Evolution—the Extended Synthesis |  | Creators: Massimo Pigliucci, Gerd B. Müller
Publisher: The MIT Press
Category: Book
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Sales Rank: 96256
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 504
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Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0262513676
Dewey Decimal Number: 576.8
EAN: 9780262513678
ASIN: 0262513676
Publication Date: April 30, 2010
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Product Description
In the six decades since the publication of Julian Huxley's Evolution: The Modern Synthesis, spectacular empirical advances in the biological sciences have been accompanied by equally significant developments within the core theoretical framework of the discipline. As a result, evolutionary theory today includes concepts and even entire new fields that were not part of the foundational structure of the Modern Synthesis. In this volume, sixteen leading evolutionary biologists and philosophers of science survey the conceptual changes that have emerged since Huxley's landmark publication, not only in such traditional domains of evolutionary biology as quantitative genetics and paleontology but also in such new fields of research as genomics and EvoDevo.
Most of the contributors to EvolutionâThe Extended Synthesis accept many of the tenets of the classical framework but want to relax some of its assumptions and introduce significant conceptual augmentations of the basic Modern Synthesis structureâjust as the architects of the Modern Synthesis themselves expanded and modulated previous versions of Darwinism. This continuing revision of a theoretical edifice the foundations of which were laid in the middle of the nineteenth centuryâthe reexamination of old ideas, proposals of new ones, and the synthesis of the most suitableâshows us how science works, and how scientists have painstakingly built a solid set of explanations for what Darwin called the "grandeur" of life.
Contributors: John Beatty, Werner Callebaut, Jeremy Draghi, Chrisantha Fernando, Sergey Gavrilets, John C. Gerhart, Eva Jablonka, David Jablonski, Marc W. Kirschner, Marion J. Lamb, Alan C. Love, Gerd B. Müller, Stuart A. Newman, John Odling-Smee, Massimo Pigliucci, Michael Purugganan, Eörs Szathmáry, Günter P. Wagner, David Sloan Wilson, Gregory A. Wray
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| Customer Reviews:
 21st Century Biology: The Story Begins July 20, 2010
Sena (Sri Lanka)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Massimo Pigliucci in his introduction to this book makes it clear that the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis is a provisional one subject to modification in the light of further discoveries in the field which are coming thick and fast. The accusation of cowardice made by the previous reviewer is therefore, I think, unjustified.
As a non-specialist reader with a basic background in biology there were a number of concepts in this book which I found hard to comprehend. What I enjoyed in this book was coming across startling new ideas which spurred me to further reading. As an example I shall mention the article by Eva Jablonka of Tel Aviv University. She questions one of the traditional tenets of evolutionary theory, that the targets of natural selection are individual organisms. Since the bodies of humans and other higher animals contain symbionts and parasites that are transferred from one generation of the host to the next, she quotes the ideas of Zilber-Rosenberg who suggests that it may be necessary to consider such communities (of the human organism and its symbiotic bacteria) as targets of selection.
When I searched for more information on this topic, I found that a developing idea was that humans are now being considered as superorganisms with two genomes that dictate phenotype, the genetically inherited human genome (25,000 genes) and the environmentally acquired human microbiome (over 1 million genes). There is now evidence that one function of these microbes in the gut is to process certain components of the diet and enable the deposition of this extracted energy in host fat depots. This would have been beneficial in the course of evolution when our ancestors did not have reliable access to food supplies, but may now contribute to unhealthy obesity.
Pigliucci and other contributors state that the gene-centric approach of traditional evolutionary theory is being increasingly challenged. The developing view is that rather than consider the gene as the main or sole unit of evolution, the cell, the individual organism, or groups of organisms could be the units of natural selection in various circumstances. Fernando and Szathmary quote the view of Maynard Smith that units of evolution must multiply, show heredity across generations, and heredity should not be exact. This characterization of Darwinian dynamics is deliberately general; it is not restricted to cover living systems only. They describe their computer models of the neuronal replicator hypothesis, which suggests that groups of neurons in the brain are selected according to their "fitness", leading to the "evolution" of optimal functioning.
