Extended Heredity

Book excerpt: Bonduriansky and Day challenge the premise that genes alone mediate the transmission of biological information across generations and provide the raw material for natural selection. They explore the latest research showing that what happens during our lifetimes—and even our parents’ and grandparents’ lifetimes—can influence the features of our descendants. Based on this evidence, Bonduriansky and Day develop an extended concept of heredity that upends ideas about how traits can and cannot be transmitted across generations, opening the door to a new understanding of inheritance, evolution, and even human health. --Adapted from publisher description.