Acquiring Genomes: A Theory Of The Origin Of Species by Lynn Margulis (PDF)

Description

In this groundbreaking book, Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan present an answer to one of the enduring mysteries of evolution — the source of inherited variation that gives rise to new species. Random genetic mutation, long believed to be the main source of variation, is only a marginal factor. As the authors demonstrate in this book, the more important source of speciation, by far, is the acquisition of new genomes by symbiotic merger. The result of thirty years of delving into a vast, mostly arcane literature, this is the first book to go beyond — and reveal the severe limitations of — the “Modern Synthesis” that has dominated evolutionary biology for almost three generations. Lynn Margulis, whom E. O. Wilson called “one of the most successful synthetic thinkers in modern biology,” and her co-author Dorion Sagan have written a comprehensive and scientifically supported presentation of a theory that directly challenges the assumptions we hold about the variety of the living world.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “One of the most stimulating and provocative books that I have read for a long while.” About the Author Lynn Margulis, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1983. She is best known for her pathbreaking work on the bacterial origins of cell organelles and for her collaboration with James Lovelock on Gaia theory. Her previous books include Symbiosis in Cell Evolution; Five Kingdoms (with K. V. Schwartz); and (with Dorion Sagan) Origins of Sex, Garden of Microbial Delights, What Is Life?, What Is Sex?, and Slanted Truths: Essays on Gaia, Symbiosis and Evolution.Dorion Sagan is the author of Biospheres and the co-author of Up from Dragons: The Evolution of Human Intelligence. He lives in New York City.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐A thou roofingA thoroughgoing examination and exposition of the emergent step through which no living matter took energetic biodynamic form as organic organization became physiological function of articulating and bio-functioning structures of life.

⭐This is an extraordinary book written with clarity and very high integrity by a world’s best-in-class evolution scientist about her life work. I enjoyed every page – they opened completely new vistas and understanding of evolution.Her book is very microbe-centric; the traditional evolution view is very anthropocentric. What she (and her gifted son) did was sort of turn it around, put the people on the bottom and the microbes on the top as far as their importance in running the ecological system of the Earth. The book describes that people are totally late, typical animals, and are really very unimportant in the workings of the system, whereas the microbes are much earlier, they do all the major gas transformations, they created all the major things we think are important, like sex. Today we might say that this turnaround – people down and microbes up in a world that has always had people up and microbes down -is a strategic perceptual shift.One of the many strengths of Dr. Lynn Margulis is her deep study of evolution scientists outside of the “neo-Darwinian” establishment in the US academic circles, including rich veins of European and Russian scientists, many never published in English language before her research.A small excerpt from her interview in Astrobiology Magazine — October 1, 2006:”The idea that the Precambrian, that is from 4600 million years ago to 541 million years ago, 7/8ths of the entire fossil record, was empty, that nothing happened for all that time, that the fossils were so scarce that you couldn’t trace lineages – that idea prevailed such that Stephen Jay Gould said it relatively recently before he died. It was overturned almost exclusively by the science supported by this guy Dick Young. He started as an embryologist, and he started funding non-human NASA biology.Young had a great deal of insight. He funded people like Elso Barghorn, the professor at Harvard who in 1954 published a paper describing two billion year old plants from the Gunflint chert. They weren’t plants, of course, they were bacteria, but at the time the world was divided into plants and animals and there wasn’t any choice. Young funded the whole activity that started as exobiology – today it’s more astrobiology than exobiology – that completely turned around that idea. And I was privileged to be involved with those people as these data were coming in on the evidence for early life….”I find her evolution theories and factual breakthroughs very convincing. They certainly deserve deep respect and analysis, including scientific repudiation – if this is still possible. She should have received a Nobel prize long ago, although like with Dr. Craig Venter that is unlikely to happen. Her scientific work offended the established evolution priesthood in the US and their doctrines.An example is Dr. Jerry Coyne’s blog […]. This university professor’s (Uni of Chicago) ad hominem attack is one of the saddest example of scientific envy and pure hattred I ever read. Even the article’s very title is such a vulgar and gross falsification — about a fellow scientist whose famous book “Acquiring Genomes” is actually subtitled – A new Theory of Evolution.What drives such a blind hattred and outright falsifications is Dr. Margulis destruction of firmly established doctrines? Same hattred that burned at stake Giordano Bruno and silenced Galileo Galilei. Poor Jerry Coyne and his ilk – he disqualified himself from any serious discussion of evolution.Once again – this book is a masterpiece; it is highly recommended for anyone who can read.

