By Jan Klein and Naoyuki Takahata Springer, 2002 FROM THE BACK COVER Three questions have occupied the human mind since we began to contemplate the world: Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Artists (notably Paul Gauguin), religious thinkers, philosophers and, most recently, scientists have all searched for the answers. In this book, the authors describe how scientists decipher human origin from the record encrypted in the DNA and protein molecules. After explaining the nature of descent and the methods of studying genealogical relationships, they summarize what the molecular archives reveal about the Tree of Life and our position on it. From this knowledge, they draw conclusions about our identity, our place in the living world, and our future. They draw attention to the change of perspective that the knowledge entails and to its ethical implications. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: A Tahitian Prelude Art, Myth, and Science 1 Gauguin's Testament 2 The Myth of Eden 4 Art and Mythos 6 Mythos and Logos 9 A Bit of Semantics 11 CHAPTER 2: Bridging the Generation Gap The Physical Basis of Ancestor-Descendant Relationship 13 Bloodlines 14 Vapors, Little Worms, and Eggs 16 The Homunculus Hypothesis 17 The Germ Line 20 From Gemmules to Pustules 24 From Miescher to Escher 27 Omnis DNA e DNA 31 The Informer and the Replicator 33 The Teleporter 34 CHAPTER 3: Crane's Foot Biological Meaning of Descent 39 A Show of Eight Kings 40 Adam's Descendants and Darwin's Ancestors 42 Grand Unifications 44 The Floppy Discs of Heredity 47 Urdur,Verdandi, Skuld 50 The Greek X Conundrum 53 Time Travel of a Carolingian Chromosome 55 A Celtic Heirloom 57 Taking a Dip in a Gene Pool 59 The Circle and the Y 60 CHAPTER 4: Klados and Phyle The Molecular Nature of Evolution 67 And Everything has Changed so Much in Me 68 In Tyche's Realm 69 The Evolution of Evolution... 71 ... and the Evolution of Revolution 73 A Tale of Two Pools 74 The Elegant Euphemisms of Algebra 75 In the Realm of Antecedent Causes 82 Sports on a Neutral Territory 86 The Clock Symphony 90 CHAPTER 5: The Painted Tree Methods of Phylogenetic Reconstruction 95 Molecular Archives 96 Tribal History 101 What's Hidden Under the Surface? 104 Horse Kicks and Monsieur le Baron 105 The Art of Drawing a Tree 109 MP, ML, ME, and NJ 112 Catching a Liar 120 Fishing for the Truth 123 CHAPTER 6: The Tree of Life From the Root to the Crown 125 The Loneliness of a Long Perduring Tree 126 The Woesian Revolution 129 The Three Domains of Life 132 The Search for the Root 135 The Pastiched Genomes 137 Have Transposon, Will Travel 140 Worlds Apart 142 The Prokaryote Success Story 144 The Advantage of Being a Eukaryote 146 The Rise of the Eukaryotes 147 The Murmuring of Leaves 149 CHAPTER 7: The Rise of the Metazoan Tribes The New Phylogeny of the Animal Kingdom 151 Natural And Unnatural Groupings 152 From Colonialism to Socialism 154 Thy Sister, the Mushroom 155 The Tribes of the Animal Kingdom 157 Metamorphoses for a Cellular Orchestra 159 The Testimony of the Cytoplasmic Granules 164 Tradition and the New Look 167 The Columnists 170 A Ribonucleic Hangover? 172 CHAPTER 8: Our Place in Nature The Closest Living Relative 175 The First Family 176 Clash of Philosophies over Noses 186 The Deposition of Blood Globules 190 The First among the First? 194 Appearance is not Everything 197 The Question of Questions: Who is our Sister? 205 And Roaches will Inherit the Earth 210 CHAPTER 9: Of Time and the Tree The Time Scale of Evolution 215 The Tree Rings of Evolution 216 A Rock Concert 219 A Calendar of Earth's History 221 The Clock in the Rock 227 The Clock in the Molecule 230 Shoemaker's Last 236 The Thousand and One Clocks 240 Time is Relative 248 CHAPTER 10: The Narrow Road to the Deep North Hominids and the Origin of Homo sapiens 249 The Records of Weather-Exposed Skeletons 250 A Restless Species 263 Where Numbers Count 268 Numbers into Trees 271 First Trees of a Forest 273 Circus Performance Featuring Eve 276 The Logbook of the Y Chromosome 282 The X-rated Files 286 Opening the A files 289 Motifs From the Appassionata 292 Tales of Baron von Munchausen... 294 ...and the Tale from the Neandertal 301 Outside the Realm of Possibility 308 Groping Our Way in the Clouds 314 CHAPTER 11: Through the Neck of a Bottle The Genesis and the Genetic Nature of Homo sapiens 317 The Oracle of the Holy Bottle 318 Queen Victoria's Fishes ... 323 ... and the Birds of the Tortoise Islands 326 A Just So Story 330 N and Ne 336 The Praise of Diversity 340 Virtual Piranhas 342 The Remarkable Theta 350 Identical or Different, That is the Question 351 A Camel Through the Eye of a Needle? 352 A Major in the Army of Compatibles 355 Couture For a Pool 359 Necks of Different Size 366 Be Fruitful and Multiply 367 CHAPTER 12: Who Are We? Where are We Going? The Present Condition and the Future of Our Species 371 Homo destructus 372 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 374 Apres nous le de'luge? 378 Patriotism, Nationalism, Racism 381 What, if Anything, is a Race? 382 Homo intolerans 391 Toward Universal Mingling 392 Homo futurus 396 The Oracles Are Dumb 398 APPENDIX ONE 402 APPENDIX TWO 408 APPENDIX THREE 415 APPENDIX FOUR 418 APPENDIX FIVE 424 SOURCES AND FURTHER READING 429 ILLUSTRATION AND QUOTATION CREDITS 441 INDEX 445 PREFACE It used to be that books popularizing science were written largely by practicing scientists. Gamow, Jeans, Eddington, Huxley, Haldane ... these are some of the illustrious names that immediately spring to mind as authors of memorable opuses, some of which have still not lost their appeal more than half a century after they were penned. The primary aim of these books was to inform and enlighten the reader and in the process, to convey the excitement of discovery. Many scientists today will admit that their interest in science