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CURRENT REVIEWS:
"Cabej attempts to explain the major changes in the evolutionary history of animals (novelties, reversions, losses, atavisms, and convergences), as well as animal speciation process, as the results of heritable epigenetic variations initiated in the central nervous system (CNS) during development. This is an interesting point of view, which at first sight is similar to those suggested by West-Eberhard in Developmental Plasticity and Evolution (2003), and by Jablonka and Lamb in Evolution in Four Dimensions (2005). . . I believe that Cabej is right in arguing that the evolution of the nervous system significantly altered and accelerated metazoan evolution. His focus of the evolution of the neuron and the first nervous systems from a primitive neuro-endocrine system is interesting neuro-endocrine system is interesting and deserves to be given an important place in evolutionary studies . . . Epigenetic Principles of Evolution . . . covers a very wide area and provides a host of useful examples arguing convincingly that the nervous system has a central role in animal evolution."~ Eva Jablonka for BioEssays (June 2009).
"This book takes a stance on evolution that goes beyond natural selection and the Modern Synthesis to incorporate the emergence of new forms through epigenetic processes, which are referred to as the "user" of the "genetic toolkit" . . . Epigenetic Principles of Evolution provides a convincing, comprehensive compilation of evidence for the importance of epigenetic processes in metazoan evolution. I recommend it."
~ Liane Gabora for The Quarterly Review of Biology (June 2009).
A website devoted to the epigenetic mechanisms
as the driving force of the evolution in metazoans.
Epigenetic mechanisms dealt with herein
transcend the conventional mechanisms of gene imprinting and
chromosome remodeling to encompass the whole spectrum of epigenetic
mechanisms and phenomena, the nature and the origin of epigenetic
information, its role in the process of evolution and speciation.
The recognition of the role of epigenetic
information and epigenetic mechanisms in the development and
evolution of metazoans invalidates the use of adjective genetic
synonymously to and interchangeably with inherited; what
metazoans inherit is not only genetic material but epigenetic
information and epigenetic mechanisms as part of the epigenetic
system of heredity to which genes and the genetic system of heredity are subordinate.
The genetic metaphor of the “genetic tool kit”
happened to perfectly describe that relationship between the
epigenetic and genetic systems of heredity, as a relationship
between the epigenetic “user” of the genetic tools.
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