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Summary: The Science And History Of Evolution
Review: This is the companion volume to the seven part PBS series about evolution. It presents an excellent overview of the rise of evolutionary thought, and how evolution was at first attacked by early conservative scientists in Darwins' day, up to our own time when evolution is accepted by mainstream science, moving beyond a mere theory. Carl Zimmer along the way explains how evolution came to be and the mechanisms it uses, and he gives us many examples. Topics include the dawn of life, the age of microbes, mutation, genetics, disease, the evolution of sex, coevolution, extinctions, the Cambrian explosion of species, geology, fossils, evolution in action today, our own primate evolution, and more. As a scientist myself I am already familiar with the tenants of evolution, still I found this volume fascinating with it's many examples and stories. The life of Charles Darwin is covered in detail, his voyage in the Beagle is sketched, and his personal life as well, as he struggled with his ideas of evolution in an oftentimes hostile social climate. The final chapter of this book illuminates the battle the creationists today are waging against the 'fact' of evolution. As Zimmer points out their latest effort centers around an idea called Intelligent Design. The claim here is that there is an irreducible complexity to some of the molecular mechanisms of life. Carl Zimmer examines this idea over several pages and finds nothing of substance. The creationists will do nearly anything to discredit evolution, but as Zimmer points out several times, science proceeds by someone first forming a hypothesis and this hypothesis has to stand up against evidence, for and against, surviving or not on the basis of this evidence and always being subject to peer review. The theory of evolution has survived this for over 150 years in great shape, and as Zimmer says here it is accepted as fact by the vast majority of scientists, the evidence is indisputable. Carl Sagan once said that we are made of "Star stuff", and Carl Zimmer here documents, with passion, how we have arisen from simple atoms and molecules over billions of years, a beautiful story indeed.
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Summary: Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea
Review: Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea written by Carl Zimmer is one of the best books that presents a rich and up-to-date view of evolution that explores the far-reaching implications of Darwin's theory and emphasizes the power, significance and relavance of evolution to our lives today. Reading this book leaves no doubt that Darwin was right... evolution is fact, whether the creationists want to believe it or not. "Evolution" tells in riveting detail the story of a remarkable scientific journey, from the emergence to the triumph of an idea. This book is an easy read filled with a rich narrative, award-winning science writting, illustrated with more than 150 color illustrations making this book a dazzling companion to the PBS series of the same name. "Evolution" is divided into four parts covering a wide scope, but bringing a clear focus to the reader as to the truth about evolution. Starting out in part one: Slow Victory: Darwin and the Rise of Darwinism. From Dawin's trip on the Beagle, to the writing of "The Origin of Species," to putting date to our History of Life, and a very clear "Witnessing Change: Genes, Natural Selection and Evolution in Action. Each of the sub-sections is well written and cogent, bring a foundation to the book bringing to reader upto speed. Part Two: Creation and Destruction, where we read about "Rooting the Tree of Life;" From Life's Dawn to the Age of Microbes; next "The Accidental Tool Kit:" Chance and Constraints in Animal Evolution; to "Extinction:" How Life Ends and Begins Again. Here the reader sees life's will to survive. It is at work on all species everywhere on the planet, and it has been at work ever since life first emerged. Part Three: "Evolution's Dance, featuring "Coevolution;" Weaving the Web of Life; "Doctor Darwin;" Disease in the Age of Evolutionary Medicine; to "Passion's Logic:" The evolution of Sex. This section brngs to light reasoning to save endangered species from extinction because we can find among them lessons about how evolution works. As man evolves, so does his enviornment, making all life part of the whole picture of survival. Part Four: "Humanity's Place in Evolution and Evolution's Place in Humanity" where "The Gossiping Ape:" The Social Roots of Human Evolution; next, "Modern Life, 50,000B.C.: The Dawn of Us; to "What about God?" This whole section should ruffle the skirts of the creationists, as I found this section to be the most interesting. This section places man in the mix of evolution, just as everything else in nature, is a obvious survivor of evolution to this point in time. Ever since the publication of "Origin of Species," people have been pondering the significance of evolution for the meaning of their lives, and of life in general. Are we just a biological accident or a cosmic imperative? Well, if this question is left to the facts alone, then man is part and parcel of Earth's evolutionary process. But, there are those who contemplate, where is God's place if everything does have a natural cause? Might I suggest that, maybe "God" is an evolution in our mind's thought as a succor to portray evolving to loftier heights.
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Summary: Everyone should read this book!
