Download or read book The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change By R C Lewontin written by Richard C. Lewontin and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change written by Richard C. Lewontin and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume the author surveys the many experiments using new molecular techniques that have revealed the enormous wealth of hereditary variation among individuals and have quantified the genetic changes that take place in the origin of new species. Dr. Lewontin proposes new theories to attack the problems which still confront the scientist. While a tremendous amount of variation has been revealed, a satisfactory explanation of the origin and maintenance of such variation is still lacking. It is not at all clear whether adaptive evolution makes use of the kind of genetic diversity that is now known to be so common. Populatin genetic theory, Dr. Lewontin observes, leads to conflicting conclusions about the forces operating on the variation, and it appears that current theory is inadequate to cope with the data. Noting that the interaction among genes in evolution is of primary importance in the interpretation of genetic change, he urges that theory needs to be developed which takes into account the evolution of the genome as a whole rather than the independent evolution of each gene. A book which summarizes in an unusually felicitous way the findings of the rapidly growing science of molecular evolution and points out new directions for its future.
Download or read book Biology as Ideology written by Richard C. Lewontin and published by House of Anansi. This book was released on 1991 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: R. C. Lewontin is a prominent scientist — a geneticist who teaches at Harvard — yet he believes that we have placed science on a pedestal, treating it as an objective body of knowledge that transcends all other ways of knowing and all other endeavours. Lewontin writes in this collection of essays, which began their life as CBC Radio's Massey Lectures Series for 1990: "Scientists do not begin life as scientists, after all, but as social beings immersed in a family, a state, a productive structure, and they view nature through a lens that has been molded by their social experience. . . . Science, like the Church before it, is a supremely social institution, reflecting and reinforcing the dominant values and vices of society at each historical epoch." In Biology as IdeologyLewontin examines the false paths down which modern scientific ideology has led us. By admitting science's limitations, he helps us rediscover the richness of nature — and appreciate the real value of science.
Download or read book The Dialectical Biologist written by Richard Levins and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1987-03-15 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists act within a social context and from a philosophical perspective that is inherently political. Whether they realize it or not, scientists always choose sides. The Dialectical Biologist explores this political nature of scientific inquiry, advancing its argument within the framework of Marxist dialectic. These essays stress the concepts of continual change and codetermination between organism and environment, part and whole, structure and process, science and politics. Throughout, this book questions our accepted definitions and biases, showing the self-reflective nature of scientific activity within society.
Download or read book It Ain t Necessarily So written by Richard Lewontin and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2001-09-30 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is our nature—as individuals, as a species—determined by our evolution and encoded in our genes? If we unravel the protein sequences of our DNA, will we gain the power to cure all of our physiological and psychological afflictions and even to solve the problems of our society? Today biologists—especially geneticists—are proposing answers to questions that have long been asked by philosophy or faith or the social sciences. Their work carries the weight of scientific authority and attracts widespread public attention, but it is often based on what the renowned evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin identifies as a highly reductive misconception: "the pervasive error that confuses the genetic state of an organism with its total physical and psychic nature as a human being." In these nine essays covering the history of modern biology from Darwin to Dolly the sheep, all of which were originally published in The New York Review of Books, Lewontin combines sharp criticisms of overreaching scientific claims with lucid expositions of the exact state of current scientific knowledge—not only what we do know, but what we don't and maybe won't anytime soon. Among the subjects he discusses are heredity and natural selection, evolutionary psychology and altruism, nineteenth-century naturalist novels, sex surveys, cloning, and the Human Genome Project. In each case he casts an ever-vigilant and deflationary eye on the temptation to look to biology for explanations of everything we want to know about our physical, mental, and social lives. These essays—several of them updated with epilogues that take account of scientific developments since they were first written—are an indispensable guide to the most controversial issues in the life sciences today. The second edition of this collection includes new essays on genetically modified food and the completion of the Human Genome Project. It is an indispensable guide to the most controversial issues in the life sciences today.
