Lamarck's Revenge by Peter Ward

Lamarck's Revenge by Peter Ward

Epigenetics upends natural selection and genetic mutation as the sole engines of evolution, and offers startling insights into our future heritable traits.

In the 1700s, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck first described epigenetics to explain the inheritance of acquired characteristics; however, his theory was supplanted in the 1800s by Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection through heritable genetic mutations. But natural selection could not adequately explain how rapidly species re-diversified and repopulated after mass extinctions. Now advances in the study of DNA and RNA have resurrected epigenetics, which can create radical physical and physiological changes in subsequent generations by the simple addition of a single small molecule, thus passing along a propensity for molecules to attach in the same places in the next generation.

Epigenetics is a complex process, but paleontologist and astrobiologist Peter Ward breaks it down for general readers, using the epigenetic paradigm to reexamine how the history of our species--from deep time to the outbreak of the Black Plague and into the present--has left its mark on our physiology, behavior, and intelligence. Most alarming are chapters about epigenetic changes we are undergoing now triggered by toxins, environmental pollutants, famine, poor nutrition, and overexposure to violence.

Lamarck's Revenge is an eye-opening and provocative exploration of how traits are inherited, and how outside influences drive what we pass along to our progeny.

Ward, Peter: - Peter Ward was born in London in 1980. He was educated at William Torbitt Primary School and Ilford Country High School in Essex, before studying English Literature at the University of Southampton.

He started writing his first book Time Rep in 2002, which took six years to complete. He then left it in a drawer for three years before putting the first draft of it on the internet in 2011. After being downloaded 60,000 times and receiving (mostly) positive reviews, he thought it would be wise to approach a literary agent. This led to a new and improved draft of Time Rep being published by Diversion Books in 2013. A German translation is due later in the year through Piper Verlag GmbH. He began writing his second book Note to Self just as Time Rep was being completed in 2008. The final draft was completed in February 2013 and is due to be published by Diversion Books later this year.
He lives in London with his partner Lucy and a very small cat.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781632866158
ISBN 10	1632866153
Title	Lamarck's Revenge
Author	Peter Ward
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Year published	2018-10-17
Number of pages	288
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.