Review: I absolutely loved this book! As someone working in molecular biology I often get these types of books from friends on birthdays and special occasions. Not all of them are good, and many of the ones that seem fine at first, in terms of content, are boring to read. With Evolution, I was entranced from the first page. Even though many of the facts of this book were known to me before, I have never seen them put together in such a logical, and pedagogical, fashion. The book also strikes the perfect balance between explaining difficult concepts in a way that people can understand, and treating the reader as an intelligent person. I think everyone should read this book. People may think that they know what evolution is all about, but very few actually fully understand the theory and its implications. Highly recommended!
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Summary: A Splendid Companion to the PBS series
Review: Carl Zimmer, one of our finest science writers, has written an elegant companion to the PBS NOVA miniseries which stands on its own as an excellent introduction to evolution, covering topics which should be of interest to all, ranging from the evolution of sex to fighting disease, and of course, the search for humanity's origins as the only extant member of a once-flourishing tribe of hominid species related to the great apes. Each of Zimmer's chapters corresponds with the NOVA episode related to it. He gives us a mesmerizing, compelling portait of Charles Darwin and his intellectual struggles with his understanding of biology, geology and faith, as he recognized that his detailed observations of biotic diversity could only be accounted for by a theory of evolution via natural selection. Zimmer gives a riveting account on the history of life, highligting such notable episodes as the evolution of multicellular organisms, the Cambrian explosion, the invasion of the land by plants, insects and tetrapods, the Permo-Triasic and Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary mass extinctions, to name but a few.
He also notes the significance of chance and constraint in the evolution of animal life, pointing out the significance of tiny changes in certain genes in creating vast differences in the structures of animal skeletons and organs. He emphasizes the importance of co-evolution as a constant struggle between predators and prey. And he clearly shows the importance of natural selection in understanding the spread and control of such virulent diseases as tuberculosis. Zimmer's account of the role of God - if any - with respect to evolution and the widespread appeal of so-called creation science, most notably, "Intelligent Design", is replete with excellent arguments and examples demonstrating why Intelligent Design and other forms of creation science are not scientific. This well written, highly engrossing, popular account of evolution deserves to be read by all.
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Summary: Things everyone should know!
Review: What's the one thing that creationists can't stand? FACTS!
And this book is full of them.
A hundred years ago, this book would have been burned. It provides a clear understanding of how natural selection works and gives hundreds of examples. There are many examples of natural selection as it has occurred and how it continues today. It even explains the evolution of evolution and how the church has constantly had to change to keep up with the knowledge we gain.
This book is a must read for everyone! It is a shame that this is not a high-school textbook.
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Summary: Comprehensize, Beautiful, Informative
Review: This is a beautiful book if one were to judge only by literary measure; the structure, style, prose, approach and illustrations are just superb. But when one includes the scientific qualities what emerges is a real gem. When your dinner party conversation is lagging, place this on the coffee table for some provocative discussions. The subject of evolution, it seems, is destined to stir up deep emotions on both sides. And that is a pity because the essense of evolution is that over long periods of time, living entities adapt and change according to the environment and the living conditions. As a corollary, evolution also posits that some of these organisms successfully change (sometimes into something else entirely) while others fail to adjust and become extinct. Evolution is the clearest explanation of why life on Earth is so interconnected, why reptiles, birds, mammals and fish share many of the same genes and why the Earth is dominated by helpless mammals. The approach to the subject was almost gentle, starting with old ideas, looking at how the first stirrings came about and following the debate up to the present. Most of us never stop to think that evolution has probably been more radical at the cellular level than any other platform. The illustrations are both beautiful and enlightening. This book is such an excellent one for raising discussion points that one could only with every child be allowed to take a course for six weeks with this as their only guide. The book makes an effort not only at informing us about the many misunderstood points but dealing with the sticky ones - how new ideas are adding more depth to the theory, the relationship between religion and science, the future of evolution. All in all this is an excellent companion guide to the PBS series.
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Summary: So you know what the scientists are talking about
Review: See, the creationists don't want you to know that what they call evolution is something science doesn't even claim exists. This book tells you what it's really all about -- the most obvious changes in anatomy (for example, fins to legs in amphibians and the other way around in whales) to the most arcane tweaks of biochemistry. It tells who Darwin was and the context of the world he lived in, connects his theories to those of Gregor Mendel, and then goes on to describe the "modern synthesis" that combined observed evolution and the theories that sought to explain it with the nascent science of genetics, and explains everything in such a way as to leave no doubt as to what's going on. The "other side" is given short shrift -- not because of scientific pressure, but simply because by and large the ideas of "intelligent design" and "scientific creationism" are largely irrelevant to biological research and belong more to the realm of politics and metaphysics than science. A scientist might object that the book is a bit light on theory; this is perhaps true, but it's a popular book, written for a lay audience. That's okay. Such a book is necessary in an age where scientific ignorance is not only common but seemingly enforced by societal pressure; best to get good science in any way possible. Highly recommended.
