What is the main driving force of evolution? What determines the direction of evolutionary change? What causes novelties to arise? During most of the last century, these questions have been addressed by evolutionary biologists and the answer they have come up with is well known, not only to biologists:it's natural selection. In his latest book, Wallace Arthur forces us to re-think. He claims that besides natural selection, there is embryological development as a second major player determining the direction of evolutionary change.
Biased Embryos and Evolution is a short book, which is easy to read and aimed at both biologists and general readers. Although laid out in 17 chapters, it has a straightforward, if provocative, message: `natural selection is not the main orienting agent of evolution, as Darwin claimed. Rather, it is one partner in an interacting duo'. Arthur claims that developmental bias, `the tendency of the developmental system of...
