Extended Heredity: A New Understanding of Inheritance and Evolution

Bonduriansky, Russell & Troy Day

ISBN 10: 0691157677 / ISBN 13: 9780691157672

Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2018

About this Item

Cloth in DJ; 288pp; DJ clean, bright & protected by mylar sleeve, boards square, clean & bright, text unmarked, binding is tight, as new, Fine/Fine condition. Leading evolutionary biologists challenge the premise that genes alone mediate the transmission of biological information across generations. Illustrated.

Seller Inventory # 019615

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Extended Heredity: A New Understanding of Inheritance and Evolution
• Publisher: Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
• Publication Date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0691157677
• ISBN 13: 9780691157672
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Science

About this title

Synopsis

How genes are not the only basis of heredity―and what this means for evolution, human life, and disease

For much of the twentieth century it was assumed that genes alone mediate the transmission of biological information across generations and provide the raw material for natural selection. In Extended Heredity, leading evolutionary biologists Russell Bonduriansky and Troy Day challenge this premise. Drawing on the latest research, they demonstrate that what happens during our lifetimes--and even our grandparents' and great-grandparents' lifetimes―can influence the features of our descendants. On the basis of these discoveries, Bonduriansky and Day develop an extended concept of heredity that upends ideas about how traits can and cannot be transmitted across generations.

By examining the history of the gene-centered view in modern biology and reassessing fundamental tenets of evolutionary theory, Bonduriansky and Day show that nongenetic inheritance―involving epigenetic, environmental, behavioral, and cultural factors―could play an important role in evolution. The discovery of nongenetic inheritance therefore has major implications for key questions in evolutionary biology, as well as human health.

Extended Heredity reappraises long-held ideas and opens the door to a new understanding of inheritance and evolution.

About the Author

Russell Bonduriansky is professor of evolutionary biology at the University of New South Wales in Australia. Troy Day is a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and the Department of Biology at Queen's University in Canada. His books include Biocalculus and A Biologist's Guide to Mathematical Modeling in Ecology and Evolution (Princeton).