Peter D. WardCritiques

Ebook

Mmm. There's some nice summary bits in the beginning about what epigenetics is, but even with extensive footnotes I don't feel like there's enough support for the idea that epigenetics was the key to speciation after mass extinction events (though it's an intriguing hypothesis). Many of the footnotes are to news articles rather than the studies described in said articles, and literature cited are sometimes >5 years old (which is understandable given the time it takes to publish a book...but writing in 2014, a 2009 study might not be necessarily cutting edge).

The last third is a list of factors that might be affecting our epigenome, and while there's recent studies to indicate the possibility of such, it starts to creep towards fearmongering. In the epilogue, Ward complains about the blowback he got for saying that stress from the 2016 election among other things would affect us epigenetically- while that could be likely, he quipped it without evidence so I don't think he's the wronged party there. As scientists, we should be careful and make assertions if they can be backed up by evidence- otherwise it's just noise.

Je tiefer ich ab und an in naturwissenschaftliche Forschungen einsteige, umso verblüffter bleibe ich zurück. In dieses Buch bin ich mit dem letzten Satz hellhörig geworden: Vielleicht nahm das Leben – unsere Art des Lebens – auf dem Mars seinen Anfang. Es hatte die Wahl, den Mars zu verlassen oder zu sterben. Wir haben das Überleben buchstäblich in unseren Genen. Leben scheint widerstandsfähig und sich den unterschiedlichsten Gegebenheiten anzupassen. Aber nur solange die Sonne scheint. Es ist insb. auch in der Lage, Antworten auf eruptive, unwahrscheinliche Ereignissen zu finden. Je mehr man nachdenkt, umso klarer wird, dass Gott tatsächlich würfelt und die Menschheit mit immer neuen, überraschenden Momenten abhärten will, an deren Ende wohl immer die Flucht aus dem notwendigerweise zu Ende gehenden Planeten stehen muss.

Es ist an der Trennlinie bzw. den Übergängen zwischen Katastrophismus und Aktualismus angesiedelt, wenn wir es nach wissenschaftlichen Parametern abgleichen. Die Evolution sei hauptsächlich gekennzeichnet durch Katastrophen, sagen die einen, während die anderen unterstellen, alles sei eine Wiederholung des Immergleichen, mit einer geradlinig verlaufenden Evolution. Das Heute war also auch genau so in der Vergangenheit, höheres (menschliches) Leben konnte sich gleichmäßig entwickeln.

Natürlich ist dem gesunden Menschenverstand klar: allein aus der Gegenwart lässt sich die Vergangenheit nicht begreifen, es gab immer jene schwarzen Schwäne der Erdgeschichte, an die niemand dachte. Peter Ward und Joe Kirschvink meinen nun, "dass die Geschichte des Lebendigen durch Katastrophen stärker beeinflusst wurde als durch die Summe aller anderen Kräfte". Darwins Konzept von einer langsamen Evolution des Lebens verliert durch diese Erkenntnis nicht an Bedeutungsgehalt, sondern wird mithin ergänzt durch die Bewältigung sogenannter schwarzer Schwäne, also nicht vorauszusehender, brutaler Ereignisse des Kosmos (Vulkane, Metereoiten etc.).

Die Überzeugung der Autoren: der chemisch aggressive Sauerstoff und sein wechselnder atmosphärischer Gehalt hat die Entstehung und Ausbreitung des Lebens maßgeblich geprägt. Die Entstehung neuer Arten und der Landgang von Lebewesen im Wasser sei erst mit einem steigenden Sauerstoffgehalt in der Atmosphäre möglich geworden.

Die Autoren gehen davon aus, dass wir uns heute auf einem Gipfelpunkt der Artenzahl während der gesamten Geschichte allen Lebens befinden. Den Autoren zufolge "lässt sich unmöglich beweisen, welcher Anteil der Lebensformen heute ausstirbt". Es sei deshalb unklar, ob das derzeitige Artensterben ein größeres, kleineres oder gar kein herausragendes Massensterben sei, das sie für die Vergangenheit mehrfach nachweisen. Nach jedem dieser Umkehrpunkte kehrte die Natur allerdings erholter und mit größerer Artenvielfalt zurück.

Insgesamt zehnmal kam es im Verlauf der Erdgeschichte zu dramatischen Massensterben, immer dann, wenn die Atmosphäre durch einen extrem hohen Kohlendioxidgehalt belastet wurde, einhergehend mit einer extremen Klimaerwärmung. Allerdings würde nach solchen Megakatastrophen neue und widerstandsfähigere Gene Lebewesen „beflügeln“.

Naturwissenschaften und ihre Grenzziehungen, ein nicht immer leicht zu lesendes Buch, in jedem Fall aber mit erstaunlichen Erkenntnissen und Schlussfolgerungen.

Great overview of the evolution of life on earth, with special emphasis on chemistry, geology, and climate. Learned a lot.

Note the subtitle of the book is "Why COMPLEX Life Is Uncommon in the Universe". The authors conclude that simple life is likely widespread throughout the universe--and was very likely seeded here from space. The SETI-types rebutted Rare Earth with their own take, hilariously titled, "Life Everywhere." After all, if your funding was based on the belief that E.T. is out there just around the next sun, you'd be upset by this book too. But once you've read Rare Earth you'll understand why Newsday said, "…[a book that] has hit the world of astrobiologists like a killer asteriod…".

