Is there a grand unifying theory that encompasses all life? For example, do genes share anything in common with modern human civilisations? Yes they do, if you believe British plant biologist Enrico Coen's argument that the diverse processes share something fundamental.
In his most recent book, Cells to Civilizations: The Principles of Change that Shape Life [Princeton University Press, 2012; Guardian Bookshop; Amazon UK/kindle UK; Amazon US/kindle US], Coen sets out to decipher the interrelationships between genes, development, the mind and evolution. In this book, shortlisted for the Royal Society's Winton Prize for science books, the author seeks to present a general "unifying theory" that explains the functional and mechanistic interplay between each of these four "biological challenges" with the idea that doing so will deepen our understanding of the biological world.
As Coen writes: genes, development, the mind and evolution "are different manifestations of the same underlying process. This unifying perspective gives us a deeper understanding of what is happening than what we perceive by simply viewing each transition in isolation." (p. 3.)
Coen, who is a fan of the fine arts and art history, builds upon the example set forth by the sixth century Chinese artist, Xie He, who identified six key elements for painting -- vitality, brushwork, natural form, colour, composition and copying. Similarly, Coen identifies seven fundamental principles that he thinks are essential "ingredients" in "life's creative recipe" -- population variation (DNA mutations), persistence (DNA replication), reinforcement (adaptive variations in genes tend to spread throughout a population), competition, cooperation (DNA bases cooperate to generate a protein), combinatorial richness (the infinite DNA and protein combinations available based on four DNA bases and 20 amino acids), and recurrence (the relentless process of natural selection for optimal adaptations).
Having established these seven principles, Coen then outlines his argument for how they lead to transformations within the common mechanistic framework of life's creative recipe:
It is this recipe that lies at the root of how life transforms itself. The evolution of diverse organisms, the development of an egg into an adult, an animal learning of new relationships in its environment, and the attainments of human culture are all different manifestations of life's creative recipe. They all depend on the way a common set of basic ingredients work together. [Coen, 2012, pp. 8-10.]
Coen then singles out two of his seven identified principles -- reinforcement and competition -- for special consideration. (Implying that these two are more important or more fundamental than Coen's other five principles.) Together, these two principles provide the mechanistic basis of the double feedback loop, which combines positive and negative feedback. For example, positive feedback results when a particular gene variant is especially successful at increasing its presence in future generations. But as this adaptive gene variant expands throughout the population, it will eventually encounter environmental or resource limits. This situation creates competition, or negative feedback, between other adaptive variants of the same gene. This then, leads to a precarious balance being established, which shifts in response to changes in the environment. Coen proposes that this double feedback loop is an important process for how life transforms itself, and thus, it is a recurring theme throughout his book.
As he explores the first two biological challenges, Coen breezes through explanations for how his seven principles are woven throughout both genetics (chapters 1-2) and development (chapters 3-5). Although I quickly grew annoyed with his apple trees and bears analogies (a theme that he revisits throughout the entire book), I did enjoy a number of his discussions, such as the developmental mechanisms that give rise to the distinct stripe patterns seen in three zebra species (Pp. 93-97).
For the third biological challenge, the mind (chapters 6-10), Coen settles down to a longer and more detailed discussion of neurobiology, where he explores the senses, learning and memory. His effort shows; this is his longest and most detailed discussion. For those reasons, this is the most thought-provoking part of the book.
But Coen then tries to extend his argument to his incredibly sketchy ideas about the development of human culture (chapters 11-12). Although I am neither an anthropologist nor a historian, I found this to be the most poorly argued and the least convincing part of the entire book. It isn't as though these premises are never explored by other scientists -- all the ideas mentioned in this section are the subject of entire books that are frequently published in the popular literature (just one example that I've read recently is Michael Chwe's wonderful book, Jane Austen, Game Theorist).
Cells to Civilizations includes 16 pages of chapter notes, 8 pages of references, and an index -- all relatively useful for follow-up reading. The illustrations are the book's most attractive feature; each chapter includes several drawings, diagrams, flow charts or data and computer-generated images. I particularly enjoyed the beautiful black-and-white reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's "Bombards" (p. 177) and of course, the black-and-white drawing of a horse from George Stubbs' timeless monograph, Anatomy of the Horse (p. 106). The use of visual art throughout the book is a particularly appealing tool that the author adopted to illustrate his ideas -- in addition to black-and-white reproductions embedded in the text, there is a special full-colour insert of reproductions of masterpieces by such great impressionists as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Paul Cézanne.
I am unconvinced that the author's intention is either to popularise the biological sciences or philosophy, or to make these fields more accessible to most lay readers (nor, even, to many scientists). Instead, it appears that his purpose is to explicate and thus, to test his fuzzy notions about whether there may be a unifying theory underlying how biologically-based changes come about. Even though his ideas are interesting and, at times, stimulating, they are routinely well-camouflaged by convoluted writing that is dry, remote, unnecessarily academic or -- often -- just plain boring. I particularly disliked the author's excessive fondness for superficial analogies to make his points. Although there are brief moments of brilliance, I found this book arduous reading and ultimately, unsatisfying. However, that said, if the reader has the dedication to carefully trudge through the difficult prose, she will discover plenty to think about.
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NOTE: this book is included on the longlist (and the shortlist) for the Royal Society's 2013 Winton Prize for science books.
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Enrico Coen is a plant molecular biologist based at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, United Kingdom. He is the author of The Art of Genes: How Organisms Make Themselves [Amazon UK; Amazon US/kindle US], a fellow of the Royal Society, and a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. His awards include the Linnean Gold Medal and the Royal Society Darwin medal.
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