Ancestors In Evolutionary Biology

"Phylogenetics emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as a speculative storytelling discipline dedicated to providing narrative explanations for the evolution of taxa and their traits. It coincided with lineage thinking, a process that mentally traces character evolution along lineages of hypothetical ancestors. Ancestors in Evolutionary Biology traces the history of narrative phylogenetics and lineage thinking to the present day, drawing on perspectives from the history of science, philosophy of science, and contemporary scientific debates. It shows how the power of phylogenetic hypotheses to explain evolution resides in the precursor traits of hypothetical ancestors. This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the topic of ancestors, which is central to modern biology, and is therefore of interest to graduate students, researchers, and academics in evolutionary biology, palaeontology, philosophy of science, and the history of science"--

Much of what we are comes from our ancestors. Through cultural and biological inheritance mechanisms, our genetic composition, instructions for constructing artifacts, the structure and content of languages, and rules for behavior are passed from parents to children and from individual to individual. Mapping Our Ancestors demonstrates how various genealogical or "phylogenetic" methods can be used both to answer questions about human history and to build evolutionary explanations for the shape of history. Anthropologists are increasingly turning to quantitative phylogenetic methods. These methods depend on the transmission of information regardless of mode and as such are applicable to many anthropological questions. In this way, phylogenetic approaches have the potential for building bridges among the various subdisciplines of anthropology; an exciting prospect indeed. The structure of Mapping Our Ancestors reflects the editors' goal of developing a common understanding of the methods and conditions under which ancestral relations can be derived in a range of data classes of interest to anthropologists. Specifically, this volume explores the degree to which patterns of ancestry can be determined from artifactual, genetic, linguistic, and behavioral data and how processes such as selection, transmission, and geography impact the results of phylogenetic analyses. Mapping Our Ancestors provides a solid demonstration of the potential of phylogenetic methods for studying the evolutionary history of human populations using a variety of data sources and thus helps explain how cultural material, language, and biology came to be as they are.

Bringing together conceptual obstacles and core concepts of evolutionary theory, this book presents evolution as straightforward and intuitive.

Geneticist Eugene Harris presents us with the complete and up-to-date account of the evolution of the human genome.

Much of what we are comes from our ancestors. Through cultural and biological inheritance mechanisms, our genetic composition, instructions for constructing artifacts, the structure and content of languages, and rules for behavior are passed from parents to children and from individual to individual. Mapping Our Ancestors demonstrates how various genealogical or "phylogenetic" methods can be used both to answer questions about human history and to build evolutionary explanations for the shape of history. Anthropologists are increasingly turning to quantitative phylogenetic methods. These methods depend on the transmission of information regardless of mode and as such are applicable to many anthropological questions. In this way, phylogenetic approaches have the potential for building bridges among the various subdisciplines of anthropology; an exciting prospect indeed. The structure of Mapping Our Ancestors reflects the editors' goal of developing a common understanding of the methods and conditions under which ancestral relations can be derived in a range of data classes of interest to anthropologists. Specifically, this volume explores the degree to which patterns of ancestry can be determined from artifactual, genetic, linguistic, and behavioral data and how processes such as selection, transmission, and geography impact the results of phylogenetic analyses. Mapping Our Ancestors provides a solid demonstration of the potential of phylogenetic methods for studying the evolutionary history of human populations using a variety of data sources and thus helps explain how cultural material, language, and biology came to be as they are. Carl P. Lipo is assistant professor of anthropology at California State University in Long Beach. Michael O'Brien is professor of anthropology and director of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Missouri. Mark Collard is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Stephen J. Shennan is a professor and director of the Institute of Archaeology at the University College London. Niles Eldredge is a curator in the department of invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History, and adjunct professor at the City University of New York.

A fully updated edition of one of the most original accounts of evolution ever written, featuring new fractal diagrams, six new 'tales' and the latest scientific developments. THE ANCESTOR'S TALE is a dazzling, four-billion-year pilgrimage to the origins of life: Richard Dawkins and Yan Wong take us on an exhilarating reverse journey through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life. It is a journey happily interrupted by meetings of fellow modern animals (as well as plants, fungi and bacteria) similarly tracing their evolutionary path back through history. As each evolutionary pilgrim tells their tale, Dawkins and Wong shed light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection and extinction. Written with unparalleled wit, clarity and intelligence; taking in new scientific discoveries of the past decade; and including new 'tales', illustrations and fractal diagrams, THE ANCESTOR'S TALE shows us how remarkable we are, how astonishing our history, and how intimate our relationship with the rest of the living world.

EMBRYOS AND ANCESTORS by G. R. DE BEER. PREFACE: TEN years ago I published a book under the title Embryology and Evolution, in which I made an attempt to show that after rejecting the theory of recapitulation, a much better synthesis could be made of our knowledge of embryonic development and evolutionary descent, opening up new fields for observation and co-ordination of studies in embryology, genetics, and evolution. This work has for some little time been out of print, and I have yielded to the demands of my friends to produce it again. During the intervening years a great deal of new evidence has become available, and these fresh data have fitted into place in my scheme like pieces of a puzzle, for I have seen no reason to alter the plan of my former book in the slightest degree. The present book is my previous one brought up to date and enlarged. I have recently been engaged in a study of the bearings of embryology on homology, taxonomy, and other special aspects of zoology. My views on these matters have been published in Evolution Essays presented to Professor E. S. Goodrich, edited by myself, and in The New Systematics, edited by J. S. Huxley. I have therefore not felt called upon to repeat them here, except in so far as they bear directly on the problem of the relations between embryology and evolution. It has been very encouraging to me to note the lively interest in these problems shown in recent years. The first necessity in Biology will always be further observation and experiment but as Dr. Woodger aptly points out, progress in thought is necessary as well. Outworn theories are not only dull in them selves, but they are actually harmful in thwarting the framing of new working hypotheses which take account of recent pro gress made in the various experimental branches of Biology. Such an outworn theory I believe Haeckels theory of recapitulation to be. I lay no claims to proficiency in metaphysics, and I have no doubt that many of my expressions will appear sinful to my philosophical friends. But I am aware of many of the dangers, and when I say that paedomorphosis does this, that, or the other I am merely saving time and space, and not endowing an abstract concept with the powers of a subject of a transitive verb. I should like to acknowledge my debt to M. Jean Rostand who translated my previous book into French. Few exercises are as helpful for testing the soundness of ones deductions and conclusions as the expression of them in another language. I wish likewise to record my indebtedness to Dr. J. S. Huxley, Professor W. Garstang, and Professor J. B. S. Haldane for their helpful criticism, and to Professor R. A. Fisher for very kindly reading the proofs. April 1940. G. R. DE B. Contents include: List of Illustrations . . . . ix I. Stages of Development and Stages of Evolution i II. Ontogeny . . . . . .10 III. Speeds of the Processes of Development . . 15 IV. Phylogeny . . . . . .22 V. Heterochrony and Phylogeny . . .27 VI. Caenogcnesis . . . . .32 VII. Deviation . . . . . .38 VIII. Neoteny . . . . . .46 IX. Vestigial Structures due to Reduction . . 58 X. Adult Variation . . . . .62 XI. Vestigial Structures due to Retardation . . 64 XM. Hypermorphosis . . . . .65 XIII. Acceleration . . . . .71 XIV. Paedomorphosis and Gerontomorphosis . . 78 XV. Repetition ...... 90 XVI. Conclusions . . . . . .96 XVII. Bibliography . . . . - 99 Index . . . . . .106