Lifelines: Life Beyond the Gene
Oxford University Press (2003)
| Abstract | In Life Beyond the Gene, Steven Rose offers a theory of life which insists that we as humans -- and indeed all living creatures -- create our own futures, though in circumstances not of our own choosing. Placing the organism at the center of life, Rose confronts the ideology of reductionism and ultra-Darwinism, with its insistence that all aspects of human life from sexual preference to infanticide, political orientation to violence, male domination to alcoholism, are in our genes and are the inevitable consequences of natural selection. These claims, Rose asserts, are not only socially naive, but fundamentally misunderstand the active and irreducible nature of living processes. Rose argues that life depends on the elaborate web of interactions that occur within cells, organisms, and ecosystems, in which DNA has one part to play. From early in their development, living organisms have to be capable of quasi-independent existence while growing to maturity. If we are to understand life, we must recapture an understanding of the entire living organism and its trajectory through time and space. Rose calls these trajectories lifelines. Provocative and incisive, Life Beyond the Gene provides a compelling response to those enthusiasts of the gene who would deny the complexity of life. | |||||||||
| Keywords | Biology Philosophy | |||||||||
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| Buy the book | $42.35 direct from Amazon (6% off) Amazon page | |||||||||
| Call number | QH331.R645 2003 | |||||||||
| ISBN(s) | 0195150392 9780195150391 | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesA. J. Wells (1999). Rose's Homeodynamic Perspective is Not an Alternative to Neo-Darwinism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (5):911-912.
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Steven P. R. Rose (1998). Lifelines: Biology Beyond Determinism. Oxford University Press.
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