The author provides a discussion of past, present, and future evolution. He covers a lot of territory in a fairly short book with some nice illustrations. He provides a well researched and intelligent overview and logical speculation on future types of evolution. I appreciate his knowledge of a broad spectrum of related topics and discussion of their impact on evolution. As is correct the logical end of evolution on Earth ends as the Sun overheats the Earth. From our present to that time many possible outcomes are possible related to asteroid impacts, global wars, disease, and global environmental and temperature changes. His discussion of the current mass extinctions and its impact is logical. He is optimist regarding the longevity of humans, which could be but is pessimistic of the future of humans spreading to other planets, which is also logical based on our current understandings. The author provides a discussion of related literature and research, which exemplifies his depth of knowledge. I think this is well done and recommend the book.½

Review of: Lamarck’s Revenge: How Epigenetics is Revolutionizing Our Understanding of Evolution’s Past and Present, by Peter Ward
by Stan Prager (6-19-20)

If you have studied evolution inside or outside of the classroom, you have no doubt encountered the figure of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and the discredited notion of the inheritance of acquired characteristics attributed to him known as “Lamarckism.” This has most famously been represented in the example of giraffes straining to reach fruit on ever-higher branches, which results in the development of longer necks over succeeding generations. Never mind that Lamarck did not develop this concept—and while he echoed it, it remained only a tiny part of the greater body of his work—he was yet doomed to have it unfortunately cling to his legacy ever since. This is most regrettable, because Lamarck—who died three decades before Charles Darwin shook the spiritual and scientific world with his 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species—was actually a true pioneer in the field of evolutionary biology that recognized there were forces at work that put organisms on an ineluctable road to greater complexity. It was Darwin who identified this force as “natural selection,” and Lamarck was not only denied credit for his contributions to the field, but otherwise maligned and ridiculed.
But even if he did not invent the idea, what if Lamarck was right all along to believe, at least in part, that acquired characteristics can be passed along transgenerationally after all—perhaps not on the kind of macro scale manifested by giraffe necks, but in other more subtle yet no less critical components to the principles of evolution? That is the subject of Lamarck’s Revenge: How Epigenetics is Revolutionizing Our Understanding of Evolution’s Past and Present, by the noted paleontologist Peter Ward. The book’s cover naturally showcases a series of illustrated giraffes with ever-lengthening necks! Ward is an enthusiast for the relatively new, still developing—and controversial—science of epigenetics, which advances the hypothesis that certain circumstances can trigger markers that can be transmitted from parent to child by changing the gene expression without altering the primary structure of the DNA itself. Let’s imagine a Holocaust survivor, for instance: can the trauma of Auschwitz cut so deep that the devastating psychological impact of that horrific experience will be passed on to his children, and his children’s children?
This is heady stuff, of course. We should pause for the uninitiated and explain the nature of Darwinian natural selection—the key mechanism of the Theory of Evolution—in its simplest terms. The key to survival for all organizations is adaptation. Random mutations occur over time, and if one of those mutations turns out to be better adapted to the environment, it is more likely to reproduce and thus pass along its genes to its offspring. Over time, through “gradualism,” this can lead to the rise of new species. Complexity breeds complexity, and that is the road traveled by all organisms that has led from the simplest prokaryote unicellular organism—the 3.5-billion-year-old photosynthetic cyanobacteria—to modern homo sapiens sapiens. This is, of course, a very, very long game; so long in fact that Darwin—who lived in a time when the age of the earth was vastly underestimated—fretted that there was not enough time for evolution as he envisioned it to occur. Advances in geology later determined that the earth was about 4.5 billion years old, which solved that problem, but still left other aspects of evolution unexplained by gradualism alone. The brilliant Stephen Jay Gould (along with Niles Eldredge) came along in 1972 and proposed that rather than gradualism most evolution more likely occurred through what he called “punctuated equilibrium,” often triggered by a catastrophic change in the environment. Debate has raged ever since, but it may well be that evolution is guided by forces of both gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. But could there still be other forces at work?
Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance represents another so-called force and is at the cutting edge of research in evolutionary biology today. But has the hypothesis of epigenetics been demonstrated to be truly plausible? And the answer to that is—maybe. In other words, there does seem to be studies that support transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, most famously—as detailed in Lamarck’s Revenge—in what has been dubbed the “Dutch Hunger Winter Syndrome,” that saw children born during a famine smaller than those born before the famine, and with a later, greater risk of glucose intolerance, conditions then passed down to successive generations. On the other hand, the evidence for epigenetics has not been as firmly established as some proponents, such as Ward, might have us believe.
Lamarck’s Revenge is a very well-written and accessible scientific account of epigenetics for a popular audience, and while I have read enough evolutionary science to follow Ward’s arguments with some competence, I remain a layperson who can hardly endorse or counter his claims. The body of the narrative is comprised of Ward’s repeated examples of what he identifies as holes in traditional evolutionary biology that can only be explained by epigenetics. Is he right? I simply lack the expertise to say. I should note that I received this book as part of an “Early Reviewers” program, so I felt a responsibility to read it cover-to-cover, although my own interest lapsed as it moved beyond my own depth in the realm of evolutionary biology.
I should note that this is all breaking news, and as we appraise it we should be mindful of how those on the fringes of evangelicalism, categorically opposed to the science of human evolution, will cling to any debate over mechanisms in natural selection to proclaim it all a sham sponsored by Satan—who has littered the earth with fossils to deceive us—to challenge the truth of the “Garden of Eden” related in the Book of Genesis. Once dubbed “Creationists,” they have since rebranded themselves in association with the pseudoscience of so-called “Intelligent Design,” which somehow remains part of the curriculum at select accredited universities. Science is self-correcting. These folks are not, so don’t ever let yourself be distracted by their fictional supernatural narrative. Evolution—whether through gradualism and/or punctuated equilibrium and/or epigenetics—remains central to both modern biology and modern medicine, and that is not the least bit controversial among scientific professionals. But if you want to find out more about the implications of epigenetics for human evolution, then I recommend that you pick up Lamarck’s Revenge and challenge yourself to learn more!

