Modular Evolution: How Natural Selection Produces Biological Complexity - Softcover

Vinicius, Lucio

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521728770 ISBN 13: 9780521728775

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2010

Synopsis

Natural selection is more than the survival of the fittest: it is a force engendering higher biological complexity. Presenting a new explanation for the tendency of life to become more complex through evolution, this book offers an introduction to the key debates in evolutionary theory, including the role of genes and sex in evolution, the adaptive reasons for senescence and death and the origin of neural information. The author argues that biological complexity increased through the process of ‘modularity transfer': modular phenotypes (proteins, somatic cells, learned behaviours) evolved into new modular information carriers (regulatory proteins, neural cells, words), giving rise to new information systems and higher levels of biological organisation. Modular Evolution makes sense of the unique place of humans in evolution, both as the pinnacle of biological complexity and inventors of non-biological evolution.

About this title

About the Author

Lucio Vinicius is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies in Cambridge, UK. He has published articles in various fields including life history evolution, Drosophila genetics, brain evolution and human growth.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0521728770
• ISBN 13: 9780521728775
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248