISBN 13
- 9780297841388
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review
The remarkable process by which a simple undifferentiated egg turns into a complex adult organism has been, as John Maynard Smith says "until recently, mysterious". Just how it happens was identified 12 years ago by Maynard Smith as one of the outstanding problems in biology (along with how the brain works). Since 1986, there has been a revolution in our understanding of developmental biology, with the application of ideas and techniques of genetics. Maynard Smith is a well known author of important books on biology, an eminent evolutionary biologist and Emeritus Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex. In this essay he gives an account of this revolution and argues that developmental biologists should "pay attention to dynamical processes as well as to genetic control". For, complex patterns can emerge in dynamical systems "without the need for specific instructions regulating the development of particular parts". He traces the roots of the notion of "self-organisation" back to Goethe's "Naturphilosophie".
To achieve these aims he has to introduce the reader to some complex concepts such as the so-called Hox genes and their role in "switching" and activating the development of particular structures during early embryological development. Fortunately Maynard Smith is an expert communicator of scientific ideas so that his text is readily accessible. Likewise, he has to broach the concept of self-organisation. How are proteins patterned to produce biological structures? For, as Maynard Smith points out, "it is not enough to say that different genes are switched on in different places". To find the answer he predicts that dialogue will be needed between those who espouse "a global, holistic and dynamic" approach to developmental biology and those who take the more local reductionist approach, "dependent on the notions of information, regulation and control". --Douglas Palmer
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
World of Books Inc
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