Genesis: The Evolution of Biology

by Jan Sapp

Overview

Genesis: The Evolution of Biology presents a history of the past two centuries of biology, suitable for use in courses, but of interest more broadly to evolutionary biologists, geneticists, and biomedical scientists, as well as general readers interested in the history of science. The book covers the early evolutionary biologists-Lamarck, Cuvier, Darwin and Wallace through Mayr and the neodarwinian synthesis, in much the same way as other histories of evolution have done, bringing in also the social implications, the struggles with our religious understanding, and the interweaving of genetics into evolutionary theory. What is novel about Sapp's account is a real integration of the cytological tradition, from Schwann, Boveri, and the other early cell biologists and embryologists, and the coverage of symbiosis, microbial evolutionary phylogenies, and the new understanding of the diversification of life coming from comparative analyses of complete microbial genomes. The book is a history of theories about evolution, genes and organisms from Lamarck and Darwin to the present day. This is the first book on the general history of evolutionary biology to include the history of research and theories about symbiosis in evolution, and first to include research on microbial evolution which were excluded from the classical neo-Darwinian synthesis. Bacterial evolution, and symbiosis in evolution are also excluded from virtually every book on the history of biology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198035503
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/11/2003
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Lexile:	1540L (what's this?)
File size:	586 KB

About the Author

Universite du Quebec a Montreal

Table of Contents

Part I	Evolution and Morphology
1.	Evolution and Revolution	3
	Two Worldviews	4
	Revolution to Evolution	5
	Lamarckian Myths	6
	Simple to Complex	8
	Disconnecting the Unity of Life	11
	The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate	13
2.	The Origin	16
	When Making Other Plans	17
	Darwin's Bible	18
	The Beagle Voyage	20
	Natural Selection and Natural Theology	22
	Wallace's Manuscript	24
	Concepts of The Origin	26
3.	Darwin's Champions	31
	Man's Place in Nature	31
	Natural Theology and Agnosticism	33
	Archetype and Idealism	35
	Ontogeny and Phylogeny	36
	Materialism for Mysticism	40
4.	Darwinism and Sociopolitical Thought	43
	Laissez-faire	44
	Social Darwinism Exported	46
	War and Racism	47
	Darwinism on the Left	48
	Was Darwin a Social Darwinist?	49
	Social Theory in Evolution	50
	The Division of Labor	50
	Darwin and Malthus	52
5.	Mutualism	55
	Anarchism	55
	Between Individuals	57
	Between Species	58
	Roots in Natural Theology	61
6.	Dissent from Darwin	63
	Is the Earth Old Enough?	64
	Blending Inheritance	64
	What Is a Species?	65
	Speciation and Isolation	66
	Is Everything Adapted?	66
	Holes in the Record	67
	Neo-Lamarckism	68
	Orthogenesis	69
	Saltationism	71
Part II	The Cell in Development and Heredity
7.	The Myth of the Cell Theory	75
	An Historical Paradox	75
	Cells from Cells	77
	More than Meets the Eye	78
	Vitalism, Materialism, and Spontaneous Generation	80
8.	The Body Politic	82
	The Cell State	82
	The Dawn of Protistology	85
	A Cell Is Not a Cell	86
	What's in a Word	87
	Organisms within Organisms	90
	Weismannism	91
9.	Evolving Embryology	95
	Technical Virtuosity	96
	The Organism as a Whole	98
	Epigenesis and Preformation	100
10.	The Egg	103
	The Body Plan in the Egg	104
	Maternal Inheritance	106
	Cellular Differentiation	109
	Cytoplasmic Evolution	112
Part III	Genetics and the Classical Synthesis
11.	Mendel Palimpsest	117
	Mendel's Laws	118
	Neglect and Rediscovery	119
	Making a Discoverer	121
	Why Multiple Meanings?	122
	Geneticists versus Statisticians	124
	Mendel Made Darwinian	126
	Is the Scientific Paper Fiction?	126
12.	Emerging Genetics	130
	The Field of Heredity	130
	Genotype and Phenotype	134
	Disciplinary Design	135
	Biology out of Balance	138
	Are Genes Real?	140
13.	Darwinian Renaissance	143
	Merging Mendelism	144
	The Importance of Sex	146
	Population Genetics	147
	Random Drift and Nonadaptive Change	149
	The Species Problem	151
	Microevolution as Macroevolution	152
	Lessons of Synthesis	154
14.	Genes, Germs, and Enzymes	157
	The Garrod Tale	158
	Physiology and Genetics	158
	Early Gene-Enzyme Associations	160
	The One-Gene: One-Enzyme Hypothesis	161
	Domesticating Microbes	163
	The Chosen Few	164
	The Rockefeller Foundation	168
15.	Genetic Heresy and the Cold War	171
	Non-Darwinian Development	173
	Plasmon to Plasmagenes	174
	The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics	176
	University Politics	179
	Morgan's Smile	181
Part IV	Molecular Biology and Organismic Complexity
16.	Conceiving a Master Molecule	187
	DNA or Protein?	188
	Transformation and Transduction	189
	Chromatography	191
	X-Ray Crystallography	192
	Digital DNA	194
	Transcription and Translation	196
	Turning Genes On and Off	197
	Classical Doctrines of Molecular Biology	198
17.	Beyond the Genome	201
	Complexity and the Human Genome	203
	A Genetic Plan?	205
	Confronting Old Dogmas	206
	Cell Architecture and Spatial Information	207
	Field Heredity	211
	Epinucleic Inheritance	214
18.	Molecular Evolution and Microbial Phylogeny	217
	Precambrian Explosion	218
	Molecular Clocks	220
	The Origin of the Code	221
	A Code for Classification	224
	A Trilogy of Life	225
	Dissension and Disaffection	228
	Lateral Gene Transfer	230
19.	Symbiomics	234
	Developmental Symbiosis	235
	Symbiosis Silhouette	236
	Why It Has Been Difficult to Imagine	240
	Toward a Unified Theory	243
	Symbiogenetic Renaissance	245
	Macroevolutionary Change	247
20.	The Evolution of Relationships	252
	The Individual and the Group	253
	Kin Selection	255
	The Organism as a Beehive	255
	The Lessons of Sociobiology	257
	About Just-So Stories	258
	Symbiotic Ties	261
	Epilogue	267
	Notes	273
	Index	347

Editorial Reviews

"This work is an inspired and well-informed history of the logic of biology, giving us penetrating detail of all the major advances and controversies. Be it evolution, cell or molecular biology, genetics, microbiology, ontogeny, symbiosis or the limning of the organism, the meaty stuff of argument is offered in historical context. Taking account of social, political and ideological movements, and the role of singular personalities, we are also offered a logic of the history. " —Joshua Lederberg, Professor emeritus, Rockefeller University, Nobel laureate

"Genesis is a masterwork and a milestone. Highly readable, broad and deep, it is by far the best introduction to the history of the theories of evolution ever written. Impeccable in its scholarship, Jan Sapp's book is fully original and provides information and viewpoints to be found nowhere else in the literature. There is nothing like it. " —Camille Limoges, author of La Selection Naturelle, and co-editor of Historical Studies in History of Biology

From the Publisher