Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo 
by Sean B. Carroll. 

This note is to suggest a book worth picking up. Our recent students are familiar with microbiologist Bruce Lipton's work which we use to flesh out some of the "bio" aspects of the biopsychosocial systems theory. We just went through _Endless Forms Most Beautiful_ by Sean Carroll, Norton, 2005; the subtitle is "The New Science of Evo Devo." Evo Devo is evolutionary developmental biology, yet another way of thinking which is beginning to find points of connection, overlap, and integration of approaches based in the field and the lab - not a new phenomenon, but one which now gets positive reviews. This very well-crafted popularization explores many concepts summarized in Lipton about how genes and the switches which control them - the "tool kit" of life - form varied living systems. It complements the Ev Psych work which Bill and others follow well, and then extends into systems and the foundations of evolutionary thinking.

Most importantly, some striking parallels exist between what Graves would have called "releaser conditions" for his levels and these genetic switches. Just as there are relatively few genes (which are remarkably consistent building blocks across life forms ranging from the few in /E. coli /and fruit flies to the many in humans), there are relatively few vMemes (levels, stages, biopsychosocial "tools," whatever) which appear to have remarkable variability in expression as they are given unique instructions. The "switching function" of living systems - the layer of instructions that cascades into forms - is quite intriguing and I'll be interested to hear what others think about this book, and how it might correspond to Wolfram's simple rules which lead to great variety from simple starts. While it's best to avoid finding simplicity which is not there, the correspondence between Dr. Carroll's observations and the Gravesian point of view are noteworthy.

For those who recognize the differences between the Spiral Dynamics version of things and the Gravesian theory and lean in the SD direction, this book offers some metaphorical support to the idea of vMEME as distinct "energy cores" or "lumps" with minds of their own just waiting for activation. At the same time, it reinforces the Gravesian notion that the capacity for all the base systems (and more) can lie within the normal mind/brain complex just awaiting the necessary instructions (release) from existential problems and/or shifts in internal neurochemistry to switch on or off. Either way, behavior - value systems - becomes like protein that forms an organism. Carroll points out that "dark matter" in the universe and the "unused" portions of the gene might well play far bigger roles in how living systems work than has been imagined thus far. Add to that "uncommitted neurobiological equipment" and those overlapping waves in Graves's thinking gain weight as we seek to understand the instructions that shape human nature within the organism.