Grab Instantly Evolving Ourselves Articulated By Juan Enriquez Presented As Ebook

fascinating overview of the science behind humanity's evolution past and future, Over just a couple dozen decades, our species has engineered for itself a very different existence than the one in which we grew up mostly to our very great benefit.
But our engineering has also exposed us to challenges that our upbringing and our genes did not prepare us for.
We have the power to “evolve ourselves” to meet these challenges, but will we use that power wisely The authors say our survival depends on doing so.
This book was not exactly what I was expecting or hoping for, The first part of the book was interesting, as it looked at the ways that modern advances are shaping human evolution, which was what I was curious to learn more about.
However, most of the book focused more on the future of humans and all the cutting edge ways we are learning to guide and control human development.
The ideas were thought provoking, but I found much of it to be really "out there", bordering on science fiction.
I also thought there should have been some space devoted to looking at the ethical questions that this topic brings up.
It's not just a question of whether we CAN shape human evolution, but SHOULD we, In many ways, I thought the book fell short and I was a bit disappointed, once I got past the first few chapters.
Is humanity now driving the evolutionary bus Are we bypassing the slow, scenic route and speeding it down the expressway Do we know where we're going Have I just overextended a metaphor

Seldom do I find a nonfiction book that I can't put down.
This is one. It is a fascinating account of the complex interplay of things beyond genes that affect how species evolve, I highly recommend it.

Not that I don't have a gripe, It's probably petty, but "unnatural selection" Really Unnatural It's not that the term is inaccurate, . . exactly. What the authors are emphasizing is that human actions rather than the unguided hand of natural selection is now directing how evolution proceeds.
Got that, but the word "unnatural" has negative connotations, and the thrust of the book is that humanity guiding its own continued evolution isn't necessarily a bad thing.
In fact, it may be essential to our survival, Also, the word implies that what humans do, and perhaps even humans themselves, aren't natural, But it is and we are, We evolved through natural selection just like everything else, and human constructions are no less natural than termite mounds or beaver dams.
All creatures affect their environment, We're just a bit more, . . blatant about it. The term Darwin used for selective breeding was "artificial selection", but I'm not crazy about that term either for pretty much the same reasons.
How about something like "intentional selection" or even just "human selection" Either of those, I think, would be a better choice.


Oh, and I caught one typo, It's on page. The CretaceousTertiary extinction was not "aboutmillion years ago, " It was aboutmillion years ago, Somehow, the "" got dropped in the edition I read ISBN,

Despite all that, this is still one of the best books I've read recently, It's informative, thought provoking, and even hopeful with all due cautionary qualifications, of course, If you're interested in evolution or the future of humanity, this is a "must read", This is a fascinating book about the speedup of evolution in a largely humancontrolled for now world, I disagree with the point of view of the authors that modern technology, including genetic engineering, is mainly a good thing, and that science is leading us in largely positive directions.
I may own and use all the modern conveniences, but I'm a neoLuddite at heart, and very concerned about humancaused climate change, the extinction of other species, etc.
In fact, I think science and technology is going to lead to the extinction or nearextinction of our own species.
The authors of "Evolving Ourselves" acknowledge that it's only by luck that our species survived and other hominids did not, and don't believe that our survival means we're some kind of "crown of creation.
" At the same time, however, they seem to believe it's okay for humankind to continue to manipulate our planet and, ultimately, the universe solely for our own benefit.
In fact, they recommend space exploration and colonization only "better this time" so that our species will have a chance to survive a catastrophic event for planet Earth like an asteroid they skirt the issue of climate change.
Read this a few backs but truly appreciated it now, Excellent read I received this book for free as part of a first reads promotion Interesting read, The book is well researched, It gave me some new insight, This book is an extensive consideration of humanitys active role in shaping the course of our evolution, particularly when considering relatively recent advances in genomics and synthetic biology.
I highly recommend as the authors effectively portray the potential of our impact, although the examples do sometimes verge on science fiction which they note.