is the direct result of an earlier encounter with one of these books, or with the work of less well known authors. The books were written for intelligent readers who were willing to follow the authors through their arguments, even if it did require a certain effort. For the authors did not step down to the level of the lay reader, they wanted to lift the latter to their own heights. They did not strive to entertain the readers at all costs, they wanted them to comprehend and to wonder. All this has changed. Popularization of science is now a full-time occupation practiced by a special guild of authors - the science writers - who more often than not are journalists with little or no expertise in the areas they choose to cover. As journalists, these writers have brought sensationalism, superficiality, and ephemerality into popularization of science. Not education, but entertainment of the reader is their primary goal. As a result, more is learned about the character, habits, or social life of practicing scientists than about their discoveries. You are treated to lengthy descriptions of pitching a tent in an Ethiopian desert, of chats with an anthropologist who startles the guests in a Parisian cafe by whisking a Neandertal skull out of his briefcase, or to the latest gossip about intrigues among the prima donnas of science. Not infrequently, these dilettantes try to force their own views or even hypotheses on their readers, views that a layperson cannot evaluate, but that an expert would have no difficulty demolishing. This book is written in the spirit, if not with the skills, of an old and now largely abandoned tradition. It strives to provide a picture of human evolution for those who want to be informed rather than be entertained. It does not assume that the readers are so simpleminded that their interest has continually to be whetted by amusing anecdotes. On the contrary, it expects the reader to have a good measure of intelligence and sufficient interest in the topic to continue reading even when it comes to some of the more technical parts. There are many popular books on the origin of the human species, but the majority are focused on the testimony provided by old bones, while molecular evidence is merely skimmed over. With the present book it is just the reverse: although the archeological and paleontological evidence is summarized, its marrow is the information provided by molecules, first and foremost nucleic acids. The molecular aspect of human evolution may regularly be covered by the media but it is often presented in a grossly distorted way revealing a principal misunderstanding of the underlying concepts. Distorted descriptions of human molecular evolution have even found their way into textbooks. In our text, great emphasis is therefore placed on the description and critical evaluation of methods and concepts, as well as on the hopefully unbiased evaluation of results. It will certainly be heavy going in places, for some of the methods and concepts are based on mathematical and statistical arguments, and we do not spare the reader if the math is essential for grasping the principles involved. Although math has always been a scarecrow in the popularization of science, with authors waxing apologetic when compelled to include even minimal mathematical arguments, we feel its notoriety is not characteristic of the subject itself, but of the way it is explained. Mathematics is not difficult, only mathematicians are: they often seem unaware of what a lay reader needs to be told to follow their arguments. For this reason, although one of us has had solid mathematical training, the mathematical sections have been written by the one who does not. To avoid disrupting the flow of the narrative unduly, however, we have relegated much of the mathematical background information to the appendices. It is our hope that the reader who does require a math refresher will not ignore this part of the book simply because it is dense with algebraic symbolism. In particular, all students among the readership are strongly urged to refer to this part, for it might be the only place in the literature available on molecular evolution in which they will find, for example, a comprehensive derivation of the widely-used Jukes-Cantor formula. Writing this book has taken much longer than originally anticipated. Indeed, the fact that it has been successfully completed has to be credited to several persons. First and foremost we must name our editorial assistants Ms. Jane Kraushaar and Ms. Lynne Yakes. The former took charge of all formal aspects in preparing a word-processor version of the manuscript, including all the figures. Without her efficiency, dependability, and conscientiousness we would probably have abandoned the project in its early phase. The latter devoted many hours of her free time to polishing and otherwise improving the manuscript. As always, her assistance has been indispensable and as always, it has been a pleasure to work with her. Our colleagues, Drs. Sang-Hee Lee, Werner E. Mayer, Colm O'hUigin, Akie Sato, Yoko Satta, Naoko Takezaki, and Herbert Tichy have helped in many ways by assembling and interpreting material for this book. Whenever help was urgently needed, they could always be relied upon. Finally, representing Springer Verlag, Dr. Rolf Lange's interest in the project has been a continuous source of encouragement during the long months of writing. To all these persons we are greatly indebted. Tubingen and Hayama November 2001 JAN KLEIN NAOYUKI TAKAHATA WHERE TO ORDER: Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. 333 Meadowlands Parkway Secaucus, NJ 07094 Phone: 1-800-777-4643 Fax: (201) 348-4505 Website: www.springer-ny.com Email: service@springer-ny.com ISBN: 3540425640 (hardcover) $49.95 USD Posted Date: 7/1/2003
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