The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma | 
| Authors: Marc W. Kirschner, John C. Gerhart
Creator: John Norton
Publisher: Yale University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $18.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 46606
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1
ISBN: 0300119771
Dewey Decimal Number: 576.8
EAN: 9780300119770
ASIN: 0300119771
Publication Date: November 15, 2006
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Product Description
Offering daring new ideas about evolution, two highly respected biologists here tackle the central, unresolved question in the field—how have living organisms on Earth developed with such astounding variety and complexity? Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart draw on cutting-edge biological and medical research to provide an original solution to this longstanding puzzle.
"In this terrific new book, molecular systems meet evolution. The result is a wealth of stimulating ideas set among clear explanations drawn from a revelatory decade in biology."—Andrew H. Knoll, author of Life on a Young Planet
"Thought-provoking and lucidly written. . . . The Plausibility of Life will help readers understand not just the plausibility of evolution, but its remarkable, inventive powers." —Sean Carroll, author of Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo
“Remarkably lucid and comprehensive, this new theoretical synthesis will . . . shift the grounds for debate in the controversy surrounding organic evolution.”—Booklist (starred review)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
Evolution is plausible! May 2, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The book purports to present a major new theory explaining the evolution of novel morphology, physiology, and behavior.
Only time will tell whether that claim works out, but for right now the book does present an interesting discussion suggesting that minor modifications of just a few core, biomolecular structures and processes are enough to account for a large part of biological "novelty." The authors imply that the task of producing the variety of life forms we see today was a lot easier than the superficial appearance of enormously varied and complex forms would suggest, and that there's no reason to doubt the ability of evolutionary processes to accomplish the task.
The authors' also discuss a couple of specific, creationist objections to evolution, including the concepts of complex specified information (CSI) and irreducible complexity (IC), but the discussion is very, very brief. I think a more cogent argument against many creationist arguments on both topics is implied on page 2, in the authors' explanation of their definition of the term "design." The authors use "design" to indicate functionality. Creationist arguments, on the other hand, flip-flop, using "design" to refer to both functionality and a purposeful act. Not distinguishing between those two radically different meanings is one of the glaring errors in creationist rhetoric about both CSI and IC.
 Plausible Enough, Thank You! April 8, 2008
15 out of 17 found this review helpful
Most readers, I assume, would declare that Life is Plausible enough, as long as they haven't overspent their Visa cards. Obviously authors Kirschner and Gerhart must mean something else, but their literary gifts are not always equal to their scientific insights. This is difficult matter, made more difficult by somewhat obtuse writing. It took me weeks to read this book and fathom its particular content, and yet I'm giving the book all five stars because of the importance of its insghts.
A more informative title would be "The Plausibility of Evolution as an Explanation of the Diversity of Life." The most inveterate critics of the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution point to the diversity of life forms and the implausibility that such diverse forms, each functionally adapted, could have evolved by random mutation, through minute increments of change, evn in the course of billions of years. Kirschner and Gerhart attempt to answer that objection with a new theory of evolution at the sub-cellular level, which they call "facilitated variation." Honestly, I think they're on to something, though I don't find their new synthesis so very different from the ideas implicit in Sean Carroll's notions of evo-devo -- evolutionary development. Rather than try to express the core ideas of facilitated evolution by myself, I'll give you the authors' own words:
The selection for a small number of conserved core processes versatile enough to be used in many different contextsto support the complexity of large multicellular organisms is a product of selection for physiological adaptability. As a side effect, core processes with high adaptability have a high capacity for weak linkage. Such processes are responsive to genetic changes of regulation. They have been used inmany different combinations at many different times and places in the organism's development and physiology, so that it is likely the processes capable of weak linkage pose little barrier to future use in different combinations, times, places, and amounts...
Much of the skepticism over the years about the capacity of random mutation or genetic reassortment to generate phenotypic change has arisen from the assumption that genetic changes must create very specific, multiple, complex phenotypic changes. Our view is that specificity and complexity are already built into the conserved processes, as is the propensity for regulatory coupling.
Well, there you have it, from roughly the middle of the book. If it makes crystalline sense to you, perhaps you don't need to read further. If it makes no sense at all, perhaps you'd better read something else. If it makes some sort of sense but you want a good deal more evidence and explication, then you might consider taking on the whole book.
The most fundamental idea here is that evolution MUST occur first at the level of molecules. Darwin was looking through the wrong end of the telescope by theorizing evolution of species, though in his time and place no other viewing point was available. Darwin observed evolution of whole organisms as "descent with modification," just as any orchid fancier, guppy breeder, or paleontologist can and must observe it. Then came the geneticists, who salvaged Darwinian evolution from the critics who demanded evidence of a mechanism. But even the mapping of the genome hasn't quelled all objections of implausibility, for reasons that Kirschner and Gerhart restate in their opening chapters. At the cellular component level, however, the mathematically possible mutations are so incredibly numerous that success by random variation, again and again in the course of phenotypic evolution, seems utterly unbelievable. That's where our authors enter the discussion.
Advocates of "Intelligent Design"! If you detect a note of challenge in my erratic summary of The Plausibility of Life, you're on the money. I challenge you to read this book carefully and critically. If you can't make heads or tails of it, you'd better modestly trim your ID sails. If you understand it well enough to venture a refutation, I'll be happy to hear from you.
 If only Matt Ridley wrote this book... September 20, 2007
6 out of 20 found this review helpful
Fascinating topic, well researched I'm sure but could the writing be more dense, more wooden, less engaging? A better bet might be Sean B. Carroll's "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" though even there I felt the sheer magic of what is being relayed doesn't come through. Not a good choice for a novice with no background in genetics, not that it's too technical, just too thin on examples.
I look forward to the likes of Matt Ridley or Richard Dawkins tackling Evolutionary Development as the mind-blowing coolness of how embryos develop from almost nothing to, well, me and you deserves a real power-hitter in the popular science genre.
But until then it's worth the effort (yes it is some effort) to skim the surface of this fascinating new frontier in biology.
Good material, not well written June 5, 2007
10 out of 46 found this review helpful
This book lays out how recent advances in embryology and the understanding of gene regulation show that "large" phenotypic changes are possible through smaller genotypic mutation. Too bad it wasn't written by a better explainer, say Dawkins or Ridley.
 the goalposts are moving backwards March 2, 2007
6 out of 131 found this review helpful
It seems every book on evolution nowdays spouts a new version of how we got here. This book is no different. What the authors are doing here is obvious: Because life is adaptive and evolves purposefully, these guys are trying to construct this reality onto a foundation of accidents. It's a truly laughable premise that is so funny it almost hurts. This book is almost worthless. If this book were a political persuasion it would vote "moderate." And it's absolutely a joke that any book written on evolution would leave out a detailed discussion of subjects such as epigenetics, horizontal gene transfer, and environmentally-induced gene expression. The last of which touched on in this book, but only fleatingly. This book is good for one thing: taking neo-darwinism one step closer to the trashcan where it belongs. This is one last attempt to save a dying theory.
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