Genetics and the Logic of Evolution - Hardcover

Weiss, Kenneth M.; Buchanan, Anne V.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471238058 ISBN 13: 9780471238058

Publisher: Wiley-Liss, 2004

Synopsis

In this book the authors draw on what is known, largely from recent research, about the nature of genes and cells, the genetics of development and animal and plant body plans, intra- and interorganismal communication, sensation and perception, to propose that a few basic generalizations, along with the modified application of the classical evolutionary theory, can provide a broader theoretical understanding of genes, evolution, and the diverse and complex nature of living organisms.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Darwinian theory, with genes at its center, still frames our discussion of evolution. Yet now the picture within the frame–a portrait rendered in detail at the cellular and molecular level–contains the real stuff of today's big questions about living organisms. Genetics and molecular biology have revealed a new realm of complexity in life, with major implications for how we understand evolution.

Genetics and the Logic of Evolution provides a much-needed overview and analysis of general principles and patterns of evolution in light of contemporary biology. Taking a functional approach to explain how genes are used across the diverse range of species, the authors consider:

• Basic concepts and principles of biological complexity
• Alternative and supplemental principles to Darwinian theory
• Building blocks of life: how DNA, RNA, and genes work in single-cell and multi-cellular organisms
• Communication within an organism
• Detection and perception of the environment
• Evolutionary order and disorder and the sometimes fluid relationships between phenotypes and genotypes

Working outwards from the molecular level, Genetics and the Logic of Evolution moves its discourse towards a broader sense of life and how organisms live it. Written to be both scientifically rigorous and accessible to the layman, this treatment offers students and practitioners a refreshingly grand tour of the most important generalizations to emerge from recent biological research.

About the Author

Kenneth M Weiss is Evan Pugh Professor of Anthropology and Geneticsat Penn State University. After majoring in mathematics at OberlinCollege, he received graduate training in Biological Anthropologyand genetics at the University of Michigan, where he received hisPhD in 1972. He has written widely on evolutionary principlesand biology, human genetics and the complexities of therelationships between genes and traits like human disease ordevelopmental patterns. He writes a regular column onproblems and issues in evolution and genetics for the journalEvolutionary Anthropology, and is the author of GeneticVariation and Human Disease: Principles and EvolutionaryApproaches. He has also been a professionalmeteorologist.

Anne Buchanan is Senior Research Scientist in the Department ofAnthropology at Penn State University. She has a BA inAnthropology from the University of Massachusetts and a DrPH inPopulation Studies from the University of Texas School of PublicHealth. She has worked on population-scale problems inrelation to health and genetics, and on molecular and developmentalgenetics, and has published in a diversity of areas, includinganthropology, demography, epidemiology, genetic epidemiology, anddevelopmental genetics.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley-Liss
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0471238058
• ISBN 13: 9780471238058
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 560