⭐“Acquiring Genomes” by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan challenges in 205 pages how the evolution as we know it is wrong and far more complex. This book is written by a member of the National Academy of Sciences and recipient of the 1999 Presidential Medal of Science, Lynn Margulis who is a Professor at the University of Massachusetts. Dorian Sagan is an author of Biospheres and a co-author of Up from Dragons: The Evolution of Human Intelligence. They passionately explains that inherited variation causes new species to arise. Leading the reader to question what exactly makes a specie a specie. Their thinking of evolution actually goes beyond the dogmatic think that has dominated the 20th century. This book is definitely for well-informed reader in biology, mainly in evolution.Perhaps the most notable features of “Acquiring Genomes” is the rather dominate tone the authors use to challenge the basic and over simplified concepts of evolutions. For example, the word “species” is mainly used to describe morphological differences, but the problem arises when two similar animals, like coyotes and dogs, mate and do not produce fully fertile offspring. Therefore organisms that can interbreed belong in the same species, but this only applied to zoologist and botanist. The authors do state that this definition should actually be renamed “zoological-botanical concepts of species”.The authors passionately go on about evolution and how everyone who studies biology is a Darwinist. They do sat that there is a difference between neodarwinism and Darwinist, such as natural selection. Natural selection is a way to express the concept that most life does not persist through time, the authors state that is essentially “differential survival”. This differential survival lead into inherited variation can help the organisms, which Darwin wrote that “only variation that is inherited is important for “decent with modification”’.The reason that the definition of species only works for plants and animals is because they are embryo forming, which need fusion of an egg with sperm. Professional evolutionary theorist tend to have ignored microbiology, paleontology and symbiosis even though life originated with bacteria. Bacteria exchange genetic material with multiple recipients. Bacteria can even uptake DNA material from the surroundings. Individuality doesn’t come exclusively from diversification and branching like neodarwinist believe but also comes from integration and differentiation, such as species by symbiogenisis. According to the authors it is the creative force of symbiosis that produced eukaryotic cells from bacteria.An example of eukaryotic and prokaryotic symbiosis is V. fischeri and the Hawaiian bobtail squid. These squid hatch from their eggs without the bacteria, but soon the bacterial inhabit the squid’s underdeveloped light organ through occupying crypts. With the bacteria, the light organ develop and allow the symbiosis to commence. Within 4 days, a death signal kills epithelial cells of the ciliated surface and the welcome organ is gone. Bacterial genes that code for “adhesion” promotes the light organs maintenance. The bacteria gets food and protection while the squid gets camouflage through the bioluminescent of the bacteria which generates the same color, intensity and angular distribution as moonlight. The bioluminescence the bacteria emits allows the Hawaiian bobtail squid to blend in the ocean at night avoided predators.This book wasn’t an easy read because of the complicated concepts of biology and evolution, which I would recommend to a reader who is familiar with the subject. This book did do a good job on laying out the purpose of pushing the limits of evolution, but is was confusing as some part of the book seemed to have come from nowhere, such as the explanation on chromosomes. The book lacks the ability of continuity and transitioning from subject to subject smoothly, regardless it does try to display the information as easy as it an by being broad about evolution and speciation in the beginning.It was refreshing to read the immense passion the authors had on the subject of evolution as their bias for certain words were apparent. The authors talk about “competition” and its misuse in evolution. According to them, competition has no place in describing evolution because competition implies a mutual understanding of a winner and loose. The author fails to acknowledge that when first teaching evolution, simple term are used to help learner understand the concept of evolution. In the wild, the winner is the organism that survives and the loser is the one that dies. Over all, this book pushed readers to think beyond the accepted thinking for evolution and truly question the evolutionary theory.

⭐Tutte le persone che si interessano di evoluzione dovrebbero essere grati a questa donna eccezzionale che ha speso la sua vita a modificare letteralmente la visione limitata di Darwin della realta’ della vita.Sto’ parlando di Lynn Margulis recentemente scomparsa colei che con coraggio negli anni ottanta ha riaffrontato il tema del passaggio dalla vita procariota a quella eucariota (dai batteri unicellulari alle cellule superiori)indicando nei mitocondri e nei cloroplasti quei batteri primigenii che introdottisi in altre cellule vi si sono stabiliti per sempre con reciproca convenienza.Dapprima derisa e poi oggi finalmente osannata ha avuto il coraggio di affermare che la vita sulla terra non si e’ evoluta per caso e per la lotta del piu’ forte,ma per collaborazione molto stretta tra specie diverse.Acquiring genomes e’ un libro che parla proprio di questa sommatoria di genomi che ha permesso alle stesse specie,vedi coniugazione batterica,o a specie diverse di condividere il proprio genoma per superare le avversita’ ambientali che di volta in volta si sono dovute affrontare.Come si puo’ dedurre facilmente si sta’ finalmente cambiando prospettiva evolutiva,congelata dalla limitata visione darviniana della vita.Non perdetelo.