Download or read book Introduction to Evolutionary Genomics written by Naruya Saitou and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-01-22 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first of its kind to explain the fundamentals of evolutionary genomics. The comprehensive coverage includes concise descriptions of a variety of genome organizations, a thorough discussion of the methods used, and a detailed review of genome sequence processing procedures. The opening chapters also provide the necessary basics for readers unfamiliar with evolutionary studies. Features: introduces the basics of molecular biology, DNA replication, mutation, phylogeny, neutral evolution, and natural selection; presents a brief evolutionary history of life from the primordial seas to the emergence of humans; describes the genomes of prokaryotes, eukaryotes, vertebrates, and humans; reviews methods for genome sequencing, phenotype data collection, homology searches and analysis, and phylogenetic tree and network building; discusses databases of genome sequences and related information, evolutionary distances, and population genomics; provides supplementary material at an associated website.
Download or read book A Troublesome Inheritance written by Nicholas Wade and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on startling new evidence from the mapping of the genome, an explosive new account of the genetic basis of race and its role in the human story Fewer ideas have been more toxic or harmful than the idea of the biological reality of race, and with it the idea that humans of different races are biologically different from one another. For this understandable reason, the idea has been banished from polite academic conversation. Arguing that race is more than just a social construct can get a scholar run out of town, or at least off campus, on a rail. Human evolution, the consensus view insists, ended in prehistory. Inconveniently, as Nicholas Wade argues in A Troublesome Inheritance, the consensus view cannot be right. And in fact, we know that populations have changed in the past few thousand years—to be lactose tolerant, for example, and to survive at high altitudes. Race is not a bright-line distinction; by definition it means that the more human populations are kept apart, the more they evolve their own distinct traits under the selective pressure known as Darwinian evolution. For many thousands of years, most human populations stayed where they were and grew distinct, not just in outward appearance but in deeper senses as well. Wade, the longtime journalist covering genetic advances for The New York Times, draws widely on the work of scientists who have made crucial breakthroughs in establishing the reality of recent human evolution. The most provocative claims in this book involve the genetic basis of human social habits. What we might call middle-class social traits—thrift, docility, nonviolence—have been slowly but surely inculcated genetically within agrarian societies, Wade argues. These “values” obviously had a strong cultural component, but Wade points to evidence that agrarian societies evolved away from hunter-gatherer societies in some crucial respects. Also controversial are his findings regarding the genetic basis of traits we associate with intelligence, such as literacy and numeracy, in certain ethnic populations, including the Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews. Wade believes deeply in the fundamental equality of all human peoples. He also believes that science is best served by pursuing the truth without fear, and if his mission to arrive at a coherent summa of what the new genetic science does and does not tell us about race and human history leads straight into a minefield, then so be it. This will not be the last word on the subject, but it will begin a powerful and overdue conversation.
Download or read book The Genetic basis of evolution written by Theodosius Grigorievich Dobzhansky and published by . This book was released on 1953 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Adaptation and Natural Selection written by George Christopher Williams and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-30 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biological evolution is a fact—but the many conflicting theories of evolution remain controversial even today. When Adaptation and Natural Selection was first published in 1966, it struck a powerful blow against those who argued for the concept of group selection—the idea that evolution acts to select entire species rather than individuals. Williams’s famous work in favor of simple Darwinism over group selection has become a classic of science literature, valued for its thorough and convincing argument and its relevance to many fields outside of biology. Now with a new foreword by Richard Dawkins, Adaptation and Natural Selection is an essential text for understanding the nature of scientific debate.
Download or read book Not in Our Genes written by Richard Lewontin and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three eminent scientists analyze the scientific, social, and political roots of biological determinism.
Download or read book Genetic Variation written by Michael P. Weiner and published by CSHL Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first compendium of protocols specifically geared towards genetic variation studies. It includes detailed step-by-step experimental protocols that cover the complete spectrum of genetic variation in humans and model organisms, along with advice on study design and analyzing data.
