How the Leopard Changed Its Spots: The Evolution of Complexity

This book is an easy and interesting reading about morphogenesis, which if I understood correctly, is a new branch of biology that tries to explain things that cannot be explained through genetics or evolution alone. It does not contradict existing knowledge or Darwinism, on the contrary, it seems to build on genetics in a beautiful way to complement it. For example, after cutting off the nucleus from a one-celled algae named acetabularia, its corolarium still grows from the stem. Afterwards, the algae cannot reproduce itself or even synthesize more proteins (since DNA with all its genetic code for producing proteins is located in the nucleus and is therefore gone) and acetabularia dies. The author suggests that the "information" to generate the corolarium in its precise form might be the result of chemical and physical properties of some minerals in the stem, not of genetic instructions (since these are not available anymore at the time the corolarium develops). He is not claiming that genetic instructions are not vital (acetabularia dies when the nucleus is removed), he is just saying that development, specially the "form" could depend on physical and chemical properties of the medium inside the cell (in the end, this medium is also determined by DNA and genetics). I have read that if you introduce with surgery mother cells into a mammal's brain, new neurons are formed from the mother cells. (For further reference see A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain). Why not liver cells? There must be some physical or chemical signal in the medium, be it electrical signals, radiation, vibration or resonance, chemical reactions, temperature, pressure, magnetism, a morphogenetic field (which I understood as an intrinsic pattern arising from the mix of substances in the medium; the word morphogenetic just because this medium creates or originates a pattern or form specific to the species) or whatever other signal you might think of, to tell the newcomer: "hey, you are inside a brain", so that it becomes a neuron and not a liver cell. I would think that in order to rule about every little detail of development, there should be a lot of genes in our genome (which in fact there are), but geneticists were expecting to find a lot more than what they really found when Cracking the Genome: Inside the Race to Unlock Human DNA. So why shouln't DNA accept a little help from other friends inside the tremendously complex living organisms? Why should it be responsible of everything? A probably complementary approach can be found evolutionary developmental biology (Evo-devo), as described in Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo) and Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body (Vintage). The explanation of pattern formation even in chemical reactions was extremely interesting, it opened my horizon to look for more information on pattern formation in complex system

This book is an easy and interesting reading about morphogenesis, which if I understood correctly, is a new branch of biology that tries to explain things that cannot be explained through genetics or evolution alone. It does not contradict existing knowledge or Darwinism, on the contrary, it seems to build on genetics in a beautiful way to complement it. For example, after cutting off the nucleus from a one-celled algae named acetabularia, its corolarium still grows from the stem. Afterwards, the algae cannot reproduce itself or even synthesize more proteins (since DNA with all its genetic code for producing proteins is located in the nucleus and is therefore gone) and acetabularia dies. The author suggests that the "information" to generate the corolarium in its precise form might be the result of chemical and physical properties of some minerals in the stem, not of genetic instructions (since these are not available anymore at the time the corolarium develops). He is not claiming that genetic instructions are not vital (acetabularia dies when the nucleus is removed), he is just saying that development, specially the "form" could depend on physical and chemical properties of the medium inside the cell (in the end, this medium is also determined by DNA and genetics). I have read that if you introduce with surgery mother cells into a mammal's brain, new neurons are formed from the mother cells. (For further reference see A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain). Why not liver cells? There must be some physical or chemical signal in the medium, be it electrical signals, radiation, vibration or resonance, chemical reactions, temperature, pressure, magnetism, a morphogenetic field (which I understood as an intrinsic pattern arising from the mix of substances in the medium; the word morphogenetic just because this medium creates or originates a pattern or form specific to the species) or whatever other signal you might think of, to tell the newcomer: "hey, you are inside a brain", so that it becomes a neuron and not a liver cell. I would think that in order to rule about every little detail of development, there should be a lot of genes in our genome (which in fact there are), but geneticists were expecting to find a lot more than what they really found when Cracking the Genome: Inside the Race to Unlock Human DNA. So why shouln't DNA accept a little help from other friends inside the tremendously complex living organisms? Why should it be responsible of everything? The explanation of pattern formation even in chemical reactions was extremely interesting, it opened my horizon to look for more information on pattern formation in complex systems. (Complexity, chaos, etc.) If a book is able to make you wish to know more about a topic, it is definitely a 5 star book. Good translation into Spanish by Tusquets /Metatemas by the way.

This is a great book. Readers interested in understanding the rules that shape morphogenesis over evolution should read it. Goodwin provides convincing evidence for fundamental dynamic rules involved in the generation of form. Together with natural selection, these mechanisms offer a more complete view of how evolution works.

Standard evolutionary biology assumes that the patterns of evolution observed in nature are mainly the result of historical contingency and natural selection. This book introduces a rather different perspective, showing that there are many fundamental dynamical constraints operating in natural systems. Natural selection acts on this restricted number of possibilities, which are in the end the main forces in shaping our biosphere. A very recomendable reading.

A very interesting read... Excellent introduction to the evolutionary debate for the non scientist.