Dear Mr. Darwin: Letters on the Evolution of Life and Human Nature - Hardcover

Dover, Gabriel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520227905 ISBN 13: 9780520227903

Publisher: University of California Press, 2000

Synopsis

Anyone who has ever wondered what it would be like to talk to Charles Darwin about changes that have taken place in evolutionary biology since his death will be fascinated by this witty and literate blend of science, history, and biography. Stimulated by Darwin's relatively uninformed but obviously intelligent questions, Gabriel Dover takes the father of evolution on an exhilarating roller-coaster ride through the new genetics. The imagined two-way correspondence between Dover and Darwin about the surprising findings of modern genetics and the evolution of biological novelties, from genes to organisms, is both erudite and entertaining. In the process, Dover presents a startlingly original view of development and evolution that puts the individual organism on center stage.

Creating a cultural backdrop that ranges from the poetry of Ted Hughes to the music of Captain Beefheart to the current crisis in the Balkans, Dover debunks the naively deterministic view of selfish genes and their supposed lonely pursuits of self-replication and self-immortalization. He reveals a world of evolution far more intricate and subtle than can be expected from the notion of natural selection acting alone--a world in which genes are born to cooperate.

About this title

About the Author

Gabriel Dover is an internationally recognized authority on the evolution of genes and genomes and is the originator of the molecular drive theory of evolution. He has written more than 150 research papers and edited several books on modern aspects of molecular and developmental evolution. He is currently Professor of Genetics at the University of Leicester.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From the book:

Dear Mr. Darwin,

You might find it presumptuous of me, if not a little macabre, that I should take up my pen and write to you more than a hundred years after your death. But I'm encouraged to do this because it is on record that you yourself wrote almost 14,000 letters on scientific issues, many of which I expect were answers to unsolicited correspondence. . . . I cannot know whether or not, deep in your tomb in Westminster Abbey, you've been keeping abreast since your demise with the ups and downs of your theory of evolution which you called, quite cleverly (and if a little misleadingly as it turned out), natural selection. . . . Despite the gulf that separates us in time and means, I know that this letter will arouse your scientific interests, for it touches on some of the central issues with which you wrestled all your life.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0520227905
• ISBN 13: 9780520227903
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 262