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New Scientist: Instant Expert
How Evolution Explains Everything About Life: From Darwin’s brilliant idea to today’s epic theory
How did we get here? All cultures have a creation story, but a little over 150 years ago Charles Darwin introduced a revolutionary new one. We, and all living things, exist because of the action of evolution on the first simple life form and its descendants. We now know that it has taken 3.8 billions of years of work by the forces of evolution to turn what was once a lump of barren rock into the rich diversity of into plants, animals and microbes that surround us. In the process, evolution has created all manner of useful adaptions, from biological computers (brains) to a system to capture energy from the sun (photosynthesis).
But how does evolution actually work? In Evolution, leading biologists and New Scientist take you on a journey of a lifetime, exploring the question of whether life is inevitable or a one-off fluke, and how it got kick-started. Does evolution have a purpose or direction? Are selfish genes really the driving force of evolution? And is evolution itself evolving?
288 pages, Paperback
Published November 14, 2017
72 people are currently reading
266 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
March 11, 2023
super easy and simple to read. got a small jumpscare seeing my old lecturer feature in it 🙁
April 22, 2022
Alright
May 26, 2023
A COLLECTION OF ARTICLES TO BRING US ‘UP-TO-DATE’ ON EVOLUTION
The ‘Contributors’ page of this 2017 book explains, “This book is based on articles previously published in ‘New Scientist’ together with specially commissioned content. It is authored by a range of experts.” The Introduction adds, “This guide explores the inner workings of evolution, and addresses the tricky questions it raises. Was life inevitable or a one-off fluke, and how did it get kick-started? Does it have a purpose or direction? The book also highlights life’s greatest inventions (and mistakes) and investigates the thorny issue of how altruistic traits evolve, still a live issue more than 150 years after Darwin first discussed it… [This book] brings you up-to-date with the past, present and future of the science of evolution, and its intriguing implications.”
The book says of the famed Huxley/Wilberforce debate, “The hall was packed… Wilberforce rose to great applause and proceeded to argue that humans must have been specially created, rather than evolving from non-human animals… At the end of his argument… he asked the famous question: would Huxley prefer a monkey for his grandfather or grandmother? Huxley’s response was double-edged… he referred to Wilberforce as an ‘unscientific authority’ but paid homage to the bishop’s intellect. ‘If I had to choose between being descended from an ape or from a man who would use his great powers of rhetoric to crush an argument, I should prefer the former,’ he declared… Huxley then went on to defend Darwin’s ideas ‘in an argumentative speech which was loudly applauded.’ In his own version of events… Huxley painted himself in an even better light… Others were not quite so impressed by Huxley’s performance… Wilberforce didn’t remember it that way. ‘I think I thoroughly beat him,’ he wrote… a historian … suggests that the popular view of Huxley’s victory may have arisen only because Wilberforce was not well-liked… The story of Huxley’s victory only really took hold 20 years later---when it suited the cultural climate… But by turning this local discussion into a universal myth, men and women in the late nineteenth century contributed to the process of separating science from Christian belief.” (Pg. 14-16)
It explains, “Most people assume that giraffes’ long necks evolved to help them feed. If you have a long neck, runs the argument, you can eat leaves on trees that your rivals can’t reach. But … The evidence supporting the high-feeding theory is ambiguous. Giraffes in South Africa do spend a lot of time browsing for food high in trees, but research from Kenya showed that they don’t seem to bother… A competing theory is that the long necks are the result of sexual selection… they evolved in males as a way of competing for females.” (Pg. 31)
It states, “The founders of the modern synthesis wanted to present Darwinism as able to accommodate the belief that evolution has a built-in tendency to produce higher levels of organization. Dobzhansky … came from a Russian Orthodox background and wrote ‘Mankind Evolving’ to promote the idea that evolution had an ultimate purpose. [Julian] Huxley also wrote … to promote the idea of evolutionary progress…The quasi-religious portrayal would change in later decades, most notably with … Richard Dawkins’ … emergence as a leading proponent of the argument that nature has no ultimate purpose…” (Pg. 46-47)