One point is that, although there is a brief section on this, the authors describe science as fact quite often and base conclusions on previous conjecture.
However, when writing a book which needs to be accessible and commercial, I understand that sometimes you need to commodify the science.
If you are not from an academic background, I consider this book highly readable but advise remaining sceptical throughout,

Side note: the authors do go a bit mad with the ellipses at the end of chapters and the book is rife with Science Dad jokes.


All the same, the breadth of research makes the book feel complete and is sectioned into an easytounderstand format.
I believe the intention of the book can be summarised in the phrase: Proceed with caution, An overview of how man has shaped the natural environment, and the feedback which results from that, Semiinteresting. Must admit I consumed it as a fast audiobook,x normal speed, so my comprehension was

less than ideal, Faustian in its outlook. Sections on genetic differences between humans prefaced by humanitarian universalist advisories, as expected for most books,

Reading this book does have the effect of orienting one's sights towards the long future I found, particularly the talk of space travel.
In that sense, I thought this book provided some food for thought, how our descendants might not resemble us in many generations.
The prospect is at least a little chilling, but I don't read books to maintain a high mood, The Complicated Made Simpler

An extremely educational book by two authors who have so much to say covering a broad spectrum of complicated issues and opt to summarize them in the simplest language possible.
I am grateful for this book as I was grateful for As the Future Catches You, Bilimin önemli bir alanını yakından izleyip, çoğunluğun anlayabileceği düzende yazması yazalarların başarısı.
Bu kadar hızlı gelişen bir alanda zaten geç çevrilmiş kitabı okumakta gecikmem benim basiretsizliğim, Yazıldıktan sonra geçen altı yılda nelerin değiştiğini çok merak ettim, Yazarların biyografisi altında onlarla yarışırcasına iddialı özgeçmiş yazıp, en basit cümleleri anlaşılmaz kılan, üst satırda kişinin soyadını yazıp altta soyadını tercüme eden iki kere çevirmenin başarısızlığı.


Contents

Enriquez J amp Gullans S:Evolving Ourselves How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation are Changing Life on Earth

What Would Darwin Write Today

.
Symptoms of RealTime Evolution
 Is Autism a Harbinger of Our Changing Brains
 The DarWa Theory Revisited, . . and a Glimpse at a New Theory
 Twenty Generations to Domesticate Humans
 Violence and the Lack Thereof
 Allergies: Another Harbinger of Our Evolving Bodies
 Our Unnatural “AllNatural” World
 Fat Humans, Fat Animals: Another Symptom
 Brave New Sex

.
How Does Evolution Really Work
 The Nature Versus Nurture Wars
 Missing Heredity, Mysterious Toxins
 Transgenerational Inheritanceaka “Voodoo Biology”
 WWIV: Nuking Our Microbes
 The “Yucky” Stuff Inside You
 Autism Revisited: Three Potential Drivers
 Viruses: The Roadrunners of Evolution
 A Perfectly Modern Pregnancy
 Bringing It All TogetherDESTINY Is Propelling Evolution

.
A World of Nonrandom Mutation
 Playing with the Building Blocks of Life
 Humans Hijacking Viruses
 Editing Life on a Grand Scale
 Unnatural Acts, Designer Babies, and Sex.

 Boyden Brains

, Evolving Ourselves
 Better Living Through Chemistry
 Forever Young, Beautiful, and Fearless
 Unnatural Attraction
 Sports Quandaries and Beyond, . .
 Designer Organs and Cloned Humans
 Evolving Brains Revisited
 The RobotComputerHuman Interface
 Perhaps an Ethical Question or Two
 Technically Life, Technically Death
 Trust Whom

.
The Future of Life
 I Dont Remember You, . . DeExtinction
 Humanitys Really Short Story
 Evolving Hominins, . .
 Synthetic Life
 Humans and Hubris: Does Nature Win in the End
 Leaving Earth
 EPILOGUE: New Evolutionary Trees

