Shaping Life: Genes, Embryos and Evolution

by John Maynard Smith

During the past ten years, there has been a revolution in our understanding of developmental biology, as scientists apply the ideas and techniques of genetics and embryology to the processes of development. In this book, John Maynard Smith gives an account of the progress that has been made in this field -- in our knowledge of both the development of individuals and the evolution of the species.Maynard Smith points out that there is a parallel between the developmental changes that convert an egg into an adult and the evolutionary changes converted simple single-celled ancestors into the existing array of multicellular animals and plants. Genetic studies provide the necessary link between development and evolution: natural selection explains how information is incorporated in the genome, and development shows what use is made of it during the development of each individual.

Traditionally, two very different views have been held about development. Maynard Smith argues that the differences between them are not so much scientific as ideological -- one can be considered reductionist and the other holistic. But because of advances in the science underpinning both viewpoints, he says, the possibility of a dialogue between them is great, which will be beneficial to the entire discipline.

Genres: Evolution, Science, Biology, Genetics, Nonfiction

64 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

John Maynard Smith FRS was a British theoretical and mathematical evolutionary biologist and geneticist. Originally an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War, he took a second degree in genetics under the well-known biologist J. B. S. Haldane

Reviews

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant biologists expounds on current debates in evolution and development, with intriguing real world natural examples and informative theoretical parallels. Highly recommend to this interested in evolutionary theory or the history of science!

[Ram Vasudeva · Rating 4 out of 5]

As important a book as any in explaining the fundamentals- core of Science. How the deep working of modern molecular science played a key part in stitching other important disciplines; to make understand the myriad processes and mechanisms that give rise to form. Evolution as a key concept in explaining subtle differences between these processes and mechanisms. An important read.

[J.D. Steens · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this short book (45 pages, based on a lecture), Smith states that biological replication is not the same thing as self-organization. A small spherical object dropped on the surface of a fluid produces a “splash pattern” that is self-organized. “It was not stamped out,” he writes, “and it did not require any specific instructions to make it. It is just the result of dynamical processes in the water, initiated by a falling drop.” In contrast, replication produces a template that contains information with coded instructions for development. Self-organized structures do not produce such templates “and have nothing to do with ensuring their own survival and reproduction.”

Smith’s last and very brief chapter refers to the holistic theorists as being sympathetic to the self-organization perspective, whereas the reductionists take the replication perspective. From here, he mentions that some in the self-organization school of thought lean to the left, ideologically, whereas some of the reductionists lean to the right. More elaboration in this chapter would have been helpful as I was confused about the role of ideology in science. If ideology is involved, how is that science?