It acknowledges, “when Darwin published ‘On the Origin of Species,’ he dedicated an entire chapter to the problem of missing … transitional forms that bridged the evolutionary gaps between closely related species… the fossil record should be full of them. Where were they? At the time it was a real problem. Then came the spectacular discovery … of Archaeopteryx, with the wings and feathers of a bird and the teeth and tail of a dinosaur. Since then we have discovered … fish that could crawl, lizards with mammal-like jaws, whales with legs, giraffes with short necks and many others. But there’s one we are unlikely ever to find: the link between the earliest proto-life and life as we know it… the last universal common ancestor…” (Pg. 69)
It suggests, “Eyes appeared in an evolutionary blink … The invention of the eye … made it possible for animals to become active hunters… The first eyes… were compound… and probably evolved from light-sensitive pits… allowing early animals to detect light and sense what direction it was coming from… But they are not eyes. A true eye needs … a lens that can focus light to form an image… Biologists believe that eyes could have evolved independently on many occasions, though genetic evidence suggests one ancestor for all eyes.” (Pg. 98-99)
It admits, “biologists are still arguing over how [sex] evolved… because, on the face of it, sex looks like a losing strategy. Evolution ought to favor asexual reproduction … First, in the battle for resources, asexual species should be able to outperform sexual ones… And secondly… an organism that uses sexual reproduction only gets 50 percent of its genes into the next generation. Asexuals are guaranteed to pass on 100 percent… The enduring success of sex is usually put down to the fact that it … introduce[es] variations and allowing harmful mutations to be purged… However useful sex may be now that we’ve got it, that doesn’t tell us anything about how it got started. It could have been something as mundane as DNA repair…” (Pg. 106-107)
It outlines ‘Evolution’s mistakes… Evolution can fall well short of perfection too. Here are some examples; *The female pelvis… walking upright has made giving birth more dangerous for women than for any other species… *Mutant glo gene… humans cannot make vitamin C… rendering us vulnerable to scurvy unless we get plenty in our diet… *Windpipe: Positioned next to the gullet, it means choking is not uncommon. *Vulnerable brain cells: A few minutes of oxygen deprivation causes permanent brain damage in humans, yet an epaulette shark can survive for over an hour without oxygen. *Odontoid process: The extension of the last neck vertebra can easily fracture and damage the brainstem. *Feet: After coming down from the trees, we ended up walking on the ‘wrists’ of our lower limbs, leading to all sorts of structural weaknesses…” (Pg. 113-114)
It points out, “those who deny evolution … believe that many of nature’s inventions, such as the eye or the bacterial flagellum, are simply too complex to have evolved. What use is half a wing, they ask? Very useful, it turns out. The wings of insects might have evolved from flapping gills that were originally used for rowing on the surface of water. This is an example of exaptation---structures … that evolved for one purpose but take on a wholly new one, while remaining useful at every intermediate stage…” (Pg. 115-116)
It suggests, “[Some] features … such as the wings of ostriches, are adaptations no longer needed for their original purpose These vestigial traits can persist because they make no difference to an individual’s chances of survival, or they have taken on another function… A prime example in humans is the appendix. While claims abound that it has this or that function, the evidence is clear: you are more likely to survive without an appendix than with one. Another example is wisdom teeth. Having a smaller, weaker jaw allowed or ancestors to grow larger brains… Yet many of us still grow teeth for which there is no room, and the consequences can be fatal.” (Pg. 122)
Against the objection that “Evolution can’t be disproved,’ it notes, “If the first fossil amphibians were older than the first fossil fish… it would show that amphibians could not have evolved from fish… The discovery of a mammal-bird hybrid, such as a feathered rabbit, could also disprove evolution… A young Earth would also be a problem for evolution, since evolution by natural selection requires vast stretches of time.” (Pg. 123)