Acknowledgments
Appendix: DarwinTrue or False: Did He Get It Right
Glossary
Notes
Index It is very badly written.
There is no logical connection between the chapters and the subject is constantly changing, I felt as if somebody has been talking to himself without listening other people or without letting others to express themselves.
I am not going to discuss the scientific content of this book in detail, but readers should be cautious about accepting the stories in this book as facts.
I am still in between speechless and a stunning achievement, . . Evolving Ourselves:

I have to say, I really liked this book, It's smart and visionary and irreverent and just plain fun, A great summer read.

BTW: It's featured on the edge, org summer readinglist. If you're not familiar with edge, org, do yourself a favor and go check it out,

It's like new wave for old smart people :

Evolving Ourselves is authors Juan Enriquez of TED talk fame and Steve Gullans also a TED talk guy book length argument that the Neo Darwinian model of evolution via natural selection no longer applies to humans.


Not by a long shot,

In Evolving Ourselves they argue that the Neo Darwinian model needs a special modification if it's going to include us.


They assert that humans are only marginally effected by a natural selection and b random mutation due to our practices of c unnatural selection and d nonrandom mutation.




UNNATURAL SELECTION


Let me see if I can start from the beginning,

Although it's at times hard to believe, People are like the animal kingdoms world champions of cooperation,

Birds fly, whales are huge, giraffes have longnecks and people cooperate,

People think that what makes us bad ass is that were smart, Nope. We're smart so that we can cooperate,

We're actually only smart because we cooperate, The only reason people can become super specialized in their field of knowledge and create cool technology and shit is because we can get together and work on stuff.


Allow me to explain,

Reciprocal Altruism:

Imagine two cave man dudes,Grog andUnk,

Both guys make less than spectacular axes,

Grog makes great axe headsout ofbut crappy axe handlesout ofstarsout oftotal

Unk makes great axe handlesout ofbut crappy axe headsout ofstarsout oftotal

It takes both Grog and Unkhours to makemediocreout ofaxe.


For both Grog and Unk:

hoursmediocreout ofaxe,

What happens if:

Grog spendshours makinggreatout ofstar axe heads

Unk spendshours makinggreatout ofstar axe handles

Grog and Unk spend.
hours tradinggreatout ofstar axe head, forgreatout ofstar axe handle

Grog and Unk spend another.
hours assembling their greatout ofstar axes

Now, for both Grog and Unk:

hoursgreatout ofstar axe.


With a little extra effort and cooperation, they each getgreat axe,

That is a great deal right there, but it gets better,

What happens if:

Grog and Unk become expert specialist in their respective fields

both Grog and Unk focus and innovate, and now both of them can produce awesomeout ofstar products, in less time.
hours

Now.hoursawesomeout ofstar axe head/handle

further more, they streamline their trading and assembly processes to.
hours to trade and.hours to assemble

Now,hours total market and assembly time,

The whole process took,hours production of awesomeout ofstar axe head/handle,hours market and assembly time, to makeawesomeout ofstar axe each,

Or, to put it more simply:

For both Grog and Unk:

hour start to finishawesomeout ofstar axe each.


We started with:

hoursmediocreout ofaxe each

With a little cooperation and organization, we ended up with

hourawesomeout ofstar axe each

This is a huge Win Win for both Grog and Unk.


This is known as a nonzero sum transaction,

Nonzero means that both participants get more out of the cooperative transaction than if they had each gone it alone.


Nonzero transactions a, k. a. Reciprocal Altruism is what allowed humans to dominate the planet for better or for worse,

Other species demonstrate Reciprocal Altruism, but none to the extent that people do, As previously mentioned, humans are the planets grand champions of cooperation,

It took a team of millions of people to create the iPhone I'm writing this review on, and the Internet infrastructure I'm delivering this review over, and the web sight I'm delivering it to.


