“Cabej (biology, U. of Tirana, Albania) explains the epigenetic principles of evolution (as opposed to the theory of evolution as determined by changes in genes) and reconstructs the developmental mechanisms of evolutionary changes in metazoans, based on empirical evidence. He focuses on the mechanisms of the generation of the evolutionary innovations from the influence of environment on heredity rather than the role of natural selection. He discusses control systems and determination of phenotypic traits in metazoans, neural manipulation of gene expression, epigenetic control of reproduction and early development, neural control of postphylotypic development, and the epigenetic system of inheritance. He follows with description of neural-developmental premises of evolutionary adaptation, including evolution and stress responses and behavioral adaptation to changes in environment, ontogeny, and intragenerational developmental plasticity; epigenetics of circumevolutionary phenomena and the mechanism of evolutionary change, including transgenerational developmental plasticity and the evolution of metazoans and their control system; and the origins of evolutionary novelty, evolution by loss or by reverting to ancestral characters, neural crest-determined evolutionary novelties, evolutionary convergences, species and allopatric speciation, and sympatric speciation. He presents the available evidence for his theory, rather than illustrating an established theory, and includes a comparative presentation of the neo-Darwinian view to his epigenetic explanation. There is no index.” —Reference and Research Book News, October 2012
About the Author
Nelson R. Cabej earned his PhD in biology at the University of Tirana, Albania, and currently serves as a researcher in the Department of Biology at the same university. His scientific career began with research in the fields of epizootiology, immunology and molecular biology at the Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Tirana, Albania. He also previously taught general biology at the University of Tirana and William Paterson College, Wayne, New Jersey, USA. He has published more than 50 scientific articles and 20 books in the fields of evolutionary biology, epigenetics, developmental biology and philosophy of biology, including 4 books with Elsevier: Building The Most Complex Structure On Earth (2013); Epigenetic Principles of Evolution, Second Edition (2018); Epigenetic Mechanisms of the Cambrian Explosion (2019); and The Inductive Brain in Development and Evolution (2021).
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