The Cooperative Gene: How Mendel's Demon Explains the Evolution of Complex Beings - Hardcover

Ridley, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743201612 ISBN 13: 9780743201612

Publisher: Free Press, 2001

Synopsis

For those who find the conventional gene-eat-gene account of evolution suspiciously similar to the ideology of capitalism, Ridley (zoology, U. of Oxford) points out that complex organisms could not have arisen unless many genes in the case of humans, about 30,000 learned how to work together. His main themes are mutational errors in the copying of DNA and how Mendelian inheritance is designed to prevent selfish genes from taking over. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

About this title

Review

The Cooperative Gene is about sex and how sex enabled complex life to arise. Mark Ridley, a researcher and author of many works including the textbook Evolution, contends that simple life is "easy." Simple life like bacteria evolved as soon as conditions on Earth permitted. But complex life--walking, flying, swimming, squawking organisms with differentiated tissues--was a huge step forward. It took billions of years for complex life (and sex) to appear.

More than anything, organisms want to pass on their genes. Sex seems to defy natural selection in its ability to convince organisms to pass on only half their genes. Natural selection will favor "selfish" genes, ones that can beat the odds and get passed on. But if this happened all the time, complex life could not exist. So how does it? Enter what Ridley describes as "Mendel's demon," a system in which genes are passed on in a random fashion. Most important, the demon prevents selfish genes from sabotaging that randomness.

Although Gene isn't a technical book, its ideas are complicated. Ridley's style is methodical, broken by the occasional dryly humorous aside. Evolutionary biologists and other assorted PhDs will no doubt be entertained. Popular-science buffs may find it slow going, but they will be rewarded by a thorough understanding of the topic.

In his last two chapters, Ridley leaps further afield, exploring the influence of technology on human evolution and speculating how future science could change us. He also examines the idea of supercomplex organisms, beings that would tower over humans in complexity to the same degree that humans tower over bacteria. It's pure speculation but compelling nonetheless, worthy of its own book. --J. B. Peck

About the Author

Mark Ridley pursues his research in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford. Formerly an assistant professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Ridley has also served as a research fellow at St. Catherine's College, Cambridge, and at Linacre, Oriel, and New Colleges in Oxford, all in England. His previous publications include The Problems of Evolution, Animal Behavior, and the highly acclaimed student textbook Evolution. Ridley frequently contributes to The New York Times, The Sunday Times, Nature, New Scientist, and The Times Literary Supplement. He lives in Oxford, England.

Edition details

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0743201612
• ISBN 13: 9780743201612
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336