Evolution in Four Dimensions

author: Eva Jablonka, Tel Aviv University
published: Oct. 23, 2009,   recorded: September 2009,   views: 24321
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Ideas about heredity and evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. New findings in molecular biology challenge the gene-centered version of Darwinian theory according to which adaptation occurs only through natural selection of chance DNA variations. In Evolution in Four Dimensions, Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb argue that there is more to heredity than genes. They trace four "dimensions" in evolution—four inheritance systems that play a role in evolution: genetic, epigenetic (or non-DNA cellular transmission of traits), behavioral, and symbolic (transmission through language and other forms of symbolic communication). These systems, they argue, can all provide variations on which natural selection can act. Evolution in Four Dimensions offers a richer, more complex view of evolution than the gene-based, one-dimensional view held by many today. The new synthesis advanced by Jablonka and Lamb makes clear that induced and acquired changes also play a role in evolution.

After discussing each of the four inheritance systems in detail, Jablonka and Lamb "put Humpty Dumpty together again" by showing how all of these systems interact. They consider how each may have originated and guided evolutionary history and they discuss the social and philosophical implications of the four-dimensional view of evolution. Each chapter ends with a dialogue in which the authors engage the contrarieties of the fictional (and skeptical) "I.M.," or Ifcha Mistabra—Aramaic for "the opposite conjecture"—refining their arguments against I.M.'s vigorous counterarguments. The lucid and accessible text is accompanied by artist-physician Anna Zeligowski's lively drawings, which humorously and effectively illustrate the authors' points.

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Download slides icon Download slides: sep09_jablonka_eifd_01.ppt (14.3 MB)

Download article icon Download article: sep09_jablonka_eifd_01.pdf (3.1 MB)


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Reviews and comments:

Comment1 alicia, May 23, 2011 at 7:36 p.m.:

Wow, having access to this lecture is such a treat for me! Thank you so much.


Comment2 Rodrigo Sebidos, January 18, 2016 at 1:46 p.m.:

Very excellent lecture, Epigenetics an emerging science can provide answers to many unanswerable issues that affects human beings, for instance, can we at this point in time say or think that Epigenetics can provide a unifying answer(nature vs Nurture) to the issue of Homosexuality?


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