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⭐Lynn Margullis and Dorian Sagan reveal their daring theory of the origins of species and it’s a mind bender. John Maynard Smith says that these two may well be wrong but it is really good having them around to inspire new ideas. I doubt if they are completely wrong or completely right but they are certainly wonderfully stimulating.

⭐This is a disappointing and annoying book. Disappointing, because Margulis has written much better books, and annoying because of its self-righteousness and a hype reminding of car salesmen and American preachers. I suggest not to buy this book. It’s a waste of time. Here some of my reasons.L Margulis defines symbiosis as ‘simply the living together of organisms that are different from each other’. Therefore I am a symbiont of polar bears. Does this make me a new species? Of course, she notices soon that this definition is just very silly, and puts some boundaries on it. There are surprises, however. One would think that the relation between angiosperms and their pollinators would satisfy the requirement for symbiogenesis, because one cannot understand the body of angiosperms without the body of their pollinators, and vice versa, but that again is not enough. Somehow it is symbiogenesis only if one organism sort of crawls into another. Unfortunately, if a virus or a bacterium or a protoctist enters an organism, the result is usually not a new organism, but a dead or very sick one. That’s why we have an immune system and departments for tropical diseases. Symbiogenesis in her sense must be something quite rare, and it is. Take mitochondria for example. They are an essential and defining part of eucaryotes, and they all look the same. They have entered only once a first cell, some 2.1 billion years ago. There may have been other redox pathways realized in some other bacteria, but only this one entered a cell successfully to become a symbiont, and since this event we have one breathing system and one kind of eucaryotes – not two kinds, for example, as one would expect from Margulis’ hype. The same goes for land plants where among all the green algae only one type entered a protoplant and made it green, apparently the Coleochaetales chlorophyta ( from intron studies ). Symbiosis is not rare, but symbiogenesis is. Margulis favorite example are cows. But there was no symbiogenesis of a cow with cellulose eating bacteria. Once upon a time an animal made a symbiotic existence with such bacteria, but then it developed neodarwinisticically into many species, one of which was cows.Margulis accuses ‘Neodarwinism’ of using anthropocentric terminology like mutual benefit and similar terms. Therefore she is quite unable to explain symbiosis. Instead she introduces a ‘symbiotic force’. This force is somehow due to the thermodynamic behaviour of open systems where ‘Nature abhors gradients’. Exchange the word ‘Nature’ by the word ‘God’ and you see how ‘scientific’ her own terminology is. ( Actually open systems do behave strangely because gradients there induce not individual random motions like diffusion but collective motion like convection, for example. Why this is so is not understood; and certainly we are left in the dark why this should provide a ‘symbiotic force’. Also remember that Thermodynamics is about systems in equilibrium, not open systems. When you are in thermodynamical equilibrium, you are dead. ). Whatever her ‘force’ may be, it reminds me of the vitalist force of 19th century biology, which fits nicely into her rejection of Neodarwinism.Margulis makes also a case for the Gaia hypothesis. But the assumption that Mother Earth always provides negative feedback to reduce changes in a homeostatic way is quite wrong. There is no reason whatsoever why positive feedback should not exist in Nature. I believe that the Carboniferous era where photosynthesis got of out of control, resulting in a major ice age, drop of sea level, increase in plant material and oxygen, coal, and giant insects, is an example for such positive feedback. ( The later drop of oxygen to Mount Everest levels was not caused by any feedback, positive or negative, just brute force Vulcanic eruptions ). Her view is just another religious fantasy of prestabilized harmony.That is not to deny that symbiogenesis is unimportant, far from it. But I think that Dawkins Extended Phenotype is a much better concept to apply to the problem of new species. If you want a serious discussion of the role of mitochondrial symbiogenesis, read Nick Lane’s ‘Power, Sex, Suicide’.

⭐À compléter avec Evolution’s Destiny: Co-evolving Chemistry of the Environment and Life, de RJP Williams et Ros Rickaby, pour la version à la fois chimique et géochimique.

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⭐Wonderful book that takes you by the hand through the world we live in. Easily read by anyone enjoying science it will deepen your feeling about the life we think we know. Hard to put down and a good addition to the other Margulis books.

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