And that just this one little blip of human production,

How exactly do we out cooperate every other species

There are lots of theories about why humans are so dang good at creating and maintaining systems of Nonzero transactions.
But the single most salient factor that simply jumps off the page is language,

Language e. g. English and Mathematics engenders constructs such as ideologies, religions, rules, codes of conduct, laws etc,

These constructs and others like them are the foundation of culture and technology,

According to Enriquez and Gullans

Once people stepped into the realm of culture and technology, we stepped out of the iron grip of natural selection on to the turbocharged escalator to obesity.


Unnatural selection ladies and gents,

Of course the next chapter of Grog and Unk's story involves creating surplus, hiring others to do the labor, domesticating plants and animals, and you know the rest of the story.
It ends on your sofa,

Domestication:

Dmitri Konstantinovich Belyaev was a Russian geneticist who conducted a remarkable experiment to see if it was possible to turn wild Siberian foxes into cute, cuddly domesticated pets.


The experiment has been described by the New York Times as "arguably the most extraordinary breeding experiment ever conducted.
"

Just to qualify, It was done in the's, so it's the most remarkable breeding experiment ever conducted before the invention of the internet.
The Internet is actually one big breeding experiment, and it's actually more remarkable than this one, But this one is still really good, It goes like this.

Beginning in thes, in order to uncover the genetic basis of the distinctive behavioral and physiological attributes of domesticated animals, Belyaev and his team spent decades selectively breeding the wild silver fox for friendliness.


The way they did it was they only bread those individuals in each generation that showed the least fear of humans.


After several generations of controlled breeding, the silver foxes no longer showed any fear of humans and often wagged their tails and licked their human caretakers to show affection.


But it gets better, Not only did their behavior change, Their outward appearance changed too, They started displaying the typical features lap dogs,

They began to display spotted coats, floppy ears, curled tails, larger heads, as well as other physical attributes commonly found in domesticated animals, thus confirming Belyaevs hypothesis that both the behavioral and physical traits of domesticated animals could be traced to "a collection of genes that conferred a propensity to tameness".


Neoteny:

Refers to the retention, by adults in a species, of traits previously seen only in juveniles.


In neoteny, the physiological or somatic development of an animal or organism is slowed or delayed,

Ultimately this process results in the retention, in the adults of a species, of juvenile physical characteristics well into maturity.


One way of thinking about domestication, is that the features of juveniles of the species are conserved into adulthood.


In other words, our cute little lap dogs are like wolves who have been selectively bread to be permapuppies.


Some evolutionary developmental evodevo theorists posit that humans are essentially neotenos chimpanzees,

In a sense, we are domesticated chimps,

But it gets even better than that,

According to the authors, we are becoming even more neotenos as we become even more domesticated,

Think about it,

What happens to our cultures most aggressive men, The ones who don't become CEO's or cage fighters pretty much end up in prison,

The men who are valued as workers and fathers in our culture are increasingly the "tame as fuck" gortex vagina Seattle dads.
They even look and frequently act like big babies,

Not that there's anything wrong with that,

So anyway. Enriquez and Gullans claim were domesticating ourselves,

Whereas Darwin pretty much shook western civilization down to its foundation and essentially revolutionized the way we se ourselves and the world we live in by asserting that we humans are have descended from apes.


Enriquez and Gullans make the rather plainly incontrovertible claim that were all becoming a bunch of giant toddlers.


I can't exactly see another Inherit The Wind type trial emerging from what ever debate happens over this earth shatteringly obvious position.




NONRANDOM MUTATION



Hologenome:

Enriquez and Gullans Posit that humans have least four parallel evolving genomes

: Core DNA
: Epigenome
: Microbiome
: Virome

More on all of these in mere moments.


But suffice it to say, every human, plant and animal possesses these four genomes, which considered as a whole, are referred to as the “hologenome.
”

The subgenomesinteract with one another, evolve at very different rates, and define your basic biology and attributes throughout life.