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Summary: A very High Five
Review: This is an excellent introductory book on evolution - a first step to the multi-layered and diverse literature on this pivotal principle of modern sciences. I am not surprised that creationists have chosen to attack the theory of evolution as it holds not just biological science together but all of modern science. To compare this book with pseudoscience from Dembski, Wells, Behe etc is to disservice to evolution. The pseudoscientific babble that goes by the name of creation science/ID has only these flimsy facades of books to show for its work. While Carl Zimmer's book is the first step into the vast corpus of evolution research and scholarship. It is not a fair contest. But then pseudoscientists haven't been ever known for scholarship have they. Dembski proudly claims that his work as well as Behe's haven't been refuted only objected to. That's indeed funny because if the leading lights of ID were to sit thru a beginner's course in evolution they would not even merit an F! Carl Zimmer answers many of the by now shop-worn objections to evolutionary theory - macroevolution; abiogenesis; Cambrian Explosion; Immune resistance; biodiversity; and sexual reproduction. He has also drawn a clear line marking the muddied waters of social darwinism; sociobiology; human evolution - all with a great deal of skill and impeccable research. If anyone has creationist doubts (all of us scientifically minded people always doubt everything) about evolution after reading this book the person must turn away from science for a loong time. Science isn't for them.
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Summary: Clear and easy-to-understand for the non-scientist
Review:
Most non-biologists are aware of the creation v. evolution rift, and yet probably know very little about evolution. Religious folks probably feel like they are betraying their religion on some level, to learn about evolution and many others just accept it as fact because the scientists say it's true. This book lay's out the concept of evolution and it's history in a leisurely, interesting, and colorful manner - perfectly suited to the non-scientist. Not much more needs to be said other than it's a suburb introduction to the idea of evolution for anyone who wants to become informed on the subject.
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Summary: Evolutionary Theory- an ongoing program
Review: I first checked Zimmer's book out of the library and now I need to buy a copy. It is an excellent presentation of the history of evolutionary thought that is easily read and understood by almost anyone. I realize that many creationist will be put off and spend some time pointing out supposed "flaws" in the book and evolutionary theory generally. However, despite their difficulties and the lamentable inability of many Americans to take evolution and the concepts of deep time seriously, the idea has triumphed within the science of biology (and in much of the non-American world.) No amount of attempted suppression or "equal time" demands will change that and such attempts only make the proponents of "intelligent design" look foolish. It is possible that they will win out politically for a while, but so did Lysenko in the former Soviet Union until his ideas about "vernalization," among others, were later shown to be totally false. There was a huge cost to agriculture in the USSR because of Lysenko's ideas and we would face a similar cost in molecular biology, medicine, geology and similar fields if the creationists should "win," based on the weak "evidence" they currently present. If the "intelligent design" proponents want to discount biochemical, geological, anatomical, and even astronomical evidence, or discredit evolution by bringing up already discarded ideas and hoaxes (like Piltdown Man) as straw men, they are free to do so, but such perversity does not validate their argument. This is not to say that evolutionary theory is static or should be free from criticism- far from it! New ideas within the evolutionary framework are being proposed all the time. Gould and Eldredge some years ago brought up the punctuated equilibrium idea, expanding it somewhat on similar ideas of Mayr. More recently Margulis has proposed a symbiotic evolutionary mechanism. There is an ongoing argument over evolutionary psychology (well reviewed by Zimmer in this book!) and more and more discoveries in the areas of molecular biology, behavior, paleontology, geology, ecology and systematics are constantly altering and changing the landscape of evolutionary theory. This is in fact what distinguishes science from pseudo-science like "creationism" or "intelligent design." It is, despite individual scientist's egos and definite human flaws, a self-correcting system. If true empirical evidence for "intelligent design" should appear, eventually the scientific community would (perhaps after some time) accept it. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for creationists, even in their new guise as practitioners of "intelligent design" theory. Science cannot deal with the supernatural explanations of the creationists, which are based on faith, because science has to be dedicated to the material world in order to function. Zimmer demonstrates these problems pretty graphically and I applaud for this magnificent effort! I recommend this book highly to anyone with an open mind.
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