Lamarck'S Signature: How Retrogenes are Changing Darwin's Natural

`It will represent, indeed, one of the landmarks in the history of biology. I have no idea what the outcome will be but I hope Steele is right.' SIR PETER MEDAWAR (1980) `If the work of Ted Steele and his colleagues is correct, then the immune system is violating one of the central tenets of modern Darwinian evolutionary theory ' NEW SCIENTIST (1994) `It has been a dogged effort punctuated by bruising encounters with the British scientific establishment between the brickbats and bouts of controversy, 20 years of single-minded research seems finally to have paid off for Ted Steele.' GRAEME LEECH, THE AUSTRALIAN (1998) This is an explosively controversial book that challenges the accepted theory on the genetic mechanism of evolution. The traditional neo-Darwinian view assumes we are at the mercy of our genes which we inherit largely unchanged from our parents except for random mutations which accumulate and lead to change over evolutionary time. This book shows that for one adaptive body system there is strong molecular genetic evidence that aspects of acquired immunities developed by parents in their own lifetime can be passed on to their offspring. It gives new life and scientific credibility to the Lamarckian heresy--the notion of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.