Eventually they come together and encode the heritable traits and behaviors that you pass on to your descendants and future generations.


: Core DNA

According to The authors

Humankinds core DNA genome has been essentially stable for tens of thousands of years.


And that's a good thing right

Each generation historically experiences tiny, random mutationstoof the.
billion letters that make up your DNA are different, at birth, from those of your parents,

Apparently it takes a really long time for DNA to mutate,

It's hella stable,

Again, that's a really good thing,

This is particularly true post Grog and Unk, as societies made it illegal for you and anyone else for that matter, we're not just picking on you to impregnate your mom and sister.


Another good nay great thing,

This lead a lot of biologists to assume people stopped evolving,

But there is a whole lot of adaptation going on, just below the core genome,

: Epigenome

Epigenetics refers to the domain of cellular and physiological trait variations that are caused by external or environmental factors that switch genes on and off.


This means that some of our genetic expression is influenced by mom and dads environment, and our environment.


An epigenome consists of a record of the chemical changes to the DNA and histone proteins of an organism these changes can be passed down to an organism's offspring.


So not all phenotypic changes are caused by changes in the DNA sequence,

Unlike the underlying genome which is largely static within an individual, the epigenome can be dynamically altered by environmental conditions.


Human diversity and evolution is highly concentrated in our epigenetic switches how genes are turned on or off, expressed with greater potency or silenced.


The authors assert that human culture and technology are driving the fuck out of evolution on the epigenetic level.


So what happens to humans aftergenerations of sofa surfing and concurrent surfing of the world's most remarkable breeding experiment

I guess we're finding out.


: Microbiome

Refers to the squadrillians a large number of bacteria that live in and on us, without whom we would simply die.


Within the microbiome, evolution occurs quickly some bacteria can go through,generations in just over a month,

So what happens when people seriously alter i, e. totally fuckin upend the microbiome

"As humans declare broad warfare on microbes, as they radically alter ecosystems, adding toxins, antiseptic soaps, mouthwashes, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, global travel, urban lifestyles, changing diets, and leave rural existence behind, they guide/influence rapid microbial evolution".


Toss antibiotics into the mix and this is yet another way humans are driving the fuck out of our own evolution.


"So while you inherited your intial microbiome from Mom, they arent your greatgrandmas microbes anymore",

That's right. The reengineering of the microbiome may be one of the major reasons for the obesity epidemic, Apparently livestock are given antibiotics so they will gain weight, I guess reducing your guts microbiodiversity equates to increasing the size of your ass,

Anyway, it's such a common practice that the antibiotics are leaching into everything, including farm fresh produce via manure fertilizers.


Dude. You mean those big salad's and green juices are making us fat too, Oh fuck, were fucked!

: Virome

Finally, our fourth genome, the virome the viruses we depend on for dear life, mutates and evolves at a blazingly rapid rate.


"We have only begun to catalog the actual specific actors with the virome, so it is still early days with regard to understanding exactly how it affects us, from day to day or from generation to generation.
One thing is certain: With our domesticated lifestyles, global imprint, and unnatural activities, the “typical” virome today must be very different from the one Darwin indirectly observed.
And we are now also beginning to tame and deploy viruses, learning to rapidly edit them for our own purposes".


So why are viruses so important to our genetic expression

"Sometimes viral DNA simply embeds itself in your own human DNA, where it can lie dormant or sometimes come back to life when you least want it, as occurs with recurring cold sores, shingles from a longpast chicken pox, and even some cancersparticularly when our immune systems become weak.
On some occasions, viral code can end up in the DNA in your sperm and eggs, which then gets passed on to future generations".


Okay, I'm beginning to get it, When we create antiviral shit, we radically nuke the virome, This could lead to a crazy new viromic landscape, God knows what could emerge from the wasteland,

I guess that's yet another way we are pushing the envelope with unnatural selection,

Let's just hope the envelope comes back with a paycheck in it instead of a maxed out credit card bill.


Great book.

stars!!!!.