A control system, with the central nervous system as its controller, is responsible for maintaining the inexorably eroding structure of metazoans, including us humans. During individual development, that same system performs functions of an epigenetic system of heredity, providing trillions of bits of information necessary for erecting metazoan structure.
The main topics discussed in the book are:
- Hereditary systems as control systems
- The integrated control system and the control of gene expression
- Manipulative expression of genes in the central nervous system
- The epigenetic control of reproduction
- The epigenetic system of heredity
- The epigenetics of evolutionary change