David Sloan Wilson argues that between-group selection became the primary driving force for the evolution of human beings from primate species. He notes that (a) extant human human hunter-gather societies are fiercely egalitarian and, (b) humans are incomparably better at throwing projectiles than other primates, and infers a connection between these two observations. He suggests that throwing could be used to suppress bullying and other domineering behavior within groups, resulting in better co-operation within the group and consequently enhanced fitness.
This book will, I think, become essential reading for undergraduates and researchers in the field, and also of considerable interest to the general reader.
 A pardigm shift manque, 16 cowards April 17, 2010
John C. Landon (New York City)
18 out of 105 found this review helpful
This book is hard to review because it might be praised and debunked at the same time. Anticipated in the work of Suzan Mazur, whose account of the Altenberg 16 conference gave hints of a new evolution paradigm in the making, this book has turned out to be disappointingly still fixated on the ghostly eminence of dumb Darwinism, the dumbed down Darwinism that has served as a stultifying delusion for much more than a century. This book then, filled with much compellingly interesting material, and well worth reading, is also a crashing letdown, a paradigm shift manque. There is hardly anything more frustrating than the frozen 'smart' stupidity of scientists conditioned to scientism and Darwinian reductionism, and the hope here was for a clean break with the world of culture damaged and distorted by the Darwin myth, with its incomptehension of cultural, historical, religious, and philosophical issues. And from the Social Darwinism, closet Niettzschean nihilism, economic ideology, and crypto-eugenic obsession of its incomprehending cadre stuck forever, it seems, in the Iron Cage. As Soren Lovtrup noted at the dawn of the evo-devo revolution (also manque),
"I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When this happens many people will pose the question: How did this ever happen?" Soren Lovtrup, Darwinism: Refutation of a Myth, p. 422
None of that here, the deceit goes on, mutating: all spit and polish scientism, dull pretense that biologists are to explain All, and the rest of it.
This book, outrageously, doesn't even contain a discussion of the classic natural selection debate, despite the veiled contradictory material thereon, obviously this gang is too cowardly to take on the Darwin groupies who will assault all critics of NS.
The tactics are too obvious.
But, despite this, the book is a cogent series of its type, and has hidden hints of a new paradigm needed, at least, and it may trigger what the packagers here fear most, something like a real postdarwinism, something more than a tweaked synthesis, a genuine revolution. But the endless halting steps are a disservice to culture which is beset in the void left by the often accurate critiques of the ID group and other religious critics. The Altenberg group had the opportunity to take up the task of critique abdicated to the Bible Belt but obviously got smothered in passage.
Let's terminate the issue with a simple observation: real evolutionism will come into being when scientists realize that, especially in human evolution, the division of facts and values prevents a true theory. We need therefore a whole new mindset beyond science, that can admit that Darwinism cannot explain human ethical evolution, consciousness, or history. There is therefore absolutely no real _science_ of evolution, only an approximation. We should thefore always be wary of theories and the pompous priesthood that manages those theories.
All this said, the book shows clear signs of some muffled voices, and a lot of new insights are present. The book is therefore well worth reading, paradoxically, and with some reluctance I will four star what should be a two star or less review.
Stop being conned,and learn a few things here, with some hints of some new thinking. The danger here is that this kind of work will succeed in forestalling a real change.
This book despite itself shows that the reigning paradigm is in crisis and that entirely new types of theory, hinted at throughout the book, are trying, so far without success, to usher in a new era beyond that huckster Darwin.
The book also shows the usual cowardice in action, attempting to veil the radical thinking behind sophistical drappings.
Let us note that (cf. The Darwin Conspiracy, by Roy Davies) Darwinism was created by Alfred Wallace, who was plagiarized by Darwin, and that Wallace quickly saw beyond his original work.
Let us hope that science can learn again from Wallace and move on from its frozen state created by the con man Darwin. Otherwise the Bible Belt will do the job for them, wretchedly. The clock hand is close to midnight, near a scientific culture of hopeless idiots. This kind of book can make you lose your faith, and certainly your trust, in Big Science on evolution. It is a propaganda game its players won't give up.
Yeah, it's the economy stupid.
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