It notes, “natural selection can lead to ever greater simplicity, and complexity may initially arise when selection is weak or absent. Use it or lose it. That … explains why cave fish are eyeless … There are entire groups of apparently primitive creatures that are turning out to be the descendants of more complex organisms. For instance, the ancestor of brainless starfish and sea urchins had a brain; why their descendants dispensed with a brain is still unclear. Despite this, there is no doubt that evolution has produced ever more complex life forms over the past 4 billion years.” (Pg. 124-125)
Returning to the ‘what use is half a wing?’ objection, it argues, “early insects could have used these gills for getting oxygen and propulsion rowing simultaneously… Over time, flapping would have replaced rowing as the main means of propulsion… What about the wings of birds? In some dinosaurs, the scales covering their bodies evolved into hair-like feathers, most likely to insulate warm-blooded bodies… Those dinosaurs with feathers … might then have started … gliding between trees or running faster along the ground. Fossils show a gradual transition from downy, hair-like feathers into the rigid flight feathers that form the key part of birds’ wings. Another idea … is that flapping forelimbs helped the ancestors of birds to run up steep slopes or climb trees… it is now clear that half a wing can have all sorts of uses…” (Pg. 131-133)
The book concludes, “there are still gaps remaining in evolutionary theory. One of the biggest is the origin of life itself... we still don’t know how the first life form arose from a soup of primordial chemicals. And what drove later explosions of evolutionary creativity? In the next 150 years we can expect many of these gaps to be filled and … even more detailed answers to emerge for the eternal questions of how life began, and how we came to exist.” (Pg. 246)
This book will be of great interest to those studying evolutionary theory.
The ‘Contributors’ page of this 2017 book explains, “This book is based on articles previously published in ‘New Scientist’ together with specially commissioned content. It is authored by a range of experts.” The Introduction adds, “This guide explores the inner workings of evolution, and addresses the tricky questions it raises. Was life inevitable or a one-off fluke, and how did it get kick-started? Does it have a purpose or direction? The book also highlights life’s greatest inventions (and mistakes) and investigates the thorny issue of how altruistic traits evolve, still a live issue more than 150 years after Darwin first discussed it… [This book] brings you up-to-date with the past, present and future of the science of evolution, and its intriguing implications.”
The book says of the famed Huxley/Wilberforce debate, “The hall was packed… Wilberforce rose to great applause and proceeded to argue that humans must have been specially created, rather than evolving from non-human animals… At the end of his argument… he asked the famous question: would Huxley prefer a monkey for his grandfather or grandmother? Huxley’s response was double-edged… he referred to Wilberforce as an ‘unscientific authority’ but paid homage to the bishop’s intellect. ‘If I had to choose between being descended from an ape or from a man who would use his great powers of rhetoric to crush an argument, I should prefer the former,’ he declared… Huxley then went on to defend Darwin’s ideas ‘in an argumentative speech which was loudly applauded.’ In his own version of events… Huxley painted himself in an even better light… Others were not quite so impressed by Huxley’s performance… Wilberforce didn’t remember it that way. ‘I think I thoroughly beat him,’ he wrote… a historian … suggests that the popular view of Huxley’s victory may have arisen only because Wilberforce was not well-liked… The story of Huxley’s victory only really took hold 20 years later---when it suited the cultural climate… But by turning this local discussion into a universal myth, men and women in the late nineteenth century contributed to the process of separating science from Christian belief.” (Pg. 14-16)
It explains, “Most people assume that giraffes’ long necks evolved to help them feed. If you have a long neck, runs the argument, you can eat leaves on trees that your rivals can’t reach. But … The evidence supporting the high-feeding theory is ambiguous. Giraffes in South Africa do spend a lot of time browsing for food high in trees, but research from Kenya showed that they don’t seem to bother… A competing theory is that the long necks are the result of sexual selection… they evolved in males as a way of competing for females.” (Pg. 31)
It states, “The founders of the modern synthesis wanted to present Darwinism as able to accommodate the belief that evolution has a built-in tendency to produce higher levels of organization. Dobzhansky … came from a Russian Orthodox background and wrote ‘Mankind Evolving’ to promote the idea that evolution had an ultimate purpose. [Julian] Huxley also wrote … to promote the idea of evolutionary progress…The quasi-religious portrayal would change in later decades, most notably with … Richard Dawkins’ … emergence as a leading proponent of the argument that nature has no ultimate purpose…” (Pg. 46-47)
It acknowledges, “when Darwin published ‘On the Origin of Species,’ he dedicated an entire chapter to the problem of missing … transitional forms that bridged the evolutionary gaps between closely related species… the fossil record should be full of them. Where were they? At the time it was a real problem. Then came the spectacular discovery … of Archaeopteryx, with the wings and feathers of a bird and the teeth and tail of a dinosaur. Since then we have discovered … fish that could crawl, lizards with mammal-like jaws, whales with legs, giraffes with short necks and many others. But there’s one we are unlikely ever to find: the link between the earliest proto-life and life as we know it… the last universal common ancestor…” (Pg. 69)
It suggests, “Eyes appeared in an evolutionary blink … The invention of the eye … made it possible for animals to become active hunters… The first eyes… were compound… and probably evolved from light-sensitive pits… allowing early animals to detect light and sense what direction it was coming from… But they are not eyes. A true eye needs … a lens that can focus light to form an image… Biologists believe that eyes could have evolved independently on many occasions, though genetic evidence suggests one ancestor for all eyes.” (Pg. 98-99)
It admits, “biologists are still arguing over how [sex] evolved… because, on the face of it, sex looks like a losing strategy. Evolution ought to favor asexual reproduction … First, in the battle for resources, asexual species should be able to outperform sexual ones… And secondly… an organism that uses sexual reproduction only gets 50 percent of its genes into the next generation. Asexuals are guaranteed to pass on 100 percent… The enduring success of sex is usually put down to the fact that it … introduce[es] variations and allowing harmful mutations to be purged… However useful sex may be now that we’ve got it, that doesn’t tell us anything about how it got started. It could have been something as mundane as DNA repair…” (Pg. 106-107)
It outlines ‘Evolution’s mistakes… Evolution can fall well short of perfection too. Here are some examples; *The female pelvis… walking upright has made giving birth more dangerous for women than for any other species… *Mutant glo gene… humans cannot make vitamin C… rendering us vulnerable to scurvy unless we get plenty in our diet… *Windpipe: Positioned next to the gullet, it means choking is not uncommon. *Vulnerable brain cells: A few minutes of oxygen deprivation causes permanent brain damage in humans, yet an epaulette shark can survive for over an hour without oxygen. *Odontoid process: The extension of the last neck vertebra can easily fracture and damage the brainstem. *Feet: After coming down from the trees, we ended up walking on the ‘wrists’ of our lower limbs, leading to all sorts of structural weaknesses…” (Pg. 113-114)
It points out, “those who deny evolution … believe that many of nature’s inventions, such as the eye or the bacterial flagellum, are simply too complex to have evolved. What use is half a wing, they ask? Very useful, it turns out. The wings of insects might have evolved from flapping gills that were originally used for rowing on the surface of water. This is an example of exaptation---structures … that evolved for one purpose but take on a wholly new one, while remaining useful at every intermediate stage…” (Pg. 115-116)
It suggests, “[Some] features … such as the wings of ostriches, are adaptations no longer needed for their original purpose These vestigial traits can persist because they make no difference to an individual’s chances of survival, or they have taken on another function… A prime example in humans is the appendix. While claims abound that it has this or that function, the evidence is clear: you are more likely to survive without an appendix than with one. Another example is wisdom teeth. Having a smaller, weaker jaw allowed or ancestors to grow larger brains… Yet many of us still grow teeth for which there is no room, and the consequences can be fatal.” (Pg. 122)
Against the objection that “Evolution can’t be disproved,’ it notes, “If the first fossil amphibians were older than the first fossil fish… it would show that amphibians could not have evolved from fish… The discovery of a mammal-bird hybrid, such as a feathered rabbit, could also disprove evolution… A young Earth would also be a problem for evolution, since evolution by natural selection requires vast stretches of time.” (Pg. 123)
It notes, “natural selection can lead to ever greater simplicity, and complexity may initially arise when selection is weak or absent. Use it or lose it. That … explains why cave fish are eyeless … There are entire groups of apparently primitive creatures that are turning out to be the descendants of more complex organisms. For instance, the ancestor of brainless starfish and sea urchins had a brain; why their descendants dispensed with a brain is still unclear. Despite this, there is no doubt that evolution has produced ever more complex life forms over the past 4 billion years.” (Pg. 124-125)
Returning to the ‘what use is half a wing?’ objection, it argues, “early insects could have used these gills for getting oxygen and propulsion rowing simultaneously… Over time, flapping would have replaced rowing as the main means of propulsion… What about the wings of birds? In some dinosaurs, the scales covering their bodies evolved into hair-like feathers, most likely to insulate warm-blooded bodies… Those dinosaurs with feathers … might then have started … gliding between trees or running faster along the ground. Fossils show a gradual transition from downy, hair-like feathers into the rigid flight feathers that form the key part of birds’ wings. Another idea … is that flapping forelimbs helped the ancestors of birds to run up steep slopes or climb trees… it is now clear that half a wing can have all sorts of uses…” (Pg. 131-133)
The book concludes, “there are still gaps remaining in evolutionary theory. One of the biggest is the origin of life itself... we still don’t know how the first life form arose from a soup of primordial chemicals. And what drove later explosions of evolutionary creativity? In the next 150 years we can expect many of these gaps to be filled and … even more detailed answers to emerge for the eternal questions of how life began, and how we came to exist.” (Pg. 246)
This book will be of great interest to those studying evolutionary theory.
July 13, 2022
Very good overview. discuss original theory, modern synthesis after discovery of genetics and criticism of it. doesn't shy from controversies and give up to date information regarding modern theories and hypothesis.
I am not expert or very knowledgeable about evolution and I read this book and will read others to fill gaps in my knowledge regarding this very interesting topic.
I feel this book is comprehensive , explains topics very clearly not too detailed but can feel a little bit shallow sometimes but you will need some background or you will feel lost in some parts of the book.
I am not expert or very knowledgeable about evolution and I read this book and will read others to fill gaps in my knowledge regarding this very interesting topic.
I feel this book is comprehensive , explains topics very clearly not too detailed but can feel a little bit shallow sometimes but you will need some background or you will feel lost in some parts of the book.
February 25, 2018
The book is a very accessible for the general public. A great introduction to various aspects of evolution and importantly current debates. The book is very genetics heavy (towards the end, in particular), which I did not find terribly interesting. The same can be said for the debates regarding the discussion of what drives altruism. But this is just a personal preference, not a criticism of the book.
December 27, 2023
If you think evolutions is interesting, def worth reading and quick. I will be reading Darwin's original book because of this.
a few cool things.
1. evolution can happen within generations and also things can be inherited between generations that are no in genes at birth, albeit it's a bit limited.
2. Throughout history, evolution has often happened in spurts, species can remain static for a long time and then shift, it's (probably) all about environment pressures and changes that are big but not too big.
3. Why do we blush when we lie? Why do we get embarrassed? Why is nature beautiful? The answers are probably cultural and genetic, but how on earth do genetics/evolution come in here? Some cool open questions!
a few cool things.
1. evolution can happen within generations and also things can be inherited between generations that are no in genes at birth, albeit it's a bit limited.
2. Throughout history, evolution has often happened in spurts, species can remain static for a long time and then shift, it's (probably) all about environment pressures and changes that are big but not too big.
3. Why do we blush when we lie? Why do we get embarrassed? Why is nature beautiful? The answers are probably cultural and genetic, but how on earth do genetics/evolution come in here? Some cool open questions!
June 13, 2021
Kitap evrim konusunda NewScientist dergisinde yazılmış makalelerin bir derlemesi. Evrimi Darwin ve Wallace’dan başlayarak 20. Yüzyılda genetik bilimindeki gelişmeleri de dahil ederek kapsamlı bir şekilde anlatıyor. Günümüzde biyologlar arasındaki fikir ayrılıkları ve tartışmalardan da bahsediyor. Bazı bölümler oldukça detaylı ve zorlayıcı. Kitabın sonundaki sözlük ve elli fikir isimli bölüm meraklı, araştırmacı kişiler için son derece faydalı. Evrimsel biyoloji’ye başlangıç yapmak ya da biraz bilgi sahibi olup ta bilgilerini kapsamlı bir şekilde derleyip toparlamak isteyenler için çok yararlı olabilecek bir kitap.
June 7, 2021
A very good overview and summary of how evolution works. The authors write in plain language, with interesting examples but don't shy away from discussing competing theories and unknowns. I read Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene before this and felt that it helped me approach this book with a better understanding of some of the background "mechanics" of evolution. However this book offers a much more broader examination of evolution than Dawkins and goes on to explain epigenetics and include roles for society and individual behaviours in evolutionary outcomes.
September 18, 2019
Far too quirky. The book often poses questions and answers them too briefly, and then obscurely, too. It tells its stories using multiple genres--quotations, fake interviews, summaries, real interviews. Sometimes it delves deeply and satisfyingly into a topic, and then it suddenly skims a whole bunch more. No narrative thread here, no sustained argument or story. So ultimately, very disappointing.
October 2, 2022
A little repetitive. Enjoyed the first half a lot more than latter chapters. Some balance to Dawkins but his theories probably get more airtime than they should. Could have done with more from scientists outside the English speaking world.
Evolution is such an exiting topic this book came across a little dull.
Evolution is such an exiting topic this book came across a little dull.
April 11, 2025
A selection of essays from New Scientist on the history and current research into evolution. This covers Darwin and Wallace discoveries and theories all the way up to current and conflicting views on the mechanism of evolution.
A good historical view and an overview of current thinking on the issue of evolution.
A good historical view and an overview of current thinking on the issue of evolution.
October 30, 2022
A very educational experience. I have to admit that I frequently re-read passages to get a full understanding of the knowledge. I very much enjoyed reading the book and have now got a far better understanding of evolution.
May 12, 2021
It is a nice book to grab a general view on Evolution.
The ideas, theories, and experiments are explained quite clearly.
The ideas, theories, and experiments are explained quite clearly.
January 28, 2022
great read
Excellent book the clarifies and further explains the subtleties of evolution. This is a great addition to my collection of evolution knowledge.
Excellent book the clarifies and further explains the subtleties of evolution. This is a great addition to my collection of evolution knowledge.
May 27, 2022
A good review of evolution
January 23, 2023
Truly fantastic, concise and easy to digest
February 2, 2023
Very eye opening sometimes confronting but entertaining
April 28, 2023
The selfish gene but good
September 21, 2023
love the new facts about the theory's current development i just learned
January 23, 2024
That was quite a delightful experience
3.5 stars
3.5 stars
November 27, 2024
Engaging, easy to understand, and perfect for anyone curious about evolution, it provides clear explanations and fascinating insights that appeal to readers of all kinds.
February 28, 2025
Great read
April 20, 2025
easy to read. not a fan of the pretend interviews
November 3, 2025
An interesting educational book about evolution. However, although I have a science background, I found some parts difficult to understand. It was not an easy read.
May 15, 2018
Увы, книга оказалась адаптированным сборником статей.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews