Bioinformatic Egg, Biosemiotic Hen

摘要

The book I am reviewing by the molecular geneticist Donald Forsdyke, has the look and feel of a textbook rather than a revolutionary manifesto. It consolidates a revolution in thinking that is contained in Forsdyke's earlier publications, for example his 2001 book The Origin of Species Revisited. Like many revolutions Forsdyke's is catalyzed by a renewed look at the past. Specifically, he has revived a number of questions about evolutionary process which were raised in the 19th Century by William Bateson-who was Gregory Bateson's father and the inventor of the word genetics-and by the essayist Samuel Butler (whose works on evolution using his unconventional concept of memory were widely read in his time). These questions deal with the fundamental issue of the origin of species and how they diverge, but because they point away from natural selection as the only and total explanation they have by and large been ignored by the mainstream of evolutionary theorizing.