Download or read book The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought written by Ron Amundson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-03-14 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Ron Amundson examines two hundred years of scientific views on the evolution-development relationship from the perspective of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). This perspective challenges several popular views about the history of evolutionary thought by claiming that many earlier authors had made history come out right for the Evolutionary Synthesis. The book starts with a revised history of nineteenth-century evolutionary thought. It then investigates how development became irrelevant with the Evolutionary Synthesis. It concludes with an examination of the contrasts that persist between mainstream evolutionary theory and evo-devo. This book will appeal to students and professionals in the philosophy and history of science, and biology.
Download or read book Evolutionary Genetics written by Glenn-Peter Sætre and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With recent technological advances, vast quantities of genetic and genomic data are being generated at an ever-increasing pace. The explosion in access to data has transformed the field of evolutionary genetics. A thorough understanding of evolutionary principles is essential for making sense of this, but new skill sets are also needed to handle and analyze big data. This contemporary textbook covers all the major components of modern evolutionary genetics, carefully explaining fundamental processes such as mutation, natural selection, genetic drift, and speciation. It also draws on a rich literature of exciting and inspiring examples to demonstrate the diversity of evolutionary research, including an emphasis on how evolution and selection has shaped our own species. Practical experience is essential for developing an understanding of how to use genetic and genomic data to analyze and interpret results in meaningful ways. In addition to the main text, a series of online tutorials using the R language serves as an introduction to programming, statistics, and analysis. Indeed the R environment stands out as an ideal all-purpose source platform to handle and analyze such data. The book and its online materials take full advantage of the authors' own experience in working in a post-genomic revolution world, and introduces readers to the plethora of molecular and analytical methods that have only recently become available. Evolutionary Genetics is an advanced but accessible textbook aimed principally at students of various levels (from undergraduate to postgraduate) but also for researchers looking for an updated introduction to modern evolutionary biology and genetics.
Download or read book Evolution written by Michael Ruse and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-28 with total page 1020 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning evolutionary science from its inception to its latest findings, from discoveries and data to philosophy and history, this book is the most complete, authoritative, and inviting one-volume introduction to evolutionary biology available. Clear, informative, and comprehensive in scope, Evolution opens with a series of major essays dealing with the history and philosophy of evolutionary biology, with major empirical and theoretical questions in the science, from speciation to adaptation, from paleontology to evolutionary development (evo devo), and concluding with essays on the social and political significance of evolutionary biology today. A second encyclopedic section travels the spectrum of topics in evolution with concise, informative, and accessible entries on individuals from Aristotle and Linneaus to Louis Leakey and Jean Lamarck; from T. H. Huxley and E. O. Wilson to Joseph Felsenstein and Motoo Kimura; and on subjects from altruism and amphibians to evolutionary psychology and Piltdown Man to the Scopes trial and social Darwinism. Readers will find the latest word on the history and philosophy of evolution, the nuances of the science itself, and the intricate interplay among evolutionary study, religion, philosophy, and society. Appearing at the beginning of the Darwin Year of 2009—the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species—this volume is a fitting tribute to the science Darwin set in motion.
Download or read book The Epistemology of Development Evolution and Genetics written by Richard Burian and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays examine the developments in three fundamental biological disciplines--embryology, evolutionary biology, and genetics. These disciplines were in conflict for much of the 20th century and the essays in this collection examine key methodological problems within these disciplines and the difficulties faced in overcoming the conflicts between them. Burian skillfully weaves together historical appreciation of the settings within which scientists work, substantial knowledge of the biological problems at stake and the methodological and philosophical issues faced in integrating biological knowledge drawn from disparate sources.
Download or read book Evolution and Genetics written by David John Merrell and published by . This book was released on 2012-07-01 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Human Diversity written by Richard C. Lewontin and published by Times Books. This book was released on 1995 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are our personalities and capabilities predetermined by our genes? Human Diversity answers that question with a resounding 'No'. Using tools of population genetics, Richard Lewontin makes the case that biological differences are only a small part of what makes individuals unique-anyone, regardless of race, class or sex, has the potential to develop virtually any identity within the spectrum of humanity.
