J. Arvid Ågren – författare
Visar alla böcker från författaren J. Arvid Ågren. Handla med fri frakt och snabb leverans.
2 produkter
2 produkter
690 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
'Arvid Ågren has undertaken the most meticulously thorough reading of the relevant literature that I have ever encountered, deploying an intelligent understanding to pull it into a coherent story. As if that wasn't enough, he gets it right.' (Richard Dawkins) To many evolutionary biologists, the central challenge of their discipline is to explain adaptation, the appearance of design in the living world. With the theory of evolution by natural selection, Charles Darwin elegantly showed how a purely mechanistic process can achieve this striking feature of nature. Since then, the way many biologists have thought about evolution and natural selection is as a theory about individual organisms. Over a century later, a subtle but radical shift in perspective emerged with the gene's-eye view of evolution in which natural selection was conceptualized as a struggle between genes for replication and transmission to the next generation. This viewpoint culminated with the publication of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (Oxford University Press, 1976) and is now commonly referred to as selfish gene thinking.The gene's-eye view has subsequently played a central role in evolutionary biology, although it continues to attract controversy. The central aim of this accessible book is to show how the gene's-eye view differs from the traditional organismal account of evolution, trace its historical origins, clarify typical misunderstandings and, by using examples from contemporary experimental work, show why so many evolutionary biologists still consider it an indispensable heuristic. The book concludes by discussing how selfish gene thinking fits into ongoing debates in evolutionary biology, and what they tell us about the future of the gene's-eye view of evolution.The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution is suitable for graduate-level students taking courses in evolutionary biology, behavioural ecology, and evolutionary genetics, as well as professional researchers in these fields. It will also appeal to a broader, interdisciplinary audience from the social sciences and humanities including philosophers and historians of science.
370 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Leading evolutionary theorists and philosophers come together to understand how organisms persist, even as they’re riddled with internal conflict, from cancer cells to selfish genes.How does a vast menagerie of organs, tissues, cells, and genes coalesce to form a unified organism? For centuries, biologists and philosophers have taken this astonishing feat for granted, treating it as a matter of divine will or evolutionary inevitability. Yet unity is hardly assured. From cancer cells to selfish genes, the body is riven by internal conflicts.The Paradox of the Organism grapples with this puzzle. As the essays in this collection show, profound questions arise when we pierce the organismal veil and consider the self-replicating elements within. Is an organism really a cohesive agent that adapts to the ecosystem it inhabits? Or is an organism itself an ecosystem, within which individual components are engaged in a continuous arms race?The answers have immediate implications: for understanding miscarriage, treating cancer, improving psychological health, and preserving biodiversity. Challenging fundamental precepts of evolutionary theory, The Paradox of the Organism offers an incisive account of life’s extraordinary success.