Note: While you are at it, if you want to learn more about 3.5-billion-year-old photosynthetic cyanobacteria, I highly recommend this:
Review of: Cradle of Life: The Discovery of Earth’s Earliest Fossils, by J. William Schopf

Review of: Lamarck’s Revenge: How Epigenetics is Revolutionizing Our Understanding of Evolution’s Past and Present, by Peter Ward https://regarp.com/2020/06/19/review-of-lamarcks-revenge-how-epigenetics-is-revo...

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it has interesting information about the role of epigenetics in evolution. Nessa Carey beautifully described the biological functioning of epigenetics in her book The Epigenetic Revolution, but didn't focus on how this effects the evolution of species in any great detail. This book deals with epigenetics and how this effects the genetics and evolution of species, as well as the Theory of Evolution. This book starts off with a history of science focused on Lamarck and Darwin, then a superficial explanation of what epigenetics is and how it works, followed by the effects of epigenetics on evolution, then the history of life (especially focusing on the sudden expansion of life and body forms after the great mass extinctions), then human history from the Ice Age to present times and our possible future (with far too much speculation).

One of the major problems with this book are the exceptionally lengthy run-on sentences, made longer by the really long clauses in parenthesis stuffed within the very long sentences, especially in the first half of the book (the author settles down a bit in the second half of the book). There is also a great deal of repetition with the information, not to mention all the personal opinions and biases (repeated constantly) by the author, all the tangential "stuff" (repeated constantly) about climate warming, pollution, evil parents, great extinction events and their causes, condemnation of other scientists (especially Darwin) because they didn't automatically worship Lamarck (whose ideas are simplified and used as a vehicle in this book), random insertions of irrelevant material, not to mention the political asides. The organisation of the book could also use some assistance and the author jumps all over the place (especially in the first half of the book), and sub-sections just end in the middle of developing an idea (apparently editors are an extinct species). The explanations dealing with epigenetics in general (in the first third of the book) are not particularly clear or coherent, and the run-on, multi-parenthesized (is this even a word?) sentences do not help in understanding this relatively new concept.

If you want to know about epigenetics, read The Epigenetics Revolution by Nessa Carey. If you want a book about epigenetics and evolution, wait for someone else to write a more coherent text (maybe one day Nick Lane can cover this topic).

Note: If you found this review long winded, convoluted, with too many parenthesized run-on sentences... well, that's what the book is like.

An interesting and informative book in which the author investigates the mystery of what caused the various great extinctions in the past, and how this relates to the current environmental situation today. This scientific mystery story involves everything from squabbling scientist, volcanoes, "evil" bacteria, poisonous gases and asteroids to oceanic convection currents and ice core data.

The book was published in 2007. I'm not certain how outdated and thus accurate the data is in light of any new evidence. However, I found the book to be an interesting and entertaining reading experience, with food for thought and things to look up.

Other, Related Recommended Books:
The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed History by David Beerling
Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth's Ancient Atmosphere by Peter D. Ward
Oxygen: The Molecule That Made the World by Nick Lane

Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth's Ancient Atmosphere by Peter Ward hypothesizes that changing atmospheric and oceanic oxygen levels over the last 600 million years have caused significant evolutionary development, including changes in body plan (morphology), physiology and diversity of animal life.

The author hypothesizes that with high levels of atmospheric oxygen, animals can grow very large, and do so because it protects them from predators. When oxygen levels drop, extinctions occur, and the numbers of organisms of any surviving species drop, but body-plans proliferate as species strive to adapt. More than any other required resources, oxygen is absolutely necessary for the survival of animals, their ability to meet the requirements of survival, and their ability to reproduce successfully. As atmospheric oxygen levels have fluctuated over geological time, evolution has followed suit, with mass extinctions and certain evolutionary radiations occurring as oxygen dropped, and more evolutionary radiations occurring once oxygen began to rise.

I found the material in this book fascinating, informative and thought provoking. The author provides many testable hypothesis and well as a large number of examples involving the structure and comparative functioning of lungs, gills, livers, feathers, hearts (four-chambered vs three chambered), bones, types of metabolism (endothermic vs exothermic), reproductive strategies (eggs vs live-birth) and body posture (bipedal vs lizard and mammal quadruped) in various atmospheric conditions. The impact of plate tectonics and geochemistry (sulfur and carbon cycles) on oxygen levels are also explored. The illustrations were also helpful.

This book is written for intelligent adults and assumes that the reader has some knowledge of the various branches of science, such as biology, physics, chemistry, climatology, and geology.

Overall, a good book and quite insightful, but an editor would have been useful to smooth out the occasional clunky language. I hope the author updates this book with new information soon.

This is really a 3.25 book, but the topic is just so interesting, that a rounded up.

The author knows his stuff about epigenetics. It was nicely explained, however, I think he took his theories too far. For example, there is epigenetic examples of the rise of obesity in the world, but he never addresses the primary cause of people being sedentary, and eating to many calories. There are also sections that do not really add anything - such as the case for the change in Chinese population after the cultural revolution, the author starts an argument, but the argument was not finished. I'm hoping that it might be an oversight in the proof copy, but I doubt it.

Other things - the author says is that epigenetics is a new idea - and it is, in some aspects, especially in regards to how methylation of DNA strands changes the DNA, but the famous science writer Stephen Jay Gould, alluded to the rapid change of some species, and how it Darwinian Genetics couldn't account for it. This was during the 80's. I suspect this is a book that will age fast - not because epigentics will be proven wrong, but the field will grow and the initial assumptions will change.½

I was very pleased to receive this one for review. I am a big science nerd, and learning about epigenetics sounded fascinating. Unfortunately, the writing was not as good as the concept. Much of the data was repetitive, and the book was organized in a very strange way. It wasn't until I was almost 1/3 of the way through that the book got down to specific examples of epigenetics in action that it really became interesting for me. If you are really interested in the subject, this might appeal to you, but I would bet there are better books out there.

Thanks you to Library Thing and the publisher for giving the me the chance to read this one. I received this book for free in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. My opinions remain my own.

Peter Ward's book, Lamarck's Revenge, is a review of Darwin's and Lamarck's theories of evolution in relation to epigenetics. While I grasped the basic concepts that the author put forward, I was left with more questions than answers.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck supported the theory that organisms could transmit traits acquired during their lifetime to their offspring. This type of inheritance came to be known as Lamarckism but the theory was largely abandoned after the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species and Mendel’s experiments with pea plants. Ward seems to have many doubts about our current understanding of evolution and genetics and is deeply saddened that Lamarck is no longer considered an authority. He is also quite aggrieved that Lamarck died in poverty; therefore he seeks to restore Lamarck’s reputation through epigenetics.

According to Ward, epigenetic changes involve biologic, non-DNA mutations, which occur when DNA becomes “’polluted’ with very small molecules” which can switch genes on or off. “In epigenetics, genes that are inactive (silent) thus can be awakened and begin causing biological effects.” Ward doesn’t explain how the molecules attach themselves or where they came from. Are these molecules already present in the cells? If not, how do they gain entry? Later we learn the process is called methylation, the attachment of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen “which typically silences gene activity.” So these molecules can turn genes on or off but usually turn them off? Then we have "histone modification" which can change the shape of the DNA via methyl groups, acetyl, and phosphorous molecules that attach to the nitrogen tail. Where are all these molecules coming from? These events somehow mark [a formal term according to Ward] the DNA in such a way that a descendant “soon has its own DNA swarmed by these new (and usually unwelcome) additions riding on the chromosomes.” It's beginning to sound like a bad sci-fi movie.

Ward has an odd grasp of scientific terminology. He states that lateral gene transfer occurs when “hunks of foreign DNA are inserted into an organism’s genome by biotic invaders.” I haven’t encountered the term “hunks” describing DNA before. He says that “true polar wander” is now known as “mantle wander.” Google finds the first term but has nothing for the second. Not that it matters because Ward himself continues to use the term "true polar wander." He mentions several times that cicadas spend decades underground before emerging to mate but the seventeen year cicada stays below ground less than two decades; most spend only two or three years in the nymph stage. If he can't get basic facts right I have to question the soundness of his pronouncements in other areas. I have no idea what most of these things have to do with epigenetics. It's almost as if Ward is throwing in anything he "knows" even if it has nothing to do with his point.

I cannot recommend this bewildering mess. After reading the whole thing I’m still not sure what epigenetics actually is or how it works. I found Ward’s arguments unpersuasive and his descriptions of biologic processes confusing. This was an uncorrected proof and I hope that a good editor will deal with the numerous grammatical errors, run-on sentence fragments and typos before the final printing. Many of the Notes are only “[Author to confirm & add Note]” which creates the impression that the author may not have robust support for his position. Also Quora and Wikipedia are perhaps not the most authoritative sources. The finished book will be indexed and will contain some charts and drawings.

[Received through LibraryThing Early Reviewers]

Dear gods of the linguistic arts, are there no copy editors anymore? I would expect publishers to understand that a book on a technical subject needs all the help possible for the reader. Instead I was constantly distracted from the point being made by awkward or grammatically incorrect sentence. What I got from the book. 1) old fashioned, one mutation at a time worked on by natural selection does not explain the burst of new species and even phyla after mass extinction events. 2) epigenetics could explain these sudden changes. 3) epigenetics are probably responsible for much of human evolution. 4) stress, including disease, war, pollution, mother's condition during pregnancy and other factors, can cause epigenetic changes in organisms, that are then inherited. 5) experiments with genetic modification may greatly improve human life, or cause horrible problems, or both. What I did not get from the book:a clear idea of how epigenetics work. I realize that this is a book for lay persons, but I feel that a few diagrams might have made things a lot more clear.

My interest in epigenetics started when I learned about how ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) correlate with much higher rates of illness and early death in adulthood. It does make sense to me that trauma can be passed down in many forms through generations, and trauma is a body memory... I found this book interesting for these reasons, but I'm not sure how reliable a narrator the author is. Lamarck's recent "vindication" does not mean that all other scientists who have shaped our understanding of evolution are wrong and outdated now, but Ward at times seems very dismissive of the massive scientific contributions that Darwin and others have made.

As a layperson very interested in epigenetics and CRISPR, I was pretty excited about this book, but I was also nervous that it might be over my head. Luckily, Peter Ward spent several chapters on foundational information, allowing me to fill the gaps in my understanding and dive more deeply into this fascinating subject and into some of the implications and philosophies to which it leads. The examples he used were accessible and funny, and I generally enjoyed the read.

I did, however, feel like there were a couple points on which Ward overly focused. He seemed to artificially want to separate "Lamarckian" from "epigenetic" but never really explained the continued self-correction--in general, it seemed like he would have been better-served to just stick with "epigenetic" unless talking about Lamarck's ideas specifically. Also, although I understand the entire point of the book was to emphasize Lamarckian evolutionary ideas as compared to Darwinian, it sometimes felt a bit one-sided, as if he didn't really want to recognize the validity of Darwinian evolution at all. Neither of these issues necessarily impeded the text, it just occasionally caused me to wonder about his agenda.

Overall, this book was informative, fun to read, and enlightening. If you're at all interested in epigenetics, I'd recommend it!

Most people have at least heard of the scientific consensus that species evolve through the process of natural selection, whereby the individual members of a species best suited to reproduce in their environment pass along their genes (and their genomes) to the next generation. Individuals less suited to their environments pass along fewer genes to the next generation. Over time - a long time - species tend to resemble those individuals better suited to the environment. Biologists were aware of the phenomenon of species evolution long before the development of the science of genetics enabled them to understand the mechanism of how characteristics were passed from generation to generation.

An early theory of species evolution was articulated by Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, a French naturalist who lived from 1744 to 1829. He theorized that parents can pass on changes they’ve acquiring during their lifetimes to their offspring. August Weismann, the father of modern Darwinian genetics, successfully refuted Lamarck's ideas when he cut tails off mice to show that their tailless state would not in fact be transmuted to their offspring.

Lamarck’s theory was even more widely discredited once Charles Darwin published Origin of Species, which provided a different, more convincing, mechanism for evolution.

Lamarckian theory was nevertheless given an extensive trial in the Soviet Union when Stalin entrusted national agricultural policy to Trofim Lysenko, an avowed believer in Lamarck. Lysenko’s Lamarckian experiments dominated Communist agronomy for decades, leading to, according to historians, China’s disastrous famine during the late 1950s.

But Lamarck has had a “comeback” as of late, albeit with his ideas no longer called Lamarckian theory but “epigenetics.” Specifically, epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the underlying DNA. Epigenetics posits that change can be influenced by several factors including age, the environment/lifestyle, and disease state.

Epigenetics certainly raises questions that bear further study. We know that prenatal and early postnatal environmental factors influence the risk of developing various chronic diseases and behavioral disorders. But does this change the DNA and if so, is this change passed down to offspring? As Richard Francis writes in his book on these new findings, Epigenetics: How Environment Shapes Our Genes:

“In the epigenetic view of things, genes are mere members of an ensemble cast of biochemicals in a cell, susceptible, like other members of the cast, to what goes on in the vicinity of the cell.”

Francis is just one of a number of writers who have jumped on the bandwagon to explore this new direction in the study of evolution. Ward appears to have a further agenda, however. He clearly wants to rehabilitate Lamarckian theory beyond where the evidence can take us thus far, such as speculation on the long-lasting generational effects of phenomena like violence, war, and famine.

Ward would have done better to adhere to data verified thus far by molecular phylogenetics. The reason Lamarck had a bad reputation is that he strayed too far from scientific verification. Ward seems to repeat the error.

(JAB)

With the wonders of CRISPR in the news almost daily, one should welcome a book that explains some of the more difficult and harrowing aspects of epigenetics for those of us not in the lab or on the cutting edge of evolutionary biology. This is not that book. It seems more of a one-sided diatribe against a thoughtfully nuanced Darwinian theory than an engaged scientific elaboration of a counter Lamarckian perspective. It is, however, very well-written to the point of being charming - a danger in itself. I look forward to reading scientific reviews of this in serious journals to see if my intellect and intuition are still intact after the stresses of my habitat.

The slow progress of Darwinian evolutionary theory seems to be lacking evidence in the fossil record, but a paradigm shift maybe in the offering as epigenetics might explain why evolution happens so fast that potential fossil specimens can’t be put in the strata. Lamarck’s Revenge: How Epigenetics in Revolutionizing Our Understanding of Evolution’s Past and Present by Peter Ward attempts to show that epigenetics should be incorporated into the understanding of current evolutionary paradigm thanks to new evidence thanks to various disciplines.

Ward puts forth that Jean-Baptiste Lamarck first described what is now being call “epigenetics” in his explanation of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, but do to unfriendly colleagues and later Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection Lamarck became a scientific laughingstock for over a century and a half. However, Ward states that as DNA became to be understood and brought into consideration in its role in evolution the ideas of Lamarck began to return to study and now needs to be incorporated into the paradigm of the theory of evolution. Ward then goes through the history of life, especially focusing on the sudden expansion of life and body forms after the great mass extinctions, as well as the history of humanity from the Ice Age through today and our possible future.

Unfortunately instead of a straightforward emphasis on Lamarck’s ideas, epigenetics, and how it can be seen in how evolution has progressed for a general audience, Ward decided to hero-worship Lamarck so much and attacking several scientists but particularly Darwin that the first quarter-to-third of the book was slow grind until he finally focused on epigenetics and discussing evolution through that prism. However because of the amount of pages spent deifying Lamarck—Ward literally, though admittedly with sarcasm said Christians should worship Lamarck not God—and demonizing Darwin that Ward had to rush all over the place in explanations about how life evolved and developed while implying assertions without backing them up.

Lamarck’s Revenge while giving this reader a better knowledge about how the history of the world is seen through evolutionary theory, is nothing more than a book by an agenda driven author akin to current political pundits and lowest-class of pop historians. If fact because of Ward’s bias, I don’t even know if my new knowledge is actually accurate but in any case my new limited understanding of epigenetics would have been better served if he had decided to focus on that instead of wasting page space on the deification and demonizing of long-dead scientists. As a general reader I don’t recommend this to others.

Peter Ward's book, Lamarck's Revenge, is a review of Darwinian and Lamarckian theories of evolution, in the context of a new science called epigenetics, which is based on "the discovery that small molecules attaching themselves to the DNA molecules that hold genes along their enormous length are capable of causing biological change similar to what mutations can do, but faster." (p. 41) [TBC]

= = =

This book reminds me of a hyperactive puppy, always going off at full speed, yapping after something.

A brief overview of the concept of epigenetics: All of us, of course, have have DNA, and that DNA is organized into genes. These genes are the mechanism of heredity, and determine how our cells operate and reproduce. But not all genes are active all the time -- an eye cell, for instance, doesn't need the genetic instructions for beating that a heart cell needs. So, in an eye cell, heart-related genes are mostly turned off. In any case, because chromosomes come in pairs, we have two copies of most genes, and often we use only one of the two.

Epigenetics is what determines which genes are on and which are off. There are several mechanisms, described in the book, that can turn genes on and off. Environmental factors generally decide which genes are enabled and disabled this way. Epigenetic change does not allow an organism to change its DNA, but it allows it to change which DNA is activated. And, under certain circumstances, these mechanisms can be inherited, so that children activate the same genes that their parents did.

Epigenetics is a new field, and there is no question but that it it revolutionizing our understanding of biology. Nor that, under the right circumstances, epigenetic change affects the evolutionary success of creatures -- and that epigenetic inheritance means that, under certain limited circumstances, acquired characteristics can be inherited.

This is the origin of the book's title. The first theory of evolution, Lamarck's, was that acquired characteristics were inherited, and that this acquisition of characteristics led to the development of new species. So author Peter Ward is claiming that epigenetics is forcing us to develop a new, Lamarckian, view of evolution.

To which I can only say, "Down, boy!"

Will there be a Lamarckian element to our future understanding of evolution? Yes, probably -- a small one. But the key word is small.

There are several reasons for this. Let's start with a really obvious point: Why was Mendelian inheritance -- inheritance by genes, without epigenetic influence -- discovered a century before epigenetic inheritance? Because there is a lot more of it, and it's more important. Why is that? Because of point #2: Epigenetic changes can only affect genes that are already there. No amount of epigenetic influence can create anything. Take an example: I have blue eyes. Why do I have blue eyes? Because I have two blue eye genes and no brown eye genes. Ward can methylate my genes till he is, um, blue in the face, and I'm still going to have blue eyes, because those are the only genes I have.

And, third, even if one has two different genes, that doesn't mean that epigenetic factors can automatically operate on them.

Let's take a very real example: Blood types. The types of our blood (A, B, O, AB) are genetically determined. The four types are so old that we share them with chimpanzees -- they predate humanity. This is known as "polymorphism." Often there is advantage, to a population, in having multiple different genes all active at the same time. It seems to be so with blood types -- type O blood provides some limited protection against malaria, but it increases susceptibility to cholera, while type A protects somewhat against cholera while leaving its carrier more susceptible to malaria. So having people with multiple blood types around means that, in a plague situation, there is usually someone around who is relatively immune to care for the sick or, in the worst case situation, to survive the epidemic.

OK, now think about this: If you're in an environment where there is risk of either malaria or cholera, wouldn't it be great if you could change your blood type depending on which disease is more prevalent? Sounds great, doesn't it?

Doesn't happen. People don't change blood types. This even though it would appear that it would be a tremendous survival advantage. Why doesn't it happen? Because epigenetic change can only happen in limited circumstances.

This book simply goes too far -- throwing shade on Darwin, almost ignoring Mendel and Hugo de Vries and the people who discovered genetic manipulation, completely ignoring Trivers and Smith and the mathematical geneticists. Epigenetics evolution is not a replacement to genetic evolution; it is a refinement, as Einsteinean gravity was a refinement of Newtonian gravity (under ordinary circumstances, the two are the same).

In service of this revolution that isn't, Ward gets very sloppy. For example, he treats Lamarck as some sort of lost martyr. That's really not true. Yes, Lamarckian evolution was soon consigned to the dustbin where it belongs. But most scientists I know have respect for Lamarck, who was brilliantly wrong. Brilliantly wrong is not always bad -- it leads people to see things as they ought to be seen. Even if Lamarckian evolution doesn't happen, it gave us the idea that species change over time, which gave us Darwinism. Lamarck, to those who know, is not a laughing-stock; he was a man who pointed out a real problem that he couldn't solve. Often knowing the problem is more important than the solution.

In service of his obsession, Ward is often so sloppy as to be simply wrong. I found so many errors in the early pages that I eventually stopped marking them. Examples:

Page xi -- (fossilized) "ammonites [are] themselves descendants of the still-living pearly nautilus." Something that died out millions of years ago is not descended from something that is alive today! Ammonites may have been descended from something that lived millions of years ago from which the modern pearly nautilus is descended, and that ancient thing may have been much like the modern pearly nautilus, but the ammonites are not descendants of the creature of today. This is not pedantry; this is a fundamental error in genealogy.

Page xiii -- "Darwinian theory posits that genes are fixed." Darwin never heard of genes! Mendel discovered them, De Vries re-discovered and made them known in the wide world. It is true that modern genetic theory posits that genes only change via mutation, but that isn't even close to the same thing.

Page 19 -- "Buffon anticipated Charles Darwin in... the innate understanding of the dangers of unfettered population growth in any 'species.'" Darwin didn't come up with that idea; Malthus did. Ward does not mention Malthus for another 17 pages, completely distorting the history.

Page 47 claims to be about Gould and punctuated equilibrium. But what Ward describes is allotropic speciation -- that is, two populations separated by an impassible barrier which gradually evolve into separate species. But allotropic speciation is not punctuated equilibrium; separate populations may evolve into separate species simply due to genetic drift. Even punctuated equilibrium cannot be proved; if (to take Ward's own example from page xi) modern pearly nautilus closely resemble a creature that was alive millions of years ago, we can't prove they were the same species, because we don't have any of the millions-of-year-dead creatures to try to breed with the modern ones!

Page 65fff makes a number of claims about epigenetic change -- but the changes described are mostly behavioral changes, not actual phenotypic changes. Behavior, as any psychologist or teacher can tell you, is learned -- it doesn't have to be programmed into the genes to be changed.

I'm sure that's more examples than you wanted. I don't want to entirely condemn this book; it's important that we realize just how big a deal epigenetics is. And there is good information in here that I had not known (e.g. about the three methods of gene activation) But over-selling the field does not do a service. This particular yappy little dog seems to have led us into a great big pile of something stinky.

This excellent book was reviewed in my "Alternate View" column published in the September-2000 issue of Analog Science Fiction/Fact Magazine. That review is available online at : https://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw102.html (John G. Cramer)

Douglas Erwin’s The Great Paleozoic Crisis compared to Peter Ward’s Gorgon.

Douglas H. Erwin’s The Great Paleozoic Crisis is a state-of-the-art exposition of knowledge about the Permo-Triassic transition. Unfortunately, it’s state-of-the-art for 1993, when it was published, and the art has progressed considerably since then. In particular, in 1993 it hadn’t been realized that terrestrial life suffered just as much as marine life; therefore most hypotheses about the PTr focused on wholly marine phenomena – regressions, loss of continental shelf area (because the continents were all merged into Pangaea), loss of ecological provinces (same reason), increasing oceanic salinity (as evaporate deposits from earlier in the Paleozoic are eroded away). Nevertheless, the book is still pretty good. Erwin discusses a lot of PTr evidence in great detail – carbon and sulfur isotope changes, global warming, global cooling, the emplacement of the Siberian flood basalts, impact. The details of PTr stratigraphy are also enlightening; although the extinction event was rapid by geological time standards, it clearly was not as instantaneous as the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event. While the KT boundary is always obvious when it exists, the PTr transition is not; different stratigraphers place it at different locations in the same formation. This is because stratigraphic units are often assigned based on their paleontology, and different biota disappear and appear at different times – i.e., there are a number of putative Triassic species that actually appear in the uppermost Permian, and a number of Permian species that linger into the lowermost Triassic. Thus if your stratigraphy is based on the disappearance of the last “Permian” species, the PTr boundary will be too high in the section, and if it’s based on the appearance of the first “Permian” species, the boundary will be too low. Pinning the boundary down requires detailed measurement and collection across the boundary, and that isn’t often done. (It doesn’t help that the best exposures of the PTr transition are in Greenland, Italy, Armenia, central Iran, Pakistan, Kashmir, and south China; with the exception of Italy these are all palaces where climate or geopolitics make paleontology difficult).

(This book goes well coupled with Michael Benton’s When Life Nearly Died, which is more up-to-date but less technical. Erwin has a more recent book, Extinction, but I haven’t read it yet.)

Peter Ward’s Gorgon is idiosyncratic; although nominally about the extinction event, it’s actually sort of a paleontological autobiography. We get a lot of detail about Ward’s relationships with colleagues, the hardships of doing paleontology in the middle of nowhere, and South African politics. Ward’s opinions on other paleontologists are enlightening; he does a lot of damning with faint praise, and I wasn’t surprised when he commented sadly that at least one other geologist refuses to do any work with him, to the point that she threatened to back out of an expedition to Antarctica when she heard Ward was also invited. That’s all well and good (and, to be fair, often fascinating), but that’s not what the book is supposed to be about. Information about the PTr appears sporadically amidst all the anecdotes, and it’s in chronological order – the way Ward experienced it – without synthesis. There is some useful geology – Ward explains one of the problems discussed by Erwin, the long-standing misconception that the PTr didn’t affect the terrestrial environmental – quite well. Vertebrate paleontologists are notorious for being biologists first and geologist second. Historically, a lot of vertebrate fossil collecting has been done by field parties that dig up bones and haul them back to the lab for detailed analysis. In many cases, the geological province of the specimens wasn’t described accurately enough – often just as “upper Permian” or “lower Triassic” without a measured section location or geographic coordinates. This lead to a lot of circular reasoning among the lab people identifying and describing the fossils – since “everybody knew” that the PTr didn’t affect the terrestrial environment, nobody ever questioned the assignment of a particular fossil collection site to the lower Triassic, when it was, in fact, upper Permian. This then worked backward; since subsequent collectors “knew” that many vertebrates straddled the Permo-Triassic boundary, nobody worried much about precisely identifying a collection locality. It’s also enlightening to note that since Erwin (above) “knew” that the PTr didn’t affect terrestrial environments, he didn’t even bother to mention the Karoo in South Africa as a PTr transition locality; since it was all terrestrial he apparently didn’t believe any useful stratigraphic information could come from it.

Although interesting enough as a paleontological gossip book, and with some information about actual paleontology, this definitely should not be your only book on the PTr.

Disappointing book about an interesting topic. The Call Of Distant Mammoths is ostensibly about the extinction of the North American Pleistocene large mammal fauna; instead Ward wanders all over the terrain. There are annoying personal anecdotes and name dropping (if you’re going to claim first name acquaintance with “Greg Retallick” you should at least know that his last name is spelled “Retallack”). He uses a time machine to describe ancient environments – an unfortunate affectation I also noted in Simon Conway Morris’s book on the Burgess Shale fauna. A whole chapter tries to use Monopoly as an analog to evolution; it doesn’t work at all. Ward devotes an inordinate amount of text to the KT extinction, with the comment that it “holds the key” to Pleistocene extinctions – then never explains why he thinks so. There’s an annoying geographical error – Ward describes Folsom, New Mexico, as being “near the Four Corners area” – which is like describing Reno as “near the Pacific Ocean”. The book is further handicapped by horrific choices for illustrations. Most come from an 1864 book, La Terre Avant Le Déluge, with quaint etchings of dinosaurs and mammals (the wooly mammoth is especially weird, with all the hair concentrated on the spine, so the animal appears to have a giant Mohawk). These bear little or no relationship to adjoining text, and are usually dramatically incorrect based on current knowledge. About all I can imagine is the editor decided the book needed some spicing up with illustrations and grabbed some from a copyright-free source without (I hope) bothering to tell Ward until it was already in print.


Although he drops little hints here and there, Ward doesn’t get around to detailed discussion of Pleistocene extinctions until almost two thirds of the way through the book. At this point, things finally straighten out into a reasonably clear presentation. I wonder if the original work was much shorter – perhaps a magazine article – and was expanded into a book by adding a lot of extraneous material? Anyway, at the time the book was written (1997) the competing hypotheses were Clovis Overkill and Climate Change.


Although Ward favors overkill, he does a fair job of presenting the strengths and weaknesses of both hypotheses. In favor of overkill, every time humans showed up on a new landmass (Australia, North America, Madagascar, New Zealand) almost all the large fauna (adult body mass > 50 Kg) immediately disappear (to within the time resolution limits of the fossil record). The climate change idea is mostly supported by default – i.e., by objections to overkill.


Problems with overkill are acknowledged but explained (unfortunately, usually not rigorously but this is a popular book, not a scientific text). For the most common objection – where are the kill sites? – Ward notes that fossils are rare enough that kill sites would also be rare; at the time the book was written, there were about a dozen sites Clovis butchery sites for mammoths or mastodons, but only one unequivocal mammoth kill site. AFAIK, there are no sites where any other large extinct North American mammal – stag moose, horse, giant camel, ground sloth – was killed by Clovis technology, and there are no known kill sites for any of the other areas (Australia, etc.) proposed for overkill extinction. The original overkill model estimated that a population of around 1 million Clovis people could kill off the North American mammoth population in 1000 years – various newer models have refined that, noting that all you really have to do is kill the animals more rapidly than their intrinsic growth rate – for modern African elephants, about 2% per year.


Both climate change and overkill advocates use negative evidence – climate change doesn’t work, therefore overkill must have occurred, and vice versa. There’s a point to this for climate change though; the climatological record indicates that there had been climate changes more dramatic than the end of the Pleistocene numerous times during the period, yet 10 times as many genera went extinct after the appearance of humans in North American than in the entire million years before. Climate advocates counter by saying that despite vastly improved hunting technology, no large mammal has been driven to extinction since the Pleistocene (they seem to have overlooked the quagga and Stellar’s sea lion, but the point remains).


Unfortunately, after this reasonable but too short discussion – there’s a lot more detail and evidence than I’ve summarized here – Ward goes off track again with a couple chapters of environmentalist litany – we have to decrease the population, we have to make larger wildlife preserves, we have to press forward with genetic engineering (which was still politically correct in 1997), and the US has to stop using more than its “fair share” of world resources. The last chapter has Ward in his time machine again, this time visiting Kenya in the year 3001. All whites are extinct (skin cancer – remember when Freon was more deadly than carbon dioxide?), automobiles are nonexistent, everybody eats genetically engineered food, and all wild animals – in fact, all domestic animals – are gone. Shades of Paul Ehrlich and his predictions for the future that were falsified within a few years.


Can’t recommend this one for anybody; the only really well presented section is now out of date and the rest of the book is to meandering to be useful.½