Cellular-molecular approach to evolution has led to radical changes in our understanding of biologic principles ranging from the Cell, to the Life Cycle, Development, Homeostasis, Senescence/Aging, Heterochrony, Pleiotropy, Phenotype, and perhaps the purpose of life itself. Much of this new way of thinking about biology and medicine emanates from experimental evidence for epigenetic inheritance. This leads one to question whether our unicellular state is the actual primary level of selection.
One particular system that is now recognized as being under the auspices of epigenetic inheritance is the endocrine system, which is conventionally thought to regulate physiologic homeostasis. However, because the sex hormones play such a major role in behaviors related to the acquisition of epigenetic data, and the processing of such epigenetic data by the gonads during meiosis, their role in the evolution of the organism become tractable. The composite of the activities ofthe individual over the course of its lifetime can now be understood causally, resulting from the orchestration of its physiology by hormones, prenatally, postnatally and during the aging process, across the entire life span of the organism. Specific behaviors over the course of the life cycle during childhood, adolescence, puberty, adulthood and aging can now be understood mechanistically rather than merely as milestones in the various stages of life.
With the above considerations in mind, this book presents the cellular-evolutionary perspective towards the relationship of the organism with its surroundings, human and non-human alike renders biology and medicine a continuum instead of fragmented, un-related anecdotes.
Tabla de materias
Chapter 1. Subjective Age.- Chapter 2. Evolution as Wave Collapse.- Chapter 3. The Periodic Table and Evolutionary Biology are on the Vector of the Big Bang.- Chapter 4. Goldilocks Effect, Local Paracrine Control of Homeostasis and Endocrinology.- Chapter 5. Cellular Evolution as the Flow of Energy.- Chapter 6. Endothermy, Oxytocin, Vasopressin and Civilization- a narrative.- Chapter 7. Dialectical Energism.- Chapter 8. Cybernetics as a Conversation with the Cosmos.- Chapter 9. Atavisms Redux.- Chapter 10. We Are All Citizens of Gaia.- Chapter 11. The Universal Biologic Basis for Moral Behavior, Personal and Societal Alike.- Chapter 12. Snookered.- Chapter 13. Mr. Bubble Creates Civilization- A Fable.- Chapter 14. Like History, Evolution “Rhymes”.- Chapter 15. On the Evolution of Imagination as Human Consciousness, or “Imagining Imagining”.- Chapter 16. Cellular Evolution of Language.- Chapter 17. Neoteny and Human Evolution.- Chapter 18. Life is a Mobius Strip.- Afterward.- Index.
Sobre el autor
John S. Torday, MSc, Ph D received his B.A. in Biology/English from Boston University (1968); MSc (1971) in Investigative Medicine, and Ph D (1974) in Experimental Medicine from Mc Gill University; Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Reproductive Biology, University of Wisconsin-Madison (1976). He has held Faculty positions in the Departments of Pediatrics and Physiology, Harvard Medical School (1976-91); the Departments of Pediatrics and Gynecology, University of Maryland Medical School (1991-98); the Departments of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Evolutionary Medicine, the University of California- Los Angeles where he is currently a full Professor of Pediatrics and Ob/Gyn and the Director of Guenther Laboratory for Cell-Molecular Biology. He is a member of numerous scientific societies, and is a Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (2018- present).