Extended Heredity: A New Understanding of Inheritance and Evolution

Description

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 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).

"The most compelling and accessible account of this topic to date."---Kevin Laland, Science "Extended Heredity [shows] how far the mainstream has shifted to include epigenetic forces alongside genes as drivers of who and what we are."---Liz Else and Simon Ings, New Scientist "Bonduriansky & Day have written a book of great clarity, and have done so with great care. Whether you are open to the idea of non-genetic inheritance or not, this thought provoking book deserves a close reading." * Inquisitive Biologist * "Extended Heredity (EH) has posed a challenge for twentieth and early twenty-first century 'normal' evolutionary biology, but the accumulation of models and experi-mental evidence for it obliges us to acknowledge its importance. This book . . . aims at making space for EH by systematizing its potential for explanation and prediction . . . this volume offers a particularly valuable state of the art of the literature on this important topic"---Gaelle Pontarotti; Arantza Etxeberria, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences