Evolution

IT IS TIME FOR A NEW THEORY OF EVOLUTION BASED ON GENOMICS, NOT GUESSES
In 2011, James A. Shapiro’s Evolution: A View from the 21st Century proposed a revolutionary paradigm for understanding biological evolution: natural genetic engineering, not random accidents, produce genome change. In the 21st-century view, organisms are active participants in the evolutionary process.

Since then, climate change and multiple crises in infectious disease have given new urgency to understanding evolution. In this expanded 2nd Edition, Shapiro shares new evidence that living cells re-engineer their genomes in response to environmental challenges and disruptions to cellular reproduction.

From the classroom to the laboratory, conventional wisdom still paints evolution as the passive result of mutational accidents and natural selection. A modern vision of evolution recognizes that all living beings, from the simplest organisms to humans, actively modify their read-write (RW) genomes as they evolve.

In an unpredictable world, the ability to evolve actively is essential to survival. Today, understanding evolution is equally critical to our shared future.

Read this book to learn:

• How interactions with other species, cells, and viruses shape an organism’s evolution
• How better understanding evolution can help protect our health, food supply, and planet
• How to apply lessons from molecular genetics and genomics wisely to benefit society

Written for both general and academic readers, the 2nd Edition includes:

• Discussions of the latest thinking on evolutionary processes
• Published scientific papers sharing key research from the past decade
• The full text of the 2011 edition with appendices

James A. Shapiro is Professor of Microbiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several pioneering books on mobile genetic elements, natural genetic engineering, bacterial multicellularity